Ali Jahangard
Abstract
This study aimed to discover whether an online writing system has any effect on Iranians’ EFL academic writing performance. The study also sought to find out whether the proficiency level of learners influenced the effect of the system on academic writing. To meet this end, an online writing system ...
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This study aimed to discover whether an online writing system has any effect on Iranians’ EFL academic writing performance. The study also sought to find out whether the proficiency level of learners influenced the effect of the system on academic writing. To meet this end, an online writing system was developed and 68 undergraduate students of the General English language course studying at Sharif University of Technology were requested to participate in this study. First, their English language proficiency was measured by a language proficiency test that included 80 questions of one of the latest versions of the official TOEFL iBT test, which was provided by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). Then, over an eight-week period, the participants were assigned to write eight versions of academic writing that followed a genre-based teaching approach through computer-based instructions. The writing scores were statistically analyzed and the results revealed that providing students with computer-assisted instruction (CAI) led to significant improvements in their academic writing performance. Moreover, according to the findings of this study, the learners’ level of proficiency did influence the effect of the system.
Ali Jahangard; Neda Khanlarzadeh; Ashkan Latifi
Volume 8, Issue 18 , December 2016, , Pages 123-143
Abstract
Cross-cultural analyses of speech acts are among the hot topics in contrastive studies and up to now various researchers have explored this very issue. Despite the ample studies in this field, the speech act of congratulation, especially the subject of ‘birthday congratulation’ remains untouched. ...
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Cross-cultural analyses of speech acts are among the hot topics in contrastive studies and up to now various researchers have explored this very issue. Despite the ample studies in this field, the speech act of congratulation, especially the subject of ‘birthday congratulation’ remains untouched. The study investigates the possible effects of being an Iranian or an American typical Facebook user upon the kind of the category which is drawn upon to send an addressee a birthday congratulation note on Facebook. The data collected are 120 birthday congratulation notes issued by 60 Iranians and 60 Americans on Facebook. Seven dominant categories emerged from the study namely ‘Illocutionary Force Indicating Device’ (IFID), ‘Blessing Wishes’, ‘Divine Statements’, ‘Poem and Pieces of Literature’, ‘Endearments’, ‘Felling Expressions’ and ‘Compliments’. Moreover, the possible significant differences between the two groups within these categories were explored. The paper concluded that, in five categories, the differences between the two groups proved significant where the two categories ‘IFID’ and ‘Blessing Wishes’ did not show any significant differences.
Ali Jahangard
Volume 5, Issue 12 , December 2013, , Pages 43-61
Abstract
The study aimed at investigating whether the retention of vocabulary acquired incidentally is dependent upon the amount of task-induced involvement. Immediate and delayed retention of twenty unfamiliar words was examined in three learning tasks( listening comprehension + group discussion, listening comprehension ...
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The study aimed at investigating whether the retention of vocabulary acquired incidentally is dependent upon the amount of task-induced involvement. Immediate and delayed retention of twenty unfamiliar words was examined in three learning tasks( listening comprehension + group discussion, listening comprehension + dictionary checking + summary writing in L1, and listening comprehension + dictionary checking + sentence writing with the target words) inducing differential ‘involvement loads’- consisting of varying degrees of need, search and evaluation. Time-on-task was kept constant among all three tasks. The results partially supported the Involvement Load Hypothesis: The sentence writing task generated the highest retention rate, a finding which is quite in harmony with the Hypothesis’s prediction. However, the other two tasks did not result in different retention rates despite equal involvement loads. These results are discussed with reference to the involvement load hypothesis and some suggestions are made as to how to improve and revise the original theory.
Ali Jahangard; Ahmad Moinzadeh; Akbar Karimi
Volume 3, Issue 8 , December 2011, , Pages 91-113
Abstract
This study was designed to investigate the effect of grammar and vocabulary pre-teaching, as two types of pre-reading activities, on the Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension from a schema–theoretic perspective. The sample consisted of 90 female students studying at pre-university centers ...
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This study was designed to investigate the effect of grammar and vocabulary pre-teaching, as two types of pre-reading activities, on the Iranian EFL learners’ reading comprehension from a schema–theoretic perspective. The sample consisted of 90 female students studying at pre-university centers of Isfahan. The subjects were randomly divided into three equal-in-number groups. They participated in a test of overall language proficiency, and the results indicated that they were linguistically homogeneous. Then, the three groups were exposed to different treatments. Group A received grammar pre-teaching, whereas group B received vocabulary pre-teaching. The subject in group C (the control group), however, received no pre-teaching. The subjects in each one of the experimental groups took reading comprehension posttests. The results showed no significant difference among the three groups though the vocabulary group performed slightly better than the other two groups, and the performance of the grammar group was seemingly worse than the control group. The findings of the study are discussed in detail with reference to the schema-theoretic view of reading
