- Iran, Islamic Republic of
Touran Ahour
Islamic Azad University-Tabriz Branch, ENGLISH DEPARTMENT, Faculty Member
- Applied Linguistics, Teaching English as a Second Language, Teaching English As A Foreign Language, Languages and Linguistics, Teacher Education, Teaching Reading and Writing Skills, and 11 moreReading and Vocabulary Strategies, Extensive Reading, Assessment, Materials development, Syllabus Design, Language Syllabus Design and Materials Development, Syllabus, Syllabus Design and Materials Development, English, English language, and English Literatureedit
- -edit
Abstract— Words are the basic building blocks of a language, the units of meaning from which larger structures such as sentences, paragraphs and the whole texts are formed. Vocabulary is central to language and language learning and... more
Abstract— Words are the basic building blocks of a language, the units of meaning from which larger structures such as sentences, paragraphs and the whole texts are formed. Vocabulary is central to language and language learning and vocabulary learning is vital to the language learners. one subcategory of language learning strategies is vocabulary learning strategies and defined as what the learners do to reach the meaning of new words, hold these words in long-term memory, recall them when comprehension is used and use them in producing language. The aim of this study was to find out to what extent poor Iranian high school students use metacognitive, cognitive, social, and affective vocabulary learning strategies and which vocabulary learning strategies has the highest and lowest use among the participants. To conduct the study, a total of 45 high school female students in a high-school in Tabriz, Iran, participated in this survey. A vocabulary learning strategy questionnaire was administrated to the participants. The results of the descriptive statistics revealed that among the four categories investigated, cognitive strategies were the most frequently used strategy, followed by social, affective and metacognitive, strategies, respectively. The implications and recommendations are also presented.
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The shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered approaches in second language acquisition and from product to process approach in writing pedagogy over the last few decades has stimulated quite a number of researchers to focus on... more
The shift from teacher-centered to learner-centered approaches in second language acquisition and from product to process approach in writing pedagogy over the last few decades has stimulated quite a number of researchers to focus on learners' voices in collaboration passing through multiple drafts and revisions. This study based on the concept of scaffolding learning in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and process writing approach to second language writing investigated Iranian EFL learners' negotiation types in small groups of different scaffolding patterns; symmetrical and asymmetrical. To this end, 15 students at High and Low Intermediate Proficiency levels were assigned into three groups in different scaffolding patterns; one asymmetrical group with two High Intermediate - three Low Intermediate learners (H-L), two symmetrical groups with five High Intermediate learners (H-H), another with five Low Intermediate learners (L-L). Small group interactions were observed a...
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Research Interests: Perception and Publishing
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The aim of this study was to find out the effect of awareness raising of texts with two degrees of complexity (linguistically and cognitively complex vs. linguistically complex and cognitively simple) on Iranian EFL learners' reading... more
The aim of this study was to find out the effect of awareness raising of texts with two degrees of complexity (linguistically and cognitively complex vs. linguistically complex and cognitively simple) on Iranian EFL learners' reading comprehension. A factorial design with the use of pretest-treatment-posttest was used. In this regard, 120 students in four intact classes formed the sample of the study from Islamic Azad University- Gilan Branch, Roudbar, Iran. They were randomly assigned to two experimental and two control groups. In one experimental group, awareness raising of linguistically and cognitively complex texts was conducted, and in the other awareness raising of linguistically complex and cognitively simple texts was manipulated. In the control groups, the same texts were employed without textual awareness raising. The results of Two-way MANOVA revealed the significant main effect of textual awareness raising on both types of texts. The results also showed a significan...
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Learner-centered approaches in second language acquisition and process approach in writing pedagogy has stimulated quite a number of researchers to focus on learners' voices in collaboration passing through multiple drafts and revisions.... more
Learner-centered approaches in second language acquisition and process approach in writing pedagogy has stimulated quite a number of researchers to focus on learners' voices in collaboration passing through multiple drafts and revisions. This study based on the concept of scaffolding learning in Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and process writing approach to second language writing investigated Iranian EFL learners’ negotiation types in small groups of different scaffolding patterns; symmetrical and asymmetrical. To this end, 15 students at High and Low Intermediate Proficiency levels were assigned into three groups in different scaffolding patterns; one asymmetrical group with two High Intermediate - three Low Intermediate learners (H-L), two symmetrical groups with five High Intermediate learners (H-H), another with five Low Intermediate learners (L-L). Small group interactions were observed and recorded. Transcriptions were analyzed to identify negotiation types in terms of language functions among different groups. Therefore, two main categories, Responding and Requesting and their subcategories were found. The subcategories of ''agreeing'', ''explaining'', ''giving opinions'', ''instructing'', ''restating'' and'' suggesting'' were related to the first main category; ''comprehension checking'', ''eliciting opinions'' and ''questioning ''were related to the second main category. According to Chi-square test results, negotiation types were significantly related to the scaffolding pattern as the asymmetrical (H-L) group was superior in the number of language functions used over the symmetrical (L-L, H-H) groups. Nevertheless, members in all groups enjoyed high equality and mutuality in interaction. The findings suggest teachers raise learners' awareness of the diverse strengths and abilities that different scaffolding patterns give them.
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This study aimed to find out the effect of oral output and written output as two types of vocabulary instruction on Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension and vocabulary learning. A pretest-posttest comparison group design, as... more
This study aimed to find out the effect of oral output and written output as two types of vocabulary instruction on Iranian EFL learners' listening comprehension and vocabulary learning. A pretest-posttest comparison group design, as one of the quasi-experimental research designs, was employed in this study. To this end, 40 male intermediate EFL learners within the age range of 14-18, studying at a Language Institute, participated in this study. At the beginning, pretests of vocabulary and listening comprehension were administered to determine the participants' initial listening comprehension ability and vocabulary knowledge and also collect a list of unknown words as the target words for the five treatment sessions. Each group practiced these words, one through the oral output instruction and the other through the written output instruction. Then, both groups took part in the posttests which were similar to the pretests. Within-group, results through Paired-Samples t-test s...
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... more
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...
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Various studies suggest that it is important to determine students' personality charecteristics and assertiveness and make them aware of these differences in order to improve learning process and outcomes. This study aimed to find out... more
Various studies suggest that it is important to determine students' personality charecteristics and assertiveness and make them aware of these differences in order to improve learning process and outcomes. This study aimed to find out how much of the variance in postgraduate students’ assertiveness is explained by five personality characteristics (i.e., Openness, Neuroticism, Extroversion, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness) and which one of these characteristics significantly predicts the students’ assertiveness. To this end, 66 postgraduate students within the age range of 22 to 35 participated in this descriptive correlational study. They were majoring in English language teaching at Islamic Azad University,Tabriz Branch, Tabriz, Iran. The College Self-expression Scale (CSES) and Big-Five Personality Inventory were used to assess the students’ level of assertiveness and their personality characteristics, respectively. In order to answer the research questions, a multiple li...
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This study investigated the effect of different patterns of scaffolding (symmetrical and asymmetrical) on Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ writing accuracy, fluency, and complexity. For this purpose, 90 intermediate... more
This study investigated the effect of different patterns of scaffolding (symmetrical and asymmetrical) on Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students’ writing accuracy, fluency, and complexity. For this purpose, 90 intermediate female EFL learners took a Preliminary English Test (PET), based on which those whose scores fell one standard deviation below the mean were considered as low intermediate and those whose score was one standard deviation above the mean were considered as high intermediate learners. So, the participants were grouped into three symmetrical and asymmetrical patterns in terms of their language proficiency level: one asymmetrical group with High Intermediate-Low Intermediate learners (H-L), two symmetrical groups with High Intermediate learners (H-H), and another with Low Intermediate learners (L-L). There were 30 students in each group who were, then, divided into smaller groups to interact with each other to develop their essays during a treatment. To e...
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In this study it was attempted to investigate whether different CF strategies, including implicit, explicit, and emergent CF, can differently affect the accuracy and fluency of oral production among Iranian EFL learners. In addition, it... more
In this study it was attempted to investigate whether different CF strategies, including implicit, explicit, and emergent CF, can differently affect the accuracy and fluency of oral production among Iranian EFL learners. In addition, it explored the learners' attitudes towards how they felt about the CF types applied in the classroom. For these purposes, the researchers selected 54 homogeneous pre-intermediate learners on the basis of the PET results and randomly assigned them into three experimental groups: the Implicit group, the Explicit group, and the Emergent group. While the Implicit and Explicit groups received just implicit feedback and explicit correction for their erroneous oral production, respectively, the Emergent group took CF from implicit to explicit. Oral narrative and picture description tasks and semi-structured interviews were used to collect the quantitative and qualitative data for the study. The results of inferential statistics indicated significant diffe...
Research Interests: Psychology and Fluency
Creativity can play an important role in today's world, and especially in education. Using innovative approaches in teaching can help students cope with stressful situations and learn better and deeper but unfortunately, little value... more
Creativity can play an important role in today's world, and especially in education. Using innovative approaches in teaching can help students cope with stressful situations and learn better and deeper but unfortunately, little value is given to creativity. The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of divergent thinking and metaphorical thinking as creativity-training methods on critical thinking among English learners. The present study is an experimental study with pre-test and post-test and control group. The study population consisted of 45 TOEFL students in Jahade Daneshgahi in Tabriz University. The data were collected using Honey Critical Thinking Questionnaire, and for the data analysis covariance analysis was used. The results showed that although the critical thinking score in the divergent thinking group was higher than the metaphorical thinking score, this difference was not significant, but both methods were effective in enhancing students' crit...
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This study is an attempt to survey the burnout level of female teachers in Malaysia and determine the likely factors that are associated with this phenomenon. The subjects of the study were 437 female teachers from primary, secondary, and... more
This study is an attempt to survey the burnout level of female teachers in Malaysia and determine the likely factors that are associated with this phenomenon. The subjects of the study were 437 female teachers from primary, secondary, and tertiary levels. A demographic questionnaire was used to collect the data regarding the individual characteristics (e.g., marital status, number of children, age, and teaching experience) and organizational factors (e.g., teaching level and workload). The Maslach Burnout Inventory-Educator Survey (MBI-ES) (Maslach, Jackson, & Schwab, 1986) was also employed to collect the data concerning the burnout levels of the teachers in the three dimensions of emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. Descriptive and univariate statistics were used in the data analysis. It was found that the number of children, level of teaching, age, and years of teaching experience were significant indicators of burnout among the female te...
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ABSTRACT The focus of this study was to highlight different kinds of errors and variations that emerge in the writings of ESL students. The participants of the study were twelve TESL undergraduate students from the Faculty of Educational... more
ABSTRACT The focus of this study was to highlight different kinds of errors and variations that emerge in the writings of ESL students. The participants of the study were twelve TESL undergraduate students from the Faculty of Educational Studies at Universiti Putra Malaysia. Students’ written descriptions on a picture stimulus were collected and qualitatively analyzed. Then, the emerging errors in their descriptions were categorized into the linguistic and surface structure taxonomies. The findings revealed different grammatical errors in their writings which were basically related to the categories of verb phrases and noun phrases in either simple or compound/complex sentences that resulted in giving misinformation, one of the categories in surface structure. Some variations were also found in the word choice of the students in the three ethnic groups of the study, whereby these choices might be the reflections of their cultural background and world view. The results could help material developers to develop the necessary tasks and exercises and teachers to devise the best teaching strategies for overcoming these kinds of errors in ESL learners’ writings.
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The aim of this study was to find out the contribution of each writing component to the variance of overall writing performance. Writing samples were collected from 128 students majoring in Teaching English as a Second Language at... more
The aim of this study was to find out the contribution of each writing component to the variance of overall writing performance. Writing samples were collected from 128 students majoring in Teaching English as a Second Language at Universiti Putra Malaysia. The analytic scoring scale of Weir (1990) was employed by two independent raters for rating the writing samples on two comparable prompts. The stepwise regression analysis indicated the high contribution of Grammar to the variance of total writing scores followed by cohesion, vocabulary, spelling, punctuation, and content respectively. It is found that component of Organization had the lowest amount of contribution to the overall writing variance. The result reflected the weakness of the students basically in the components of Grammar and Cohesion. The findings reveal the positive impact of analytical scoring scales in instructional situations in terms of diagnosing areas of students’ weaknesses and strengths in writing.
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The purpose of this paper was to find out whether students’ reading self-efficacy can be enhanced by using Internet-based extensive reading materials. A pretest-posttest control group design was employed. A sample of 60 intermediate EFL... more
The purpose of this paper was to find out whether students’ reading self-efficacy can be enhanced by using Internet-based extensive reading materials. A pretest-posttest control group design was employed. A sample of 60 intermediate EFL learners from an Institute in Boukan, West Azerbaijan, Iran was selected randomly and their level of reading self-efficacy was measured through Seeger’s Self-Efficacy Scale in Reading (2009). In addition, a preliminary test of proficiency was conducted. For a period of two months, the experimental group was supplied with stories through a weblog designed by the researcher, whereas the control group was provided with the same stories printed on paper. The experimental group was connected to the Internet, while the control group was instructed as traditional reading classes are. After the treatment, the learners’ level of self-efficacy was again measured with the same scale as in the pre-treatment. Results of the Paired and Independent samples t-tests ...
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Co-teaching is a method that two teachers work together and deliver the instruction in the same classroom to a heterogeneous group of learners. This study was an attempt to find out the effect of one teach-one assist model of co-teaching... more
Co-teaching is a method that two teachers work together and deliver the instruction in the same classroom to a heterogeneous group of learners. This study was an attempt to find out the effect of one teach-one assist model of co-teaching on Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension. To this end, a quasi-experimental design with the pre-test, post-test, and control group was employed and 35 female students within the age range of 15-18 at the elementary level were selected as the participants of the study from Sanjesh-E-No institute in Tabriz, Iran. They were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups after taking Key English Test (KET). The experimental group received instruction through two teachers while the control group was taught by a single teacher. Both groups took part in the pre-test and post-test of reading comprehension. The results of an independent-samples t-test revealed that the experimental group had significantly better reading performance compare...
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The aim of this study was to find out whether listening to English songs can improve pre-intermediate EFL learners' listening comprehension. To this end, a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design as one of the... more
The aim of this study was to find out whether listening to English songs can improve pre-intermediate EFL learners' listening comprehension. To this end, a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design as one of the quasi-experimental research designs was employed. The sample of the study consisted of 40 male and female English learners from two classes in an Institute in Marand, Iran. The two classes were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. Then, a PET test was used to check the homogeneity of both groups. The listening section of PET was also considered as the pretest of the study. Then, fifteen English songs were used in the experimental group during the treatment period. Each session, within 45 minutes, one song was played for and practiced with the learners. Meanwhile, the control group had their usual teacher-fronted class without listening to songs. At the end, both groups were post tested on their listening comprehension using the listening...
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This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of two types of learning, competitive and cooperative, on the reading comprehension of introvert and extrovert EFL learners. To this end, 120 learners studying at Marefat English... more
This study was an attempt to investigate the effect of two types of learning, competitive and cooperative, on the reading comprehension of introvert and extrovert EFL learners. To this end, 120 learners studying at Marefat English Language Institute in Tehran, Iran were selected, after taking a Preliminary English Test (PET), to participate in this quasi-experimental research. The participants also answered the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) to categorize them into two personality types of introverts and extroverts. Therefore, there were four subgroups: 30 introverts and 30 extroverts undergoing the cooperative learning treatment, and 30 introverts and 30 extroverts experiencing the competitive learning treatment. The reading part of the PET was administered as the posttest of the study after each group was exposed to the treatment for 18 sessions in seven weeks. A two-way ANOVA was run on the collected data in the posttest of four groups. The results revealed that while learne...
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1.IntroductionRegarding the role of ELT textbooks in the process of English language teaching and learning, a majority of English language teaching professionals share a wide range of opinions about the use and usefulness of ELT textbooks... more
1.IntroductionRegarding the role of ELT textbooks in the process of English language teaching and learning, a majority of English language teaching professionals share a wide range of opinions about the use and usefulness of ELT textbooks in classes. As Sheldon (1998), for example, suggests, the textbooks not only "represent the visible heart of any ELT program" (p.237) but also offer considerable advantages for both teachers and learners, when they are being used in the classroom. Ahour and Ahmadi (2012) describe textbooks as the main sources that convey the knowledge and information to the learners in an easy and organized way.So it can be said that, it is important for teachers, textbook designers, and material writers to be sure of usefulness of the textbooks for the context and people with whom they are being used; one way to check this appropriateness is to use the evaluation approach (Azizifar, 2009). In this regard, Hutchinson and Waters (1993) define evaluation as...
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Conducting research and writing research articles (RAs) are great concerns of academicians; however, the obstacles are elusive and the students' challenges are not fully explored. In this study, first, to investigate the... more
Conducting research and writing research articles (RAs) are great concerns of academicians; however, the obstacles are elusive and the students' challenges are not fully explored. In this study, first, to investigate the participants' (N = 30) performance, the researchers analyzed their RAs, using a scale. Second, to examine the participants' perception, the researchers used a questionnaire. Finally, to explore participants' challenges in both conducting research and writing RAs, there was a focus group interview involving 12 of them. The results of the content analysis of the RAs indicated a mediocre performance, while the data analysis of the questionnaire indicated that students know about the essential requirements in terms of L&C conventions for a RA in theory. This discrepancy was confirmed by the statistical analysis of correlation, which suggests more practical training rather than a theoretical orientation in academic writing courses. The results of the anal...
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The simplification of written texts is one way for second language learners to access the general message of authentic texts. This linguistic simplification may facilitate the process of learning for non-native speakers but, at the same... more
The simplification of written texts is one way for second language learners to access the general message of authentic texts. This linguistic simplification may facilitate the process of learning for non-native speakers but, at the same time, it may perilously reduce their utility for language learning by producing a text that is more difficult to the learners. This study aimed to find out to what extent an intuitively developed simplified version of a text is appropriately written in terms of lexical structure when compared to its original version. In this regard, the original and simplified versions of the novel “Gone with the wind ” were compared. The digitized pages of the original and simplified versions were entered into the software of Wordsmith 4.0 for further analysis. The results revealed low percentage of similar words, content words, and key words in the simplified version as compared to the original one. In addition, the high density and low consistency ratios in the si...
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Lexical inferencing is one of the most important strategies in vocabulary learning and it plays an important role in dealing with unknown words in a text. In this regard, the aim of this study was to determine the lexical inferencing... more
Lexical inferencing is one of the most important strategies in vocabulary learning and it plays an important role in dealing with unknown words in a text. In this regard, the aim of this study was to determine the lexical inferencing strategies used by Iranian EFL learners when they encounter unknown words at both text and sentence levels. To this end, forty lower intermediate students were divided into two groups. For the first group, a text with 10 underlined words was given and for the second group, the same underlined words were given in separate sentences. The students were supposed to read the text and the sentences and to guess the meaning of the underlined words. Then some lexical inferencing strategies were given to them to determine which strategies they used in guessing the meaning of unknown words. The results showed that they used different strategies like using local context and word association in lexical inferencing and also they were more successful at the text leve...
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1. IntroductionBased on Melendez, Zavala, and Mendez (2014), some students use different strategies when learning a foreign language. As an example, Oxford (cited in Murrieta and Hernandez 2012) claimed that those students who learn... more
1. IntroductionBased on Melendez, Zavala, and Mendez (2014), some students use different strategies when learning a foreign language. As an example, Oxford (cited in Murrieta and Hernandez 2012) claimed that those students who learn easily use a great number of learning strategies. Murrieta and Hernandez (2012) believe that using learning strategies decreases the level of anxiety of learners which is very common reaction at these early stages of language learning.In addition, Huang (2010) mentioned research on second-language acquisition offers a positive relationship between learners' strategy use and second - language performance. On the other hand, it must be noted that textbooks play a very significant role in the teaching and learning especially in developing countries where teachers and students can benefit from them according to their needs (Mahmood, 2011). Textbooks impact both the teachers and students. That is because they provide pattern to the teachers. Therefore, th...
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The present study was an attempt to evaluate the suitability of English textbook "Vision2" for the Iranian senior high-school students in grade 11 from the teachers' perception. The participants included 45 English teachers... more
The present study was an attempt to evaluate the suitability of English textbook "Vision2" for the Iranian senior high-school students in grade 11 from the teachers' perception. The participants included 45 English teachers (22 males & 23 females) selected based on convenience sampling from various secondary high-schools in Tabriz, Iran. The internal evaluation of the textbook was accomplished through a materials evaluation checklist with 82 items in the form of 5-point Likert scale and the items examined internal aspects (e.g., subject and content, exercises, social and cultural contexts, language skills, vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation) of the textbook. The results of descriptive statistics revealed that Vision2 matches with some of the students’ needs and with a few changes it can be used as an acceptable textbook for the 11grade students. For example, by adding some authentic and interesting sections and exercises for listening and speaking, this textbook ca...
The literature of materials evaluation indicates the lack of the evaluation of the textbook “Summit 2B” for teaching purposes.This study aims to present the retrospective evaluation of this textbook for its suitability for Undergraduate... more
The literature of materials evaluation indicates the lack of the evaluation of the textbook “Summit 2B” for teaching purposes.This study aims to present the retrospective evaluation of this textbook for its suitability for Undergraduate University Students (UUSs). Asurvey using a checklist and a semi-structured interview were carried out. The data were collected from the TEFL instructors andstudents after one semester of using the “Summit 2B” as their textbook at Islamic Azad university, Tabriz branch, and Jahad daneshgahiin Urmia, Iran. Out of 150 participants of the study 10 were instructors and 140 were students. For the survey the checklist of Doaud andCelce-Murcia (1979) based on five criteria of subject matter, vocabulary and structure, exercise, illustration, and physical make-up wasemployed and distributed among the instructors and students; while, for the interview the researcher-designed questions were used forinterviewing the instructors. The quantitative data obtained fr...
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IntroductionRecent approaches to foreign language education emphasize the significance of the students' own contribution to their language learning through initiative-taking and active involvement. Students need to take charge of... more
IntroductionRecent approaches to foreign language education emphasize the significance of the students' own contribution to their language learning through initiative-taking and active involvement. Students need to take charge of their learning in order to enhance their autonomy as students and language users. This shift in the research has brought an increased interest to the students themselves as learners in general and as language learners in particular. Students need to be facilitated to develop a basic reflective orientation by working on their experiences, beliefs and assumptions of language and learning (Breen, 2001).Discovery learning techniques include a rich variety of interactive practices whereby the participants have opportunities to learn from their own and each other's experiences, being actively and personally engaged in the process. Using form focused discovery approaches to discover how a particular language form functions, discovering the way the form is ...
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1. IntroductionLanguage learning and language success have been gone under investigation from various dimensions. Researchers have tried to discover factors that facilitate or harden the learning quality. One of these factors is... more
1. IntroductionLanguage learning and language success have been gone under investigation from various dimensions. Researchers have tried to discover factors that facilitate or harden the learning quality. One of these factors is undoubtedly the extroversion/introversion personality types of the learners. Experienced teachers usually come across situations in which students with relatively same level of linguistic knowledge are remarkably different in their performance. In other words, teachers are sometimes surprised by high and low scores of students in conditions that those students have studied the same textbooks, have received the same instructions from their teacher and have shared the similar conditions for learning; but after taking a performance test, the results are significantly different.Regarding the relationship between extroversion/ introversion and L2 learning, in fact, there are two major contradictory hypotheses. The first which has been the most widely researched a...
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This study investigated the effect of using visual aids, semantic elaboration, and visual aids plus semantic elaboration on the Iranian EFL learners' vocabulary learning. To conduct the study, the researchers assigned 49 elementary... more
This study investigated the effect of using visual aids, semantic elaboration, and visual aids plus semantic elaboration on the Iranian EFL learners' vocabulary learning. To conduct the study, the researchers assigned 49 elementary learners to three homogeneous groups according to their proficiency level. Then, a pre-test of Paribakht and Wesche's Vocabulary Knowledge Scale was given to each group. As the treatment, the first experimental group consisting of 17 learners received visual aids instruction. The second experimental group had 16 learners who received semantic elaboration method. The last experimental group including 16 learners received visual aids plus semantic elaboration instruction. After the treatment, a similar post-test was used again. Then, an ANOVA analysis was run on the data. The results of ANOVA analysis indicated a significant difference in the performance of the learners of three groups in their post-tests. For determining the place of the difference...
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The aim of this study was to find out whether listening to English songs can improve pre-intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension. To this end, a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design as one of the... more
The aim of this study was to find out whether listening to English songs can improve pre-intermediate EFL learners’ listening comprehension. To this end, a non-randomized pretest-posttest control group design as one of the quasi-experimental research designs was employed. The sample of the study consisted of 40 male and female English learners from two classes in an Institute in Marand, Iran. The two classes were randomly assigned into the experimental and control groups. Then, a PET test was used to check the homogeneity of both groups. The listening section of PET was also considered as the pretest of the study. Then, fifteen English songs were used in the experimental group during the treatment period. Each session, within 45 minutes, one song was played for and practiced with the learners. Meanwhile, the control group had their usual teacher -fronted class without listening to songs. At the end, both groups were post tested on their listening comprehension using the listening s...
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The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cooperative directed reading (CDR) on the writing performance of ESL students. A quasi-experimental research with non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was... more
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of cooperative directed reading (CDR) on the writing performance of ESL students. A quasi-experimental research with non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design was employed. Three intact classes of freshman students taking the expository writing course were used as the sample (N=102) of the study for the duration of one semester. The classes were randomly assigned into Cooperative Directed Reading (CDR) (n=41), Directed Reading without Cooperation (DR-C) (n=40), and No Treatment (NT) (n=21) groups. Two writing samples on two different but comparable expository writing prompts were collected from the groups at the pretest. Then, two main strategies of Cooperative Reading Circles (CRCs) with discussion roles and KWLH (what I know about the topic - what I want to know- what I have learned- how I can learn more) strategy were used in CDR group, while only KWLH strategy was employed in DR-C group. The No Treatment group...
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1. IntroductionAlthough the importance of listening for second or foreign language (L2) acquisition is recognized (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996), both learners and teachers lack a clear understanding of how to develop this skill (Cha mbers,... more
1. IntroductionAlthough the importance of listening for second or foreign language (L2) acquisition is recognized (Wolvin & Coakley, 1996), both learners and teachers lack a clear understanding of how to develop this skill (Cha mbers, 1996; Graham, 2006). Listening has also received less research attention than other skills (Vandergrift, 1997). Therefore, the field requires more exploratory studies which might inform principled decisions about pedagogy and research in relation to listening. The present study will be conducted in order to fill this gap and to offer a clearer perspective on listening comprehension ability which differs significantly from those adopted in most previous researches.Listening plays an important role in communication as it is said that, from the total time spent on commun icating, listening takes up 40 -50%; speaking, 25-30%; reading, 11-16%; and writing, about 9% (Mendelsohn, 1994). Although the teaching of listening comprehension has long been somewhat n...
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This study investigated the impact of semantic clustering on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary retention at advanced level. Participants were female learners randomly assigned to two groups of 15. Four instruments (TOEFL test; vocabulary... more
This study investigated the impact of semantic clustering on Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary retention at advanced level. Participants were female learners randomly assigned to two groups of 15. Four instruments (TOEFL test; vocabulary pretest; immediate posttest, and delayed recall posttest) were used. The experimental group underwent semantic clustering vocabulary presentation in which the learners were provided with six lists each containing ten semantically related words in sentences, while, the control group was provided with the same words but the sentences were presented in a random way containing different topics, not semantic groups. The results revealed the outperformance of the control group in the delayed recall posttest.
1. IntroductionNeeds analysis, also known as needs assessment plays a great role in the process of designing and carrying out any language course, whether English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or English for general purposes (EGP) courses,... more
1. IntroductionNeeds analysis, also known as needs assessment plays a great role in the process of designing and carrying out any language course, whether English for Specific Purposes (ESP) or English for general purposes (EGP) courses, and its centrality has been admired by several scholars and authors ( Nunan, 2001; Nation & Macalister, 2010). Furthermore, the importance of carrying out a needs analysis for developing English for academic purposes (EAP) courses is emphasized in different contexts (Berwick, 1989; Brindley, 1989; Munby, 1978; Hutchinson and Waters, 1987). According to Iwai (1999), the term needs analysis involves activities that pave the way for collecting information which is considered as foundation in developing a curriculum that will meet the needs of a particular group of students. Brindley (1989) and Berwick (1989) believe that there are various definitions and different types of needs and accounts of problems and limitations in making use of this concept, in...
The purpose of this study was to find the Iranian less and more experienced EFL teachers' beliefs in marking students' errors in writing, their preferred types of written corrective feedback, the most useful kind of teachers'... more
The purpose of this study was to find the Iranian less and more experienced EFL teachers' beliefs in marking students' errors in writing, their preferred types of written corrective feedback, the most useful kind of teachers' written error correction feedback, and the differences between what they believe and what they actually do in giving feedback. The study was done by the cooperation of 120 available university teachers (53 less experienced and 67 more experienced) teaching writing to EFL learners at different universities in Iran. A written feedback questionnaire was employed in this descriptive survey in which both quantitative (closed-ended questions and paper investigation) and qualitative (open-ended questions) ways of data collection were used. Descriptive statistics including frequency and percentage were estimated in the quantitative data analysis. The results revealed that in error marking and in finding the most useful kind of error correction, less and mor...
1. IntroductionLanguage acquisition/ learning is one of the most impressive and fascinating aspects of human development. Many researchers in EFL setting believe that learners in EFL classrooms have certain characteristics that will lead... more
1. IntroductionLanguage acquisition/ learning is one of the most impressive and fascinating aspects of human development. Many researchers in EFL setting believe that learners in EFL classrooms have certain characteristics that will lead to more or less successful language learning. All normal children, given a normal upbringing, are successful in acquiring their first language. But as for foreign language, their success varies greatly. So there must be such characteristics that make this great difference. Personality characteristics are among the factors which are generally considered to be pertinent to language learning (Miller, 1991; Barrick & Mount, 1993; Erdheim, Wang & Zickar, 2006). Personality characteristics within a person can help in some way to the success of language learning. Self-esteem is one of the important facets. Self-esteem is probably the most important aspect of any human behavior. Malinowski (1923) stated that all human beings have a need for phatic communion...
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The purpose of this study was to find the Iranian less and more experienced EFL teachers' beliefs in marking students' errors in writing, their preferred types of written corrective feedback, the most useful kind of teachers'... more
The purpose of this study was to find the Iranian less and more experienced EFL teachers' beliefs in marking students' errors in writing, their preferred types of written corrective feedback, the most useful kind of teachers' written error correction feedback, and the differences between what they believe and what they actually do in giving feedback. The study was done by the cooperation of 120 available university teachers (53 less 1 PhD Candidate in TEFL, Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran; golpourf@gmail.com 2 Assistant Professor of TEFL, Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran, (Corresponding Author); ahour@iaut.ac.ir; touranahour@yahoo.com 3 Assistant Professor of TEFL, Department of English, Tabriz Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tabriz, Iran ahangari@iaut.ac.ir DOI: 10.22051/lghor.2020.28210.1184 248 — Iranian EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices Regarding Written Corrective Feedback with...
The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of metacognitive strategy (planning, self-monitoring) instruction on reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants were 30 male and female Iranian EFL learners in... more
The present study was conducted to investigate the effect of metacognitive strategy (planning, self-monitoring) instruction on reading comprehension of Iranian EFL learners. The participants were 30 male and female Iranian EFL learners in advanced level in a language institute in Zanjan. To meet the aim of the study, two reading comprehension tests were administered to the participants in two groups. In the first phase, a reading comprehension was administered as a pre-test. In the second phase, two groups received five sessions of instruction on metacognitive strategies, one on planning and the other on self-monitoring strategy based on the Cognitive Academic Language Learning Approach (CALLA). In the third phase, after completion of the instruction, a reading comprehension test as a post-test was administered to the groups. Data analysis revealed that participants in two groups outperformed in post-test of reading comprehension. It is implied that the instruction of planning and s...