Dariush Aliakbari; Mortaza Aslrasouli; Davud Kuhi
Abstract
Considerable research has been conducted on the advancement of types of tests to facilitate a second language vocabulary improvement. However, whether types of tests (receptive vs. productive) lead to a comprehensive mastery of L2 active vocabulary knowledge has seldom been addressed in previous literature. ...
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Considerable research has been conducted on the advancement of types of tests to facilitate a second language vocabulary improvement. However, whether types of tests (receptive vs. productive) lead to a comprehensive mastery of L2 active vocabulary knowledge has seldom been addressed in previous literature. This study investigated the effects of receptive (multiple-choice tests) and productive (C-tests) vocabulary instruction on L2 active English vocabulary learning in an EFL context like Iran. To this end, a sample of 60 English learners from one of the private language institutes in Maragheh, Iran, were divided into experimental and control groups. The data gathering tools were the Oxford placement test, a pretest in vocabulary in the form of the Test of Academic Lexicon (Scarcella & Zimmerman, 1998), a posttest in vocabulary, and a semi-structured interview. The learners in the first treatment group took a series of multiple-choice tests, whereas the second group used C-tests during the treatment. The results of ANOVA and post hoc showed that while both C-tests and multiple-choice tests were effective in enhancing L2 active vocabulary knowledge, C-tests were more effective than the multiple-choice test. The results of the interview with the learners in the productive vocabulary instruction approved the results of data analysis, as the students expressed positive attitudes toward the use of C-tests as effective means for improving their active vocabulary recall. The findings of this study provide new insights for language teachers and curriculum designers to apply C-tests in EFL courses.
Shirin Rezaei Keramati; Davud Kuhi; Mahnaz Saeidi
Abstract
Thanks to recent developments in metadiscourse studies, it is now increasingly accepted that metadiscourse practices are closely related to social activities, cognitive styles and epistemological beliefs of academic communities. Despite widespread interest and research among applied linguists to explore ...
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Thanks to recent developments in metadiscourse studies, it is now increasingly accepted that metadiscourse practices are closely related to social activities, cognitive styles and epistemological beliefs of academic communities. Despite widespread interest and research among applied linguists to explore metadiscourse use, very little is known of how metadiscourse resources have evolved over time in response to the historically developing practices of academic communities. Motivated by such an ambition, the current research drew on a corpus of 4.3 million words taken from three leading journals of applied linguistics in order to trace the diachronic evolution of stance and engagement markers across four different sections of research articles (Introduction, Method, Result, Discussion/ Conclusion) from 1996 to 2016. Hyland’s (2005b) model of metadiscourse was adopted for the analysis of the selected corpus. The data were explored using concordance software AntConc (Anthony, 2011). Moreover, a Chi-Square statistical measure was run to determine statistical significances. The analysis revealed a significant decline in the overall frequency of metadiscourse resources in all sections of RAs. Interestingly, this decrease was entirely due to the overall decline in the use of stance markers particularly in result and method sections. It might be argued that, diachronic perspective on metadiscourse contributes to teachers and novice writers’ awareness of the malleability of academic writing and its sensitivity to context as well as providing access to current practices for the creation and delivery of teaching materials in EAP courses.
shabnam kurosh khanshan; davud kuhi
Volume 4, Issue 3 , August 2017, , Pages 33-47
Abstract
Teachers wish their learners not to take all provided information for granted; rather, they expect to enable their learners to develop higher order thinking skills and to be reflective. When applied to academic contexts, critical discourse analysis seems to play an undeniable role in the development ...
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Teachers wish their learners not to take all provided information for granted; rather, they expect to enable their learners to develop higher order thinking skills and to be reflective. When applied to academic contexts, critical discourse analysis seems to play an undeniable role in the development of reflective thoughts by students. The current study investigated the effect of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learner’s critical thinking (CT) ability in economic translation texts classes. To this end, 60 undergraduate English translation students at the intermediate level of proficiency were selected and assigned into two groups of experimental and control. The experimental group received instruction in order to make critical analysis both on articles handed out by teacher as well as follow-up CDA based presentations. The control group learners, on the other hand, received neither instruction nor any practice with respect to critical discourse analysis of texts. The data obtained from the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal were subject to independent samples t-test. The findings revealed that CDA had a positive and significant impact on EFL learners’ critical thinking ability with the ‘Interpretation’ and ‘Recognizing Unstated Assumption’ sub-tests of critical thinking being most influenced. The significance of this finding in light of critical discourse analysis and implications for educationalists are discussed in detail.
