Books by Dr. Amin Marzban
Papers by Dr. Amin Marzban
International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies, Mar 1, 2015
Different world languages have a lot of contact with each other and have had different influences... more Different world languages have a lot of contact with each other and have had different influences on one another. Cognates, words which are similar across two or more languages in some aspects, especially with regard to pronunciation, portray an interesting and relevant aspect of foreign/second language translation and research. This study intended to identify a type of cognate words called false cognates in Persian and English, words which have the same form in two languages but represent different meanings, and tried to study and determine the historical relations between English and Persian words. It also aimed to trace their route back from Proto Indo-European languages to the modern languages. To this end, the related literature was gone through and a sufficient corpus of information has been revealed. Afterwards, authentic monolingual dictionaries in both Farsi and English languages were consulted to provide definitions for the cognates and allow for their crosslinguistic comparison. The findings revealed that most of such problematic cognates with different meanings in Farsi and English as found through this study are likely to be confusing and deceptive for Farsi-speaking EFL learners. The findings also pointed to the need for this line of research to receive more scholarly attention. The study of true and false cognates has some implications for contrastive analysts, error analysts, translators, translation theorists, foreign language teachers, curriculum designers, as well as lexicographers and lexicologists.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, Dec 29, 2014
Abstract This study intends to find out the attitudes of EFL learners and instructors concerning ... more Abstract This study intends to find out the attitudes of EFL learners and instructors concerning the use of power point presentation in teaching and learning. To this end, 40 learners and 10 instructors were selected as participants. The learners and instructors were given questionnaires including 10 and 15 items, respectively. The results indicated that both learners and instructors have positive attitudes towards the use of power point presentations in teaching and learning as conducted in EFL classrooms. The results also illustrated that EFL learners and instructors, especially the participants in this study, are in need of being familiarized with the use of technology in general and power point presentation in particular while teaching and learning. The results of this study could contribute to our understanding of the barriers which would hinder the application of technology in teaching and learning in the EFL context as focused by modern ELT approaches and methods.
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 2016
1.IntroductionConcept mapping can be used to transform theoretical knowledge and understanding in... more 1.IntroductionConcept mapping can be used to transform theoretical knowledge and understanding into concrete visual signs and descriptions that are suitable for comparison and measurement. The concept-map strategy can show who is in most need of support and when this support should be given by making the learning process visible. Through communication people discuss and share ideas either orally or in writing. In this study, communication is considered as fluency and accuracy. According to Alam (2013), Oral communication is a bidirectional process between the speaker and the listener which involves the productive skills of speaking and the receptive skills of comprehension (Byrne, 1986).Stabb (1992) considers listening and speaking as oral communication skills. As he says, "spoken communication abilities mean both speaking and listening to oral language, either process of talking and listening are lifelong activities and probably our crucial communication device". Stabb em...
International journal of humanities and social sciences, 2016
Lesson Study is considered as an updated way of professional development which aims at improving ... more Lesson Study is considered as an updated way of professional development which aims at improving the teaching process and as a result improving students' progress. This study applied an empirical implementation of lesson study in the EFL context in order to investigate teachers' viewpoints on the practical implementation of lesson study. To this end, 15 Iranian EFL teachers were selected through random sampling. The survey method was employed and "teachers' viewpoint on practical implementation of lesson study" questionnaire was administered to them after implementation of lesson study in their classrooms. The results showed that teachers had positive viewpoint toward the different parts of the questionnaire that deals with teaching and learning procedure. Lesson study is used as a tool to provide teachers with an opportunity to emphasize the quality of teaching that consequently affect the quality of learning.
Lesson Study is considered as an updated way of professional development which aims at improving ... more Lesson Study is considered as an updated way of professional development which aims at improving the teaching process and as a result improving students' progress. This study applied an empirical implementation of lesson study in the EFL context in order to investigate teachers' viewpoints on the practical implementation of lesson study. To this end, 15 Iranian EFL teachers were selected through random sampling. The survey method was employed and "teachers' viewpoint on practical implementation of lesson study" questionnaire was administered to them after the implementation of lesson study in their classrooms. The results showed that teachers had positive viewpoint toward the different parts of the questionnaire that deals with teaching and learning procedure. Lesson study is used as a tool to provide teachers with an opportunity to emphasize the quality of teaching that consequently affect the quality of learning.
The present study aimed to explore Iranian EFL learners ' perception of leaning environment ... more The present study aimed to explore Iranian EFL learners ' perception of leaning environment in English language institutes and its relationship with learners ' English proficiency. The participants included 100 intermediate EFL learners (50 males and 50 females) aged 15 to 25 years. The instruments in this study included The What Is Happening in This Classroom (WIHIC) Questionnaire (Adolple, 2002) that was used to measure the participants’ perceptions of the language learning environment. In addition, a shortened version of a paper-based TOEFL was used to measure the participants ' level of English proficiency. The results indicated that there was a significant relationship between Iranian EFL learners ' perceptions of their preferred learning environment and their English proficiency level. Besides, the male and female participants ’ perceptions of actual and preferred learning environment were significantly associated with their English proficiency level.
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 2016
1.IntroductionConcept mapping can be used to transform theoretical knowledge and understanding in... more 1.IntroductionConcept mapping can be used to transform theoretical knowledge and understanding into concrete visual signs and descriptions that are suitable for comparison and measurement. The concept-map strategy can show who is in most need of support and when this support should be given by making the learning process visible. Through communication people discuss and share ideas either orally or in writing. In this study, communication is considered as fluency and accuracy. According to Alam (2013), Oral communication is a bidirectional process between the speaker and the listener which involves the productive skills of speaking and the receptive skills of comprehension (Byrne, 1986).Stabb (1992) considers listening and speaking as oral communication skills. As he says, "spoken communication abilities mean both speaking and listening to oral language, either process of talking and listening are lifelong activities and probably our crucial communication device". Stabb em...
The aim of the present study was to investigate Iranian EFL learners’ awareness and use of the se... more The aim of the present study was to investigate Iranian EFL learners’ awareness and use of the self-regulated learning strategies to check for the possible effects of such strategies on learners’ speaking ability. The participants in the study were 40 EFL Iranian learners aged 18-20, attending a speaking course in four English language institutes in Shiraz, Iran. The participants were randomly divided into two groups; namely, the control and experimental, each including 20 learners. The students in the experimental group were subjected to the self-regulated learning intervention to promote awareness and use self-regulated learning strategies. In contrast, the control group students were taught using traditional approaches to English speaking with no use of such strategies. However, the content of the instruction was the same for both groups done by the same teacher for 14 consecutive weeks. The instruments used in the study were two comparable IELTS full speaking test, to evaluate t...
Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 2016
1. IntroductionWith the on-going development in the technology domain, the interest in applying t... more 1. IntroductionWith the on-going development in the technology domain, the interest in applying the innovations to the field of ELT (English Language Teaching) is spreading rapidly. In the field of linguistics, most of the scholars and researchers, likewise, believe in the significance of knowing how these technologies in context would influence the future educational programs within the classroom instructions. The existed literature about using technology in language teaching and learning indicates that researchers like Underwood (1984) have investigated the use of computers in language learning since the 1960s. As such, a momentous amount of literature explores the significance of CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning) in relation to language education but few studies investigate how and why technology integration is more effective on the process of teaching and learning. Levy (1997), described CALL as "the search for and study of applications of the computer in language ...
The aim of this study, find the relationship betwee n Iranian EFL learners’ use of computer assis... more The aim of this study, find the relationship betwee n Iranian EFL learners’ use of computer assisted language learning (CALL) and the degree of involved emotional intelligence. To this end, 150 EFL learners were selected as partici pants from four English language institutes in Shiraz, Iran. To collect data, standa rd questionnaire for EQ level (Bradberry & Greaves, 2004), and standard language test (TOEFL) were used. The participants took part in TOEFL pre and post-tests after undergoing instru ction through CALL. Collect data was analyzed via Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 22. According to analyze data, ANOVA test was used to show differences. The results showed that Iranian EFL learners’ with high and middle scores in emotional i telligence test performed better in the proficiency test of TOEFL as post-test and no diffe rence was observed between scores of TOEFL pre and post-tests in Iranian EFL learner's w ith low scores of emotional intelligences. Thu...
Amin Marzban Assistant Professor Department of Foreign Languages Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad Univ... more Amin Marzban Assistant Professor Department of Foreign Languages Shiraz Branch, Islamic Azad University Shiraz, Iran Abstract. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between motivation in learning and English proficiency level in a sample of 100 Iranian EFL intermedite learners. The instruments used to collect the data included Gardner’s (2004) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) and a shortened version of a paper-based TOEFL test. The collected data were codified and entered into SPSS Software (Version 19) and were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t-test, and Pearson correlation coefficient. The results suggested that the highly motivated language learners in this study scored slightly higher on the English proficiency test than did the lower motivated participants and there was a positive significant relationship between the participants’ motivation and their English proficiency. It was noted that the female participants were slightly more motivated to learn...
Presently, one of the basic challenges that EFL / ESL learners encounter while learning English i... more Presently, one of the basic challenges that EFL / ESL learners encounter while learning English is vocabulary acquisition, this difficulty in acquiring vocabulary is one of the most prominent aspects of second or foreign language learning process as it can be facilitated through pleasure and ease for EFL / ESL learners. To this end, introducing vocabulary learning strategies to EFL / ESL learners through which their vocabulary knowledge may be improved and applied to real contexts more effectively is central to the realm of language teaching. In this critical review, the importance of vocabulary learning and three commonly used approaches implementing EFL / ESL classrooms including Computer - Assisted Vocabulary Acquisition (CAVOCA), vocabulary learning through games and vocabulary learning through story retelling will be discussed and analyzed.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2015
The present study aimed to explore the instructional efficacy of self-regulated learning strategi... more The present study aimed to explore the instructional efficacy of self-regulated learning strategies on Iranian EFL learners’ autonomy. The participants in this study were 40 Iranian intermediate EFL learners, aged 18-20, attending speaking courses in four English language institutes in Shiraz, Iran. At the beginning of the study, the participants were randomly divided into two groups: the control group with 20 learners (10 males and 10 females) and the experimental group including 20 learners (10 males and 10 females). The learners in the experimental group were subjected to the self-regulated learning intervention to get to know and use self-regulated learning strategies. In contrast, the control group students were taught the course using traditional approaches to speaking English with no use of self-regulated learning strategies. The instruments used in this study were the Self-regulation Regulation Learning Questionnaire (Brown, Miller & Lawendowski, 1999) and Learner Autonomy Q...
International Journal of Multicultural and Multireligious Understanding, 2020
The emergence of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has drastically changed the mode of t... more The emergence of Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) has drastically changed the mode of teaching in many educational contexts. CALL can not only facilitate meaningful language learning but it can also accelerate it while giving students’ learning more depth and breath. Different types of learning in general and distance learning in particular, which is now prevalent in the present Corona pandemic, is not feasible without computer-based training. A mixed-method research design was adopted in one semester. The study measurement consisted of two sections: a quantitative section in which a survey questionnaire was utilized and a qualitative one in which, on the whole, 30 sessions of semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants to understand instructors’ opinion about merits of using CALL in teaching English. Using non-parametric test of Spearman correlation and the independent samples t-test, it was illuminated that having computer facilities impels instructors to...
Betriebswirtschaftliche Forschung und Praxis, 2018
This study, in the first place, attempted to consider the relationship between EFL teachers' self... more This study, in the first place, attempted to consider the relationship between EFL teachers' self-efficacy and their pedagogical success in language class environment. In the second place, the role of teachers' years of teaching experience in their self-efficacy was investigated. Third, the relationship between teachers' age and their self-efficacy was studied. Finally the relationship between teacher's gender and their self-efficacy was considered. For this purpose, 28 EFL teachers were selected according to available sampling from the different high schools in Sarvestan, a city in the south of Iran. Near the end of the term, the teachers were asked to complete the "Teachers' Sense of Efficacy Scale". Simultaneously, a questionnaire which is called the "Characteristics of Successful EFL Teachers Questionnaire" was filled in by the teachers' students (N=280). Through this questionnaire, the teachers' performance was evaluated by their students. The subsequent data analysis and statistical calculations via correlation revealed that there is a significant relationship between teachers' success and their self-efficacy. Furthermore, significant correlations were found between teachers' self-efficacy, their teaching experience, and age. The research showed that female teachers had more self-efficacy than male teachers. The conclusions and implications of the research are further discussed with reference to earlier findings.
Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, Dec 29, 2014
This study intends to find out the attitudes of EFL learners and instructors concerning the use o... more This study intends to find out the attitudes of EFL learners and instructors concerning the use of power point presentation in teaching and learning. To this end, 40 learners and 10 instructors were selected as participants. The learners and instructors were given questionnaires including 10 and 15 items, respectively. The results indicated that both learners and instructors have positive attitudes towards the use of power point presentations in teaching and learning as conducted in EFL classrooms. The results also illustrated that EFL learners and instructors, especially the participants in this study, are in need of being familiarized with the use of technology in general and power point presentation in particular while teaching and learning. The results of this study could contribute to our understanding of the barriers which would hinder the application of technology in teaching and learning in the EFL context as focused by modern ELT approaches and methods.
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Books by Dr. Amin Marzban
Papers by Dr. Amin Marzban