Arash Gholamy Saleh Abady; Sayyed Mohammad Alavi
Volume 2, Issue 2 , March 2015, Pages 1-21
Abstract
The main approach to conversation analysis is multimodal analysis, which can be explained by the distinction between the non-verbal and verbal expression in the communicative functions (Haddington & Kääntä, 2011; Streeck et al., 2011). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether ...
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The main approach to conversation analysis is multimodal analysis, which can be explained by the distinction between the non-verbal and verbal expression in the communicative functions (Haddington & Kääntä, 2011; Streeck et al., 2011). The purpose of this study was to investigate whether there was a significant difference between non-verbal or verbal signals in conveying information in conversation. The participants of this study were 37 male Iranian B.S. Paramedic students at medical university for the Islamic Republic of Iran's Army. Two video talk show interviews were shown in order to determine the descriptive features for exchanging information. ELAN video annotation instrument was utilized for analyzing the interviews of this study. To find out which of verbal or non-verbal resources was effective in conveying information, a questionnaire was also developed by the researchers consisting of 19 items on the verbal and non-verbal signals. The results of ELAN analysis for both interviews showed that the descriptive visual cues such as hand movement, gaze, eyebrow motions, and torso were more frequent than the other non-verbal resources. Additionally, the analysis of the questionnaire data showed that there was a significant difference between the visual and verbal elements in the transmission of information from the students' viewpoints. Moreover, there was a significant difference between the non-verbal descriptive resources in conveying information. The findings of this study revealed that non-verbal cues were more effective in the transmission of information than the verbal cues. In addition, hand movements and laughing were found to be more effective than the other visual signals in conveying information.
zahra faghiri; mehdi bazyar
Volume 2, Issue 2 , March 2015, Pages 23-40
Abstract
In this study, the researcher attempted to investigate the effect of computer-mediated collaborative learning on Iranian advanced female English Learners' critical thinking and writing performance. In order to do this, initially 90 participants were chosen. To assure the homogeneity regarding language ...
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In this study, the researcher attempted to investigate the effect of computer-mediated collaborative learning on Iranian advanced female English Learners' critical thinking and writing performance. In order to do this, initially 90 participants were chosen. To assure the homogeneity regarding language proficiency, they participated in a TOEFL exam which was used to select 60 out of 90 students whose scores fell between +1 and -1 SD for this study. Participants were then randomly assigned to two 30-member control and experimental groups. In this study, Watson–Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal-Form A (Watson & Glaser, 1980) was used as a pretest to see to what extent the participants think critically. A writing test was also administered to assess the writing performance of the learners as writing pre-test. This writing was adapted from TOEFL Writing section and the results were scored by 3 raters. Then, two groups participated in ten sessions. The experimental group was provided with 15 laptops as well as with internet access so as to be able to extract the necessary information for completing their writing. Finally, the critical thinking questionnaire was administered again. Also, a post-test writing was administered to investigate the effect of treatment on the writing performance. The results of data analysis indicated that computer-mediated collaboration led to better writing performance of the learners. Computer-mediated collaboration also proved to have a statistically significant effect on critical thinking level of the participants.
Davoud Amini
Volume 2, Issue 2 , March 2015, Pages 41-61
Abstract
Cognition, motivation and affect are the three dimensions of mental functioning, each having a share in determining learning processes including second language acquisition. Despite the extensive effort to explore cognitive processes involved in task performance within task-based language teaching research, ...
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Cognition, motivation and affect are the three dimensions of mental functioning, each having a share in determining learning processes including second language acquisition. Despite the extensive effort to explore cognitive processes involved in task performance within task-based language teaching research, the effect of task-related emotional and motivational states on learning achievements is a fairly unexplored area. The study reported here investigated the comparative effects of cognitive, emotional and motivational engagement with a reading-while-listening task on incidental acquisition of L2 vocabulary. The three types of task engagement strategies were applied as pretask activities to task procedure. Multivariate analysis of covariance and follow-up-analyses revealed an enhancing effect for all three types of task engagement activities on immediate post-tests. However, the enhancement was not observed for measurements on delayed post-tests as a result of the remarkable decay in retention and ease of activation scores. Moreover, the effects of the three types of pre-task involvements were not differential. The findings have implications for integrating emotional, motivational and cognitive elements to form-focused tasks aimed at facilitating second language acquisition.
Fariba Taheri; zohre mohamadi
Volume 2, Issue 2 , March 2015, Pages 63-75
Abstract
This study aims to determine the effectiveness of K.W.L (what I know, what I want to know, and what I have learned) chart on the performance of Iranian high school students in reading comprehension. To achieve this aim, a sample was selected from a private high school. The participants were 80 intermediate ...
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This study aims to determine the effectiveness of K.W.L (what I know, what I want to know, and what I have learned) chart on the performance of Iranian high school students in reading comprehension. To achieve this aim, a sample was selected from a private high school. The participants were 80 intermediate students as their proficiency was measured using PET (Preliminary English Test). The participants were divided into two groups: an experimental group and a control group. The students in the experimental group were taught reading comprehension with the K.W.L strategy, while the control group was taught with a conventional reading and comprehension check strategy. To collect the data, pre and post reading comprehension tests were administered. Data were analyzed using a series of t-test. The findings indicate that the experimental group scored higher on the reading comprehension post-test than their peers did in the control group. To investigate if the results were long-lasting and not due to the present research context, a delayed post-test was administered confirming the permanent effect of K.W.L strategy. The results of the study suggest that the strategy can be useful for students’ reading comprehension. Implications for language teachers, materials developers, and test designers were discussed.
Seyyed Bagher Mirshojaee; Rahman Sahragard
Volume 2, Issue 2 , March 2015, Pages 77-98
Abstract
This is a corpus study aimed to compare six Iranian general English university textbook’s reading comprehension passages and the passages of reading comprehension section of MA exams from 2010 to 2014. The study used three reading related factors to make the comparison: vocabulary coverage, syntactic ...
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This is a corpus study aimed to compare six Iranian general English university textbook’s reading comprehension passages and the passages of reading comprehension section of MA exams from 2010 to 2014. The study used three reading related factors to make the comparison: vocabulary coverage, syntactic complexity and discourse features. To meet these needs, three test types were used: measures of vocabulary coverage by the vocabprofiler software, measures of readability by means of readability formulas and measures of text easibility of the Coh-Metrix software. The analyses showed a big gap between what textbooks offered with regard to vocabulary, structures and discourse and what the MA examinations asked from the readers regarding the reading comprehension processes. The findings and results were presented along with the pedagogical implications and some suggestions for future researches.
hossein bozorgian; Bita Padiav
Volume 2, Issue 2 , March 2015, Pages 99-117
Abstract
Listening comprehension has always been a challenge for English as Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) learners, in general. Therefore, the purpose of this study is particularly to investigate the role of metacognitive instruction through pedagogical cycle on the metacognitive awareness of EFL learners ...
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Listening comprehension has always been a challenge for English as Second/Foreign Language (ESL/EFL) learners, in general. Therefore, the purpose of this study is particularly to investigate the role of metacognitive instruction through pedagogical cycle on the metacognitive awareness of EFL learners across genders. The participants in this study were 83 Iranian intermediate learners in four groups (two male and two female groups) chosen randomly out of 97 available EFL learners, ranging from 20 to 29 years old. The learners in the experimental groups (N = 60) were trained based on metacognitive instruction through pedagogical cycle for ten weeks over a semester, and participated in EFL listening tasks. However, the learners in the control groups (N = 23) underwent conventional instruction of listening strategies. All four groups were taught by the same teacher and listened to the same materials. The Metacognitive Awareness of Listening Question (MALQ) was used to collect data and to track changes in metacognitive awareness of learners across the genders before and after the intervention. The finding indicates that the experimental group outweighed the control group in terms of metacognitive awareness, but gender did not have any effect on metacognitive awareness of learners.
