Yalda Shahmoradi; Siros Izadpanah
Volume 4, Issue 1 , February 2017, , Pages 68-33
Abstract
Since needs analysis firstly introduced by the publication of Munby's communicative syllabus design in 1978, many researchers carried out on the needs analysis of university students majoring different courses in order to prepare for their target language needs. The purpose of this study was to identify ...
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Since needs analysis firstly introduced by the publication of Munby's communicative syllabus design in 1978, many researchers carried out on the needs analysis of university students majoring different courses in order to prepare for their target language needs. The purpose of this study was to identify the English language needs of the Persian literature university students. To this effect, five female and five male specialist English teachers in three universities in Tehran and two universities in Zanjan were picked by purposive sampling to be data sources of the study. All the teachers had the Ph.D. level of education, teaching M.A. students of Persian literature. The data were collected using a five-point Likert scale English Language needs questionnaire (Chan, 2001), answered by specialist English teachers. The study was experimental and quantitative in nature. In order to analyze the data, mean and Chi-Square test were attained using SPSS, version 16. As the results had shown, reading skill was the most important skill in academic studies of the Persian literature university students, speaking skill was the most essential skill in their future profession, and writing skill was the main skill that would be important in their private/social life. Furthermore, the female specialist English teachers’ perspective was different from male ones regarding Persian literature university students’ learning needs and target needs. In conclusion, the implications of the findings of the study can be presented for language researchers, specialist English teachers, test designers, and materials developers.
Hossein Arabgary; Siros Izadpanah
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, , Pages 128-105
Abstract
The present study aimed at examining whether the turn-taking processes in focus on form and focus on forms teaching contexts were similar or different. Turn-taking refers to ‘how each of the interlocutors in an interaction contributes to the conversation’. Both lessons were designed to teach ...
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The present study aimed at examining whether the turn-taking processes in focus on form and focus on forms teaching contexts were similar or different. Turn-taking refers to ‘how each of the interlocutors in an interaction contributes to the conversation’. Both lessons were designed to teach some words but they also provided opportunities for incidental acquisition by exposing them to the two target structures, namely, plural s and copula be. The FonF lesson was of planned while FonFs lesson employed present-practice-product (PPP) methodology. Forty-five beginner Iranian students were non-randomly divided into three groups of fifteen, namely, FonF, FonFs and control group. They received eight repeated lessons during six weeks. Two tests for receptive knowledge of plural-s, and one test for productive knowledge of copula-be were used to measure the acquisitions of target features in terms of the differences in interactions that takes place in the two instructional approaches and consequently opportunities for noticing of target structures. The study used a quasi-experimental design through pre-tests, immediate post-tests and delayed post-tests. Then the statistical analysis was run through one-way repeated measures ANOVAS. Conversation analysis (CA) was employed by utilizing seedhouse’s ‘form and accuracy’ and ‘meaning and fluency’ framework to investigate classroom interactions. The analysis revealed that the interaction in the two groups differed in organization of turn-taking, occurrence of different kinds of repair, and the frequency and function of private speech. Overall, it was revealed that the interaction in the FonF lesson was ‘conversational’ while that in the FonFs lesson was ‘pedagogical’.
Amir Rezaei; Siros Izadpanah; Ali Shahnavaz
Abstract
Matching the expectations of teachers and students is vital for successful learning. Few studies have investigated the effects of corrective feedback on Iranian EFL students. The sample of this research were 180 male and female teachers that teach language courses in an English Language Teaching program ...
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Matching the expectations of teachers and students is vital for successful learning. Few studies have investigated the effects of corrective feedback on Iranian EFL students. The sample of this research were 180 male and female teachers that teach language courses in an English Language Teaching program in language institutes in Zanjan and 350 students who were chosen through stratified random sampling. Two standard instruments were used in this study. PET Test, Fukuda (2004). The findings suggest that they believed that corrective feedback had a significant effect on their writing but the teachers did not think so. It is concluded that most of the feedback given by teachers were concentrated on grammatical errors and that the teachers’ view of feedback is based on the context, which might origin from absence of sufficient teacher training. With this in mind, giving feedback, or rather the right kind of feedback should perhaps play a better role in teacher education. Anyway, the fact that feedback is based on each context may be positive, because all students are different, even so teacher trainees might still take advantage from studying the provision of feedback.