English language teaching
Alyaa Alkawaz; Mahmoud Afrouz; Daryush Nejadansari; Azizollah Dabaghi
Abstract
L2 learners' pragmatic development could be manifested by their proper speech act production. Due to the existing differences among languages, errors in speech act realization are inevitable. Employing well-established teaching methods could help L2 learners overcome their problems in speech act production. ...
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L2 learners' pragmatic development could be manifested by their proper speech act production. Due to the existing differences among languages, errors in speech act realization are inevitable. Employing well-established teaching methods could help L2 learners overcome their problems in speech act production. This endeavor aimed to explore the effects of explicit metapragmatic instruction on Iraqi EFL learners' use of English requests, apologies, and refusals examining the possible intervening role of error type and gender. The study sample comprised 80 English major B.A. students at Al-Kufa University, Iraq. Within six online sessions, the EG received instruction through direct awareness raising and being provided with metapragmatic information. Data analyses indicated that explicit pragmatic instruction significantly improved the students' speech act realization. Additionally, while the female learners benefitted more from the intervention and a higher percentage of sociopragmatic, compared to pragmalinguistic, errors were amended after the treatment, the variables of gender and pragmatic error types did not have significant intervening effects. The findings imply that developing pragmatic competence via direct pragmatic intervention and metapragmatic knowledge awareness needs to receive much attention on the part of Iraqi language instructors, materials developers, and curriculum designers, as it could greatly help learners avoid pragmatic failures.
English language teaching
Giti Mousapour Negari; Maryam Zeynali
Abstract
Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) modes can ease scaffolding through multimodality in collaborative writing tasks. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding synchronous and asynchronous CMC environments. Additionally, there are conflicting results regarding gender’s pedagogical beliefs ...
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Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) modes can ease scaffolding through multimodality in collaborative writing tasks. However, there is an ongoing debate regarding synchronous and asynchronous CMC environments. Additionally, there are conflicting results regarding gender’s pedagogical beliefs in CMC applications. The current study aimed to explore if there is a difference between synchronous and asynchronous multimodal scaffolding on the freewriting complexity of EFL learners. Besides, genders’ perceptions about applying multimodal scaffolding were compared. Participants were 84 EFL learners who randomly assigned into three groups. For the pre-test, a picture, podcast, and movie were shared, and the participants were asked to complete their freewriting tasks individually within the allocated time. For treatment, one experimental group was scaffolded in a synchronous environment by sending messages on WhatsApp, and the other experimental group experienced asynchronous scaffolding via email. The results indicated that multimodal scaffolding is beneficial. However, no significant difference was found between the writing complexity of synchronous and asynchronous groups. Furthermore, a significant difference between males’ and females’ tendency to use multimodal scaffolding was uncovered. The findings highlighted the role synchronous and asynchronous multimodal scaffolding can play in collaborative writing tasks
English language learning
Ali Hashemi; Fatemeh Mahdavirad; Golnar Mazdayasna
Abstract
Writing a book review is an instance of evaluative academic writing where thewriter is involved in an interaction with the author and the reader, evaluates theviewpoints stated in the book and voices his own position and stance in a dialoguewith the reader. Working within the framework of Martin and ...
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Writing a book review is an instance of evaluative academic writing where thewriter is involved in an interaction with the author and the reader, evaluates theviewpoints stated in the book and voices his own position and stance in a dialoguewith the reader. Working within the framework of Martin and White’s (2005)Appraisal Theory as an effective tool for studying the essential resources employedin this interaction and evaluation, the present study examined 60 book reviewsfrom the Humanities academic journals written by native male and female writers,and tried to investigate the type and frequency of the three Appraisal categories(Attitude, Engagement, Graduation). The findings indicate that both writer groupsmade extensive use of these resources in their writings. However, the male bookreview writers exceeded the female writers in all the three categories. In addition,the Attitude resources were used the most and The Engagement resources werethe least employed resources. The implications of the study for teaching writingskills and developing materials and tasks for writing courses at academic levels arementioned in detail
Mohammad Ahmadi safa; Mohammad Hadi Mahmoodi
Volume 4, Issue 10 , March 2013, , Pages 1-26
Abstract
Second language learners often develop grammatical competence in the absence of concomitant pragmatic competence (Kasper & Roever, 2005) and the exact nature of the relationship between the two competences is still indistinct and in need of inquiries ( Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Khatib & ...
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Second language learners often develop grammatical competence in the absence of concomitant pragmatic competence (Kasper & Roever, 2005) and the exact nature of the relationship between the two competences is still indistinct and in need of inquiries ( Bardovi-Harlig, 1999; Khatib & Ahmadisafa, 2011). This study is a partial attempt to address the lacuna and aims to see if any relationship can be found between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners’ lexico-grammatical and interlanguage pragmatic competences and if such a relationship is found, whether the gender variable affects it or not. A group of 110 male/female senior university EFL students took a standardized lexico-grammatical proficiency test and a researcher made and validated multiple choice pragmatic discourse completion task test including four speech acts of disagreement, scolding, request and complaint at four levels of formality and familiarity. The results indicate that there is a positive correlation between the learners' lexico-grammatical and pragmatic competences. Furthermore, the correlation is stronger for female EFL learners than the male participants though the pragmatic competence level of the male and female participants was not significantly different. The results imply that grammatical competence is not in itself sufficient for the EFL learners' pragmatic competence but it can definitely constrain the development of interlanguage pragmatic competence
Naser Rashidi; Fatemeh Javan mardi
Volume 4, Issue 10 , March 2013, , Pages 53-75
Abstract
With the development of research on educational psychology and foreign language teaching and learning, one of the most controversial concepts in educational psychology might be the issues related to the students’ achievement goal orientations. Regarding the goals that students adopt which might ...
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With the development of research on educational psychology and foreign language teaching and learning, one of the most controversial concepts in educational psychology might be the issues related to the students’ achievement goal orientations. Regarding the goals that students adopt which might influence their academic success and failure, this study was undertaken to determine whether gender and different years of education affected the relationship between students’ achievement goal and their academic achievement. To achieve such goals, achievement goal orientation questionnaires were distributed among 182 male and female B.A. students, majoring in English Literature at Shiraz University. The obtained data were analyzed through multiple regression coefficient. The results showed that only in the case of females, gender affected the relationship between students with performance approach and performance avoidant goal orientation and their academic achievement. In addition, in the case of freshmen and juniors, only performance approach was the significant predictor of the students’ academic achievement. Regarding sophomore students, adopting such a goal did not have significant effects on their academic achievement. Likewise, in the case of seniors, both performance approach and performance avoidant had significant effects on the students’ academic achievement.
