Zari saeedi; Hossein Jajarmi
Abstract
Even though interactional competence (IC) has been in the center of attention recently, its constructs/sub-components and influencing factors still require a profound scrutiny. The features associated with IC have indeed been probed in various realms of language learning and teaching. However, the effect ...
Read More
Even though interactional competence (IC) has been in the center of attention recently, its constructs/sub-components and influencing factors still require a profound scrutiny. The features associated with IC have indeed been probed in various realms of language learning and teaching. However, the effect of language learners’ gender on their perception of IC remains to be addressed. To bridge this gap, the present research, as one of the stages of development and verification of the Learners’ Interactional Competence Questionnaire (LICQ) investigated how gender may affect IC and its sub-constructs as perceived by males and females. A total number of 407 male and female intermediate-level Iranian EFL learners, selected through convenience sampling from several language institutes, participated in the study and responded to LICQ. Subsequently, a two-group Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was used to measure the potential effects of students’ gender on perceived interactional competence, including conversational management, speech acts, register, nonverbal semiotics, and requests and complaints. The results showed that gender did have a small significant effect on learners’ perceived interactional competence as a whole; while scrutinizing sub-components, it was also revealed that this effect is not visible in conversational management. The study findings provide learners with a self-assessment scale to identify their present state of IC perception. Besides, language teachers could consider the different perceptions of male and female learners of IC as an influential aspect of IC realization and development in the language classroom setting.
Zainab Abolfazli; Karim Sadeghi
Abstract
Attitudes towards learning teaching a subject play a major role in determining individuals' success or failure in any educational programme. This paper delves into the attitudes of university and non-university students towards teaching/ learning English in Iran. To this end, thirteen MA and forty-three ...
Read More
Attitudes towards learning teaching a subject play a major role in determining individuals' success or failure in any educational programme. This paper delves into the attitudes of university and non-university students towards teaching/ learning English in Iran. To this end, thirteen MA and forty-three BA students majoring in English, twenty-nine non-university students attending language institutes, and twenty-nine university students majoring in a field other than English were recruited to participate in the study. they were both male and female and were requested to complete a-five point Likert-scale attitudes towards teaching/ learning English questionnaire. The analysis of elicited data indicated that overall students had positive attitudes towards teaching/ learning English. t-test analyses revealed no significant difference neither between males and females nor among different age groups and nor between non-English majors and other groups in terms of their attitudes towards teaching/ learning English. The paper concludes that paying attention to students’ attitudes towards the subject being taught/learnt is of utmost importance. It also highlights the usefulness of such research for every teaching/learning context. The results can be used in a wide range of contexts from the very stage of designing to the final evaluation stage of programme design and implementation. Further findings and implications are discussed in the paper.
Ali Roohani; Somayeh Akbarpour
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, , Pages 82-59
Abstract
Abstract
Knowledge can be reflected in vocabulary repertoire; it is thus important to find out effective methods of vocabulary teaching which can assist language learners in the process of vocabulary learning. This study investigated the effectiveness of teaching English vocabulary through song and ...
Read More
Abstract
Knowledge can be reflected in vocabulary repertoire; it is thus important to find out effective methods of vocabulary teaching which can assist language learners in the process of vocabulary learning. This study investigated the effectiveness of teaching English vocabulary through song and non-song methods to elementary Iranian EFL learners. Additionally, it examined the role of EFL learners’ gender in their success in English vocabulary learning. To these ends, 100 EFL learners, aged 9-12, were selected and were randomly assigned into two experimental (song) and two control (non-song) groups, each with 25 male and 25 female EFL participants. The experimental and control groups had song and non-song instructions, respectively, for English vocabulary learning. To collect data, a 40-item vocabulary test was developed and administered as the pretest and posttest. Results from analysis of covariance revealed that both song and non-song instructions had a statistically significant and positive effect on the EFL learners’ vocabulary learning. Furthermore, the female learners benefited more from the song method whereas the males benefited more from the non-song method of instruction. The findings imply that using songs should not be taken a panacea for both male and female EFL learners; rather, it should serve as a supplementary method to teaching vocabulary, particularly to young female learners in EFL classrooms.
Saeed Rezaei; Masoumeh Estaji; Mahdi Hasanpour
Volume 2, Issue 1 , February 2015, , Pages 71-43
Abstract
One of the most salient written academic outputs a university student has the opportunity to create is a thesis which is regarded as “a complex student-produced research genre” (Lee & Casal, 2014). In order to compare the rhetorical features and preferences of distinct discourse communities ...
Read More
One of the most salient written academic outputs a university student has the opportunity to create is a thesis which is regarded as “a complex student-produced research genre” (Lee & Casal, 2014). In order to compare the rhetorical features and preferences of distinct discourse communities and evaluate academic writing, a special and long-term attention, on the part of the writers, is required for analyzing the metadiscourse features of the texts (Hyland, 2004). To this end, the present study examined the differences in the use, type, and frequency of interactional metadiscourse markers in theses written by M.A. applied linguistics graduates including 10 males and 10 females from Sharif University of Technology in Tehran. The selected corpus was analyzed using Hyland’s (2005) interactional model of metadiscourse. The data were explored through a manual corpus analysis method using Adobe PDF reader software. Moreover, a Chi-Square statistical measure was run to examine whether there were any significant differences in the use of metadiscourse markers in different thesis chapters and across different genders. The results revealed that although there were some subtle differences in the frequency and types of these metadiscourse markers, there was no statistically significant difference between two genders in the use of interactional metadiscourse markers. Besides, it was concluded that there was a significant relationship between the chapters of theses and the use of metadiscourse markers. The findings of this study render some pedagogical implications for writing courses at M.A. and PhD levels in the realms of TEFL and ESP.
