Seyyed Ayatollah Razmjoo
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, Pages 18-1
Abstract
Regarding the lack of consistency among ELT journals to evaluate papers, this research delves into how journal reviewers address the issue of determining the optimum paper to be published. In other words, this study aims at proposing a putative scheme to evaluate the papers submitted to ELT journals ...
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Regarding the lack of consistency among ELT journals to evaluate papers, this research delves into how journal reviewers address the issue of determining the optimum paper to be published. In other words, this study aims at proposing a putative scheme to evaluate the papers submitted to ELT journals on a scientific and consistent basis. As such, 22 instructors and PhD students, selected through purposive sampling, were interviewed utilizing semi-structured interviews. The findings of the study were presented in the form of an evaluation scheme consisting of two major themes as two evaluation criteria: content-related and strategy-related criteria. The former includes paper originality, research contribution, innovation and novelty, and method inclusiveness; the latter consists of succinctness, scene-setting adequacy, critical synthesis and analogy, implicational justification, and efficacy and consistency. Implicationally, the results of this study demonstrates that reviewers across diverse ELT journals have substantial common criteria for paper publishing, that the ties uniting the ELT journals seeking to publish articles are strong, and that the potential for future ELT research regarding how authors inform one another on the criteria is correspondingly robust and consistent.
Nasser Rashidi; Amir Yousef Farahmandi
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, Pages 38-19
Abstract
The teaching of grammar plays a central role in every EFL classroom. This paper attempts to study the learning of grammar implicitly through exposing the language learners to as much authentic language as possible in interaction and practices of socialization in order to make grammar a byproduct of communication. ...
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The teaching of grammar plays a central role in every EFL classroom. This paper attempts to study the learning of grammar implicitly through exposing the language learners to as much authentic language as possible in interaction and practices of socialization in order to make grammar a byproduct of communication. It is believed that just by being exposed to lots of explicit grammar rules, the learners may not be able to learn and use correct grammar in everyday communication. In other words, language is not ready-made or ready-given. Language learners should benefit from opportunities for interaction with both the physical and social world, a combination of perception, interpretation, and action, i.e. an active relationship or engagement with the environment, the teacher and their peers through mediation. There are three core elements in the treatment: consciousness-raising (helping to raise students’ awareness about grammatical features), practice, and feedback. Thirty four EFL students participated in the study, seventeen of whom were randomly assigned to the control group and the other seventeen to the experimental group. Both groups also completed a questionnaire on a five-point scale of agreement. The participants of the experimental group who received treatment showed a better result on their posttest. Moreover, the main findings of the study showed a positive attitude of the learners towards implicit grammar instruction in general. This study is hoped to have tangible and practical implications for language teachers and language learners in Iran as well as in other countries.
Rahman Sahragard; Nurullah Mansourzadeh
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, Pages 58-39
Abstract
Abstract
Teacher education is a very challenging and an interesting process, which has different stages and components. Mentorship is a crucial element in all teacher education stages, because student teachers’ professional identity and their future performance in real classrooms to a large degree, ...
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Abstract
Teacher education is a very challenging and an interesting process, which has different stages and components. Mentorship is a crucial element in all teacher education stages, because student teachers’ professional identity and their future performance in real classrooms to a large degree, depend on the mentors’ feedbacks and supportive behavior during practicum phase. The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the quality of support and feedback provided on part of Iranian mentors during the practicum experience. The focus of the study was on the needs and expectations of Iranian EFL student teachers from their school mentors’ feedback and supportive decisions in the chaotic practicum period. The participants of the study were 18 Iranian EFL student teachers from a teacher-training center in Esfahan, Iran. To collect data, both qualitative and quantitative tools were used. Considering the quality of mentor feedback and supportive behavior, a high degree of satisfaction was reported among the cases, meeting their wants and expectations in a very substantial manner. As a result, the main strong points of mentors’ feedback behaviors refer to supportive, affective and confident domains in mentees while the weak points emphasized the need for more details regarding feedback as well as more supportive behaviors. The findings of the study revealed some hidden gaps between the quality of mentors’ feedback and the mentees needs, wants and expectations during the practicum stage.
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 ...
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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.
Mir Habib Aboulalaei; Jafar Poursalehi; Yase Hadidi
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, Pages 103-83
Abstract
One important light in which to perceive the pendulum swings of the world of language teaching is the waning of the concept of method and its replacement by Kumaravadivelu’s post-method pedagogy, which is free from the constraints of methods. For several years, researchers working on the familiarity ...
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One important light in which to perceive the pendulum swings of the world of language teaching is the waning of the concept of method and its replacement by Kumaravadivelu’s post-method pedagogy, which is free from the constraints of methods. For several years, researchers working on the familiarity of EFL teachers with Post-method and its role in second and foreign language learners’ productions have pointed out that the opportunity to plan for a task generally contributes to language learners’ development. Such a post-method thinking has yet to find some prominent place with language teaching practitioners. This study principally sets out to explore any correlation between the field of study taught and the teachers’ attitudes towards the post-method strategies at hand today. One hundred and thirt one teachers from an English language institute located in Tabriz, Iran (i.e. Faseleh) were selected as participants. The attitudes of language teachers towards the Post-Method condition were assessed via a questionnaire that consisted of two main parts: the first part tapped into the participants’ personal information, and the second part included some questions on a 5- point Likert scale about the role of Post Method, their familiarity with it, and how it impacted their teaching and learning. The findings support the hypothesis that language teachers’ knowledge and awareness of post-method seems to play out as an important factor in their teaching, while they also carry certain pedagogical and theoretical implications in second language teaching as well as relevance to second language learning assessment.
Hossein Arabgary; Siros Izadpanah
Volume 3, Issue 3 , September 2016, Pages 128-105
Abstract
The present study aimed at examining whether the turn-taking processes in focus on form and focus on forms teaching contexts were similar or different. Turn-taking refers to ‘how each of the interlocutors in an interaction contributes to the conversation’. Both lessons were designed to teach ...
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The present study aimed at examining whether the turn-taking processes in focus on form and focus on forms teaching contexts were similar or different. Turn-taking refers to ‘how each of the interlocutors in an interaction contributes to the conversation’. Both lessons were designed to teach some words but they also provided opportunities for incidental acquisition by exposing them to the two target structures, namely, plural s and copula be. The FonF lesson was of planned while FonFs lesson employed present-practice-product (PPP) methodology. Forty-five beginner Iranian students were non-randomly divided into three groups of fifteen, namely, FonF, FonFs and control group. They received eight repeated lessons during six weeks. Two tests for receptive knowledge of plural-s, and one test for productive knowledge of copula-be were used to measure the acquisitions of target features in terms of the differences in interactions that takes place in the two instructional approaches and consequently opportunities for noticing of target structures. The study used a quasi-experimental design through pre-tests, immediate post-tests and delayed post-tests. Then the statistical analysis was run through one-way repeated measures ANOVAS. Conversation analysis (CA) was employed by utilizing seedhouse’s ‘form and accuracy’ and ‘meaning and fluency’ framework to investigate classroom interactions. The analysis revealed that the interaction in the two groups differed in organization of turn-taking, occurrence of different kinds of repair, and the frequency and function of private speech. Overall, it was revealed that the interaction in the FonF lesson was ‘conversational’ while that in the FonFs lesson was ‘pedagogical’.
