Qualitative research
Reza Bagheri Nevisi; Maryam Heydarzadeh
Abstract
There has recently been a burgeoning interest in the realm of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education pertaining to the elucidation of the multifaceted determinants that contribute to efficacious language acquisition. Of particular significance was the exploration of engagement, a construct encompassing ...
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There has recently been a burgeoning interest in the realm of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education pertaining to the elucidation of the multifaceted determinants that contribute to efficacious language acquisition. Of particular significance was the exploration of engagement, a construct encompassing behavioral, cognitive, and emotional dimensions. This study aimed to examine the behavioral, cognitive, and emotional engagement of students within an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) institutional context. The primary objectives were to discern the factors that contribute to engagement and investigate potential discrepancies across different proficiency levels. In so doing, a sample of 21 EFL students ranging in age from 15 to 22, were selected to participate in the study, with data collection encompassing video recordings of classroom activities and stimulated recall interviews to capture their cognitive processes, affective responses, and behavioral manifestations during specific tasks. The results obtained from the analysis exhibited variations in engagement levels among the diverse proficiency levels. The implications derived from this study underscore the significance of tailoring instructional activities to address the specific engagement requirements of students at varying proficiency levels. Educators should account for individual disparities and language proficiency levels when designing instruction to optimize engagement. By comprehensively addressing behavioral, cognitive, and emotional dimensions of engagement, educators can foster a more efficacious and captivating learning environment within EFL classrooms.
Reza Bagheri Nevisi; Mahmood Safari; Rasoul Mohammad Hosseinpur; Reyhaneh Mousakazemi
Abstract
Recent research favors specific academic word lists over a general academic word list for preparing university students to read and publish academic papers in English. Although researchers have developed word lists for various disciplines, some academic fields do not enjoy a well-developed technical ...
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Recent research favors specific academic word lists over a general academic word list for preparing university students to read and publish academic papers in English. Although researchers have developed word lists for various disciplines, some academic fields do not enjoy a well-developed technical word list. The present study aimed at developing and evaluating a specific academic word list for political sciences. A 3.5-million-word corpus of political sciences research articles was created and analyzed in order to develop the Politics Academic Word List (PAWL). The list consists of 2000 word families which were selected across and beyond the BNC/COCA word list based on frequency and range criteria. The word families enjoying an aggregate frequency of a hundred or more in the corpus and a minimum frequency of 10 in at least four of the seven sub-corpora were incorporated into the word list. The PAWL accounted for over 88% of the running words in the Politics Academic Corpus (PAC) and outperformed the list of GSL plus AWL words in coverage by 3 percent, despite containing 556 fewer word families. The study corroborates the value of a subject specific word list as a more fruitful source for academic vocabulary learning. Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research are discussed.
Reza Bagheri Nevisi; Rasoul Mohammad Hosseinpur
Abstract
Till recently, text difficulty has commonly been determined by employing readability formulas, however, major criticisms have been leveled against readability formulas (Graves & Graves, 2003).This research project aimed at determining text difficulty through readability formulas and Coh-Metrix. In ...
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Till recently, text difficulty has commonly been determined by employing readability formulas, however, major criticisms have been leveled against readability formulas (Graves & Graves, 2003).This research project aimed at determining text difficulty through readability formulas and Coh-Metrix. In other words, the study investigated the role of text difficulty in EFL learners’ pedagogic task performances. Since both males and females took part in the study, firstly the researchers aimed at finding out whether a different pattern of task performance existed for each. Secondly, all participants were provided with two different reading passages whose difficulty levels were determined by Coh-Metrix and readability formulas. Finally, a self-efficacy questionnaire was administered to delve into learners’ self-perceptions about their own performances on the pedagogic tasks. Descriptive statistics, paired samples t-test and repeated measures ANOVA were utilized to analyze the data. The results indicated that gender of the students had no significant impact on the learners’ performances on the pedagogic tasks. The findings revealed that text difficulty and the learners’ self-efficacy significantly affected EFL learners’ performance on the pedagogic tasks. The findings suggest that determining difficulty level of the texts through Coh-Metrix could be considered a step forward and will certainly assist language teachers and syllabus designers who strive to tailor the appropriate tasks and materials to learners at differing level of language proficiency. The results also imply that self-perceptions of learners might be a true predictor of their own performances on different tasks in general, and on pedagogic tasks in particular
Rasoul Mohammad Hosseinpur; Reza Bagheri Nevisi
Volume 4, Issue 2 , April 2017, , Pages 129-109
Abstract
In spite of the crucial function of the politeness markers in the appropriate communication of the language learners, teachability of these markers has not received due attention in the pragmatic studies. Drawing upon House and Kasper’s (1981) influential taxonomy of politeness markers, the present ...
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In spite of the crucial function of the politeness markers in the appropriate communication of the language learners, teachability of these markers has not received due attention in the pragmatic studies. Drawing upon House and Kasper’s (1981) influential taxonomy of politeness markers, the present study addressed teachability as well as the underlying process or microgenetic development of these markers in an EFL context. A population of 56 undergraduate participants underwent instruction through consciousness-raising (C-R) tasks for nine sessions. The data were obtained through repeated measurements during the first, third, fifth, seventh, and ninth sessions. The findings highlighted the effectiveness of the politeness markers instruction and suggested that the learners’ heavy reliance on some structures like “please” and consultative devices such as “willingness” and “ability” structures at early stages of data collection was mostly due to their unawareness of other politeness structures. This reliance decreased over time and was replaced by “play-downs” especially “progressive aspect + past tense” structure in the course of the instruction.Likewise, a wider range of simple politeness markers such as hedges, understaters, and downtoners which were absent in the learners’ early data increased steadily in their subsequent data. The findings highlight the acquisitional difficulty of pragmatic features and provide researchers, practitioners as well as language learners with information concerning the acquisitional sequence and order of pragmatic features in an EFL instructional context.
