فهرست مطالب

Journal of new advances in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics
Volume:4 Issue: 2, Summer and Autumn 2022

  • تاریخ انتشار: 1401/11/18
  • تعداد عناوین: 12
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  • Aly Javady * Pages 890-908
    The present paper aimed at investigating the perceptions of EFL teachers at schools and language institutes towards multimodality. The reason for choosing vocabulary as this study’s focus was the way vocabulary is being instructed which usually requires specific strategies. In addition, teaching words for Iranian EFL teachers has always been a daunting and disconcerting task. The researcher through a qualitative design tried to find out the attitudes of EFL teachers regarding the use of multimodal training. A 25 item, Likert scale questionnaire designed by the researcher was used to collect data from 93 male and female EFL teachers at different schools and language institutes in Iran. The researcher using statistical analyses including frequency and means analyzed the data. The results highlighted that Iranian teachers both in institutes and school chose multimodal instruction over traditional way of teaching. In addition, most teachers preferred to use multimodal input when teaching vocabulary elements. Teachers showed more resistance to using traditional methods of teaching vocabulary subjects. School teachers, on the other hand, did not have the same ability to prepare multimodal teaching materials as their corresponding institute teachers, who were more equipped with technical tools. Finally, it should be mentioned that the multimodal vocabulary teaching tools seems more suitable for EFL classes. This study has great implications for English teachers across different settings in general and for EFL pedagogy developers in particular, to lean more on multimodal tools in the course of vocabulary instruction since multimodal learning offers new ways of teaching English vocabulary.
    Keywords: technology, teachers' perception, multimodal input, Multimodality
  • Azam Pishadast * Pages 909-919
    Tasks have played a significant role in both early descriptive research and subsequent more theoretically-based research. The purpose of the present study was to measure the effect of collaborative output tasks on improving Iranian EFL learners' lexical collocation. To do so, 60 female students were selected to participate in this experiment, based on their performance on Oxford Placement Test (OPT). They were divided into two equal groups, experimental and control. The participants in the experimental groups were assigned collaborative output tasks involving collocations in order to review them without memorizing or learning by rote. The control group got vocabulary education using the school's standard teaching methods. The posttest was administered to both groups' participants in order to assess the students' lexical collocation knowledge. Comparing the posttest of the two groups revealed a significant difference between the score of the experimental groups and that of the control group in the posttests. It was proved that collaborative tasks were effective in enhancing EFL learners' collocation knowledge. Collaborative output tasks are useful tasks in promoting communicative interactions among students and at the same time provide them with a focus on linguistic forms. The present study investigates the effectiveness of output tasks, so it helps the teachers to develop such tasks in their teaching methodology to improve the quality of their teaching.
    Keywords: task, collaborative tasks, editing, cloze tasks, Collocation
  • Parisa Raki * Pages 920-933
    This study examined the effects of using computer word/grammar processor on Iranian elementary students' spelling and grammar improvement. To this end, the researcher administered the Oxford Quick Placement Test (OQPT) to 80 Iranian EFL learners to determine their level of English proficiency. The researcher selected 50 elementary students and divided them into two experimental groups; spelling group (n=25) and grammar group (n=25). Then, both groups were pretested. After that, the participants of both experimental groups received the treatment; they were taught through computer word processor. In the spelling group, 10 laptops were available for teaching spelling through using Computer Microsoft Word Processor. Some words and sentences were read by the researcher and the students were asked to type them through Computer Word Processor in the Computer The results of paired and independent samples t-tests revealed that both experimental groups had better performance on their post-test compared to their pre-test. The results showed that there was not a significant difference between the performances of the two experimental groups on the post-test. Finally, implications arising from the findings and suggestions for further research were explained.
    Keywords: Computer word, grammar processor, Elementary Students, grammar, spelling, Writing
  • Emad Arvand * Pages 934-947
    Action research is a useful way to assist teachers to overcome their problems and improve their teaching and learning practices. The design of the study is qualitative and explores teacher educators' perceptions to address the benefits and challenges of conducting action research. For this purpose, 250 teacher educators with master or doctorate degree were invited to participate in this study. First, they were familiarized with action research through a workshop. Then they were invited to conduct their own action research in their classes at school and reflect on that through reflective essays and interviews. The obtaining data were scrutinized to find emerging themes in relation to the main purposes of the study. Results revealed action research led to improving students’ behavior, teaching techniques, engagement, interactions, and enhancing motivation. The teachers’ perceived benefits of action research were increasing reflectivity and awareness about their own practice, enhancing students’ motivation, improving students’ engagement and interaction and improving teaching techniques and students’ learning. The major challenges that teachers encounter in the process of conducting action research include a lack of sufficient time to conduct action research and administrative restrictions and lack of teachers’ freedom to conduct action research was a significant challenge for the teachers. This study suggests that action research should be considered more seriously as a framework for promoting reflective teaching and prior conditions such as extra research hours and administrative support are required for teachers to be able to conduct action research in their schools.
    Keywords: Action Research, Master, Qualitative study, doctorate, teacher educators
  • Fatemeh Tajalli *, Abbas Moradan, Hadi Farjami Pages 948-966
    Due to students' frequent complaint about anxiety they experience during taking individual tests and novelty of collaborative testing method not only in Iran but also all around the world, this study tends to examine the perceptions of Iranian EFL learners on using collaborative testing instead of individual testing in EFL classes. To yield this result, the researcher adopted a collaborative test as the formative test during the semester that is not only new among Iranians but also, in most countries (if not all) in language teaching around the world. To get the best outcome, two different instruments have evaluated learners’ perceptions: a semi-structured interview and an attitude questionnaire. A group of 60 intermediate English learners from two language institutes was chosen. They were supposed to take exams every session. Group members have been interviewed about their point of view toward collaborative testing and its impact on them and their peers in the group. The results of analyses from attitude questionnaire which has been triangulated by data from the interviews showed that most respondents agreed with the items in learner’s perception of collaborative tests. They were willing to have traditional testing replaced by group testing which includes less stress and yet higher learning and better social skills. The results of this study can be of importance to policy makers and teachers to employ this new testing method in designing EFL curricula.
    Keywords: Collaborative testing, cooperation, testing method
  • Najmeh Ahmadianfar, MohammadTaghi Farvardin *, Niloufar Baratpour Pages 967-982

    In this study, the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ learning style and metacognitive listening awareness at two proficiency levels (pre-intermediate and upper-intermediate) were examined. To this end, two questionnaires were administered to 142 Iranian EFL learners at eight language institutes in Shiraz, Iran. Among the participants, 75 were at the pre-intermediate level, and 67 were at the upper-intermediate level. To ascertain participants’ learning style, they were invited to complete the Reid’s Learning Style Questionnaire (RLSQ) (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic). To measure the participants’ metacognitive listening awareness, the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaires (MALQ) were given to the participants. The Pearson correlations were measured to detect the relationship between EFL students’ learning style and their listening metacognitive awareness at two levels of language proficiency. In addition, regression analyses were done to check which component of RLSQ can best predict the participants’ metacognitive listening awareness. At two levels of language proficiency, the results demonstrated a significant association between Iranian EFL learners’ learning style and their metacognitive listening awareness. Metacognitive listening awareness was assessed for pre- and upper-intermediate EFL students using the Beta values, which were used to compare the relative contributions of each learning style to metacognitive listening awareness. Beta values of four predictor variables (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) revealed that auditory style had a higher contribution to the metacognitive listening awareness in the upper-intermediate group, and visual style had a stronger contribution to the dependent variable in the pre-intermediate group.

    Keywords: EFL learners, language proficiency, Learning Style, Metacognitive Awareness
  • Zahra Pourtousi * Pages 983-990

    Input is a very significant factor in second language acquisition (SLA), and language learning. Moreover, without the input, the output or the production is not meaningful that is without the input of some sort, the learner cannot communicate effectively. Input processing model is originally proposed by Bill VanPatten, and he explained his model with two main principles, and some sub-principles. While it is believed that input processing theory is not a very comprehensive model in language acquisition in order to explain all of the aspects of second language acquisition, it can provide a better understanding of acquiring any language in any context. it is needed to mention that the basis of the model is according to Krashen. The principles, misunderstandings, claims, and implications of the input processing theory are provided in detail. Afterward, input processing theory is viewed from a dynamic system lens, and further details are discussed in the paper. Discussion and conclusions are provided in the paper.

    Keywords: input processing, second language acquisition, Output
  • Zahra Rezaei Fard *, Zohreh Mansouri, Somayeh Aghashiri Pages 991-1001
    The more teachers are aware of the learning pattern of their students, the more successful ways they can use their teaching methodology to encourage them to feel more inspired and appreciate the classroom environment. Some students may enjoy listening guidance, whereas others may feel better about tactile or kinesthetic training. The lack of knowledge on these issues can create problems in teaching-learning strategy. The purpose of this research was to have a precise look on the relationship between teaching through learning styles and motivation of Iranian technical students. In so doing, 120 technical university students were asked to participate in this study. Two questionnaires of learning styles and motivation were used to collect data. The results of statistical analysis of learning styles and motivational strategies questionnaire showed that there is a significant relationship between the technical students’ learning styles and their motivation. It was also found that kinesthetic learning style is a significant predictor of their motivation. The participants of the present study were aware of different learning styles in their process of learning and put much more emphasis on their shoulders indicating that teacher should raise their motivation and try their best to fulfill their educational requirements. Results can provide means for the use of these techniques in the instructional environment.
    Keywords: Motivation, Learning styles, Visual, Auditory, kinesthetic
  • AbdolHasan Maatooghian Nezhad * Pages 1002-1013

    The present research examined the effect of title selection tasks as post reading activities on learners' vocabulary achievement. A quasi-experimental design was adopted with a pre, intervention and a posttest. Participants were selected via a placement test and randomly assigned into two equal groups. After administering the pretest of vocabulary, the participants attended treatment sessions. The experimental group received reading passages without titles while they guessed the title for the passages without title. But the control group was taught conventionally and read the passages with titles and did the exercises. After the intervention sessions, both groups took the posttest of vocabulary and data were collected to compare the groups' means in the pre and posttest. Results indicated that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control one. Implications of the study suggest that English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers may use post reading activities like title selection to boost vocabulary learning since the learners try to focus on the passage main idea and guess the exact title for the passages.

    Keywords: title selection, Reading, post-reading task, Vocabulary
  • Fatemeh Ayatfard * Pages 1014-1028
    The role of technology enhancing learning pronunciation has been addressed by recent studies in language learning curriculum. However, there is a need to uncover the effect of this role in the English as foreign language (EFL) context like Iran. The present study was designed based on a quasi-experimental study with the pretest, intervention, and posttest. It aimed to examine the effect of internet or digital audio files (iPods or internet podcasting) as teaching aids in learning listening comprehension among upper-intermediate Iranian students. To perform this study, 80 students were selected based on a placement test. Then they were randomly divided in two equal groups of control and experimental. After an introductory session, they took a teacher-made pre-test of listening comprehension based on the learners' textbook exercises. The participants attended 12 sessions in six weeks of intervention. with the use of audio files. The control group received the listening materials extracted from Developing Tactics for Listening (Richards, 2010). After the post-test, findings revealed that the experimental group outperformed the control one in learning listening comprehension posttest. Paired samples t-test also depicted a significant difference between the experimental group's pre and post-test; however, a significant difference was not seen in the control group's pre and post-test. Implications of the study suggest that listening skill should be strengthened via digital audio files as an effective exposure inside and outside classrooms.
    Keywords: digital audio files, listening comprehension, upper-intermediate
  • Mahmoud Jafarie, Hossein Heidari Tabrizi * Pages 1029-1050

    Measurement assuredly lends more objectivity and reliability to textbook evaluation and selection and enables it to provide a lens into the actual effect of how teachers use an ELT textbook on the academic literacy of learners. This paper reports a trial project for computation of cohesion metrics of ESP texts for Iranian students of computer sciences. The project first shedded light on some inadequacy of the text selection rubrics within the paradigm of text-driven materials development problematizing the subjective, intuitive, impressionistic criteria for the selection of the core text. Then it raised two questions. They asked what enables achievement of the multi-dimensional mental representation of texts on the part of the target learners and how it is accomplished. Third, it introduced a utility application called Coh-Metrix that was developed to compute instantly and automatically cohesion ad readability indices. Forth, it put to test some existing ESP text for students of computer sciences for cohesion indices in order to make a tentative comparison with some grade level 6 science text against cohesion metrics. Lastly and never to be least, it concluded that explicit cohesive characteristics of texts enable the achievement of multidimensional mental representation of the text by selection and assignment of a core text cohesive enough using some objective metrics. Iranian EFL teachers and materials developers can, by implication, employ objective measures as they are evaluating and selecting core texts.

    Keywords: Cohesion Metrics, Textbook Evaluation, Selection, Multidimensional Mental Representation of Text, Text-Driven Material Development, Utility Application
  • Roozan Rahban * Pages 1051-1068
    Discourse markers, as words or phrases, play a significant role in promoting coherent segments of discourse. They facilitate text interpretation and were key attributes in linking sentences, rendering the text coherent. This corpus-based research work was conducted to identify and compare the categories and functions of discourse markers (DMs) in the corpora of the American vs. Iranian newspaper. To do so, a corpus of 30 editorial articles was extracted from New York Times and 30 editorials from Iran Daily. The framework proposed by Fraser (1999) was employed to classify the detected categories of discourse markers (DMs) in three functions including contrastive, elaborative, and inferential. The obtained results from the descriptive statistics and Chi-Square test revealed that the American newspaper with total number of 168 DMs was found to be superior to Iranian newspaper with total frequency of 98 in terms of occurrence of DMs. More specifically, the findings indicated that the frequency of contrastive DM in the American newspaper was higher than the occurrence of this DM in the Iranian newspaper. Further, the frequency of both elaborative and inferential DMs in the New York Times editorials were considerably higher compared to the editorials extracted from Iran Daily newspaper.
    Keywords: Discourse Markers, Newspaper, Editorials, American, Iranian