Leila Sajedi; Mahnaz Saeidi; Touran Ahour
Abstract
Writing publishable research articles is a great concern of academicians, which requires awareness on all its relevant aspects. However, the obstacles are elusive and postgraduate students' challenges are not fully explored. In this mixed methods research and for the purpose of investigating Iranian ...
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Writing publishable research articles is a great concern of academicians, which requires awareness on all its relevant aspects. However, the obstacles are elusive and postgraduate students' challenges are not fully explored. In this mixed methods research and for the purpose of investigating Iranian graduate and postgraduate EFL students’ performance on their research articles in terms of language and compositional conventions, 30 students participated. Their research articles were analyzed using a researcher-made scale. The same conventions were utilized as a questionnaire to investigate participants' perceptions on the essentials of language conventions in research articles to find the relationship between their performance and perceptions. Besides, a focus group interview was conducted among 12 of the participants to investigate challenges they face in conducting research and writing research articles. The results of the content analysis of the research articles indicated a mediocre performance, while the data analysis of the questionnaire indicated a high perception towards essentials of research article writing. This discrepancy was confirmed by the statistical analysis of correlation. The results of the analysis of the multifaceted challenges students have in both conducting research and writing a research article paved the way for pertinent implications to practitioners in terms of curriculum, syllabus, and methodology.
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.
Ehsan Narimani Vahedi; Mahnaz Saeidi; Nasrin Hadidi Tamjid
Abstract
The role of corrective feedback (CF) in language learning has recently gained prominence; however, ignoring the interwoven relationship between cognitive/affective factors, along with individual differences, may not lead to efficient results. This mixed methods research examined high/low emotional intelligence ...
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The role of corrective feedback (CF) in language learning has recently gained prominence; however, ignoring the interwoven relationship between cognitive/affective factors, along with individual differences, may not lead to efficient results. This mixed methods research examined high/low emotional intelligence (EI) Iranian EFL learners’ CF preferences. This study was grounded in the Chaos Complexity Theory of Larsen-Freeman (1997). Considering complexity theory, learners’ modified outputs were examined to find the related EI components in teacher-learner matched/mismatched conditions. First, using Bar-on Emotional Quotient Inventory,12 teachers and 223 learners were grouped as having high/low EI. Second, learners’ CF preferences were determined through Students’ Preferences Elicitation Questionnaire, including both closed and open-ended questions. Third, utilizing an observation checklist, teachers’ CF practices and learners’ modified outputs in summery telling activity were examined to find the associations among EI components and modified output in teacher-learner matched/mismatched conditions. The quantitative analysis using a number of Chi-square tests and the complementary qualitative data analyses revealed that the high/low EI learners preferred the different CF types. The most frequent successful modified output was associated with certain EI components in the mismatched conditions of EI and CF.The findings provide pertinent implications for practitioners regarding feedback implementation and successful modified output. Furthermore, the findings refer to the necessity of future studies in this area which are discussed in the article.
