Farzaneh Dehghan - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Farzaneh Dehghan

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2016

Over the past decades, there has been an increasing tendency to incorporate new technologies in l... more Over the past decades, there has been an increasing tendency to incorporate new technologies in language education. Although EFL students and teachers are accustomed to using new technologies in their everyday life, they may not be well aware of such assets in education. This qualitative study aimed at investigating how Iranian B.A. English students perceived and used new technologies before and after an undergraduate course of CALL. A total of 27 senior students of Yasouj University participated in this study. They were interviewed by one of the researchers before and after the course. Content analysis of the interviews revealed that almost all participants appreciated the course and it had engendered their enthusiasm about CALL potentialities and the new learning options it might offer. The respondents maintained that the course raised their awareness on how CALL could expedite their learning through providing more chances of both oral and written communications with native and no...

Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies, Mar 10, 2021

... Archive of SID Relationship between Foreign Language Beliefs, Proficiency Level and the Use o... more ... Archive of SID Relationship between Foreign Language Beliefs, Proficiency Level and the Use of Language Learning Strategies (Case Study: Female English Majors in Shiraz)1 Morteza Yamini* Farzaneh Dehghan** Abstract: This paper reports on a study that explores the ...

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2011

Reading skill has taken on an important role in most EFL teaching situations. While linguistic kn... more Reading skill has taken on an important role in most EFL teaching situations. While linguistic knowledge is only one aspect of this skill, background knowledge including culture can also play an important role (Alptekin, 2006; Johnson, 1981; Pritchard, 1990; Steffensen, Chitra, & Anderson, 1979). This study investigated the effect of cultural background or cultural schema on the performance of Iranian EFL students on local (bottom-up) and global (top-down) processes. Sixty-six female pre-university students took part in the study. They read five texts with familiar cultural themes and five texts with culturally unfamiliar topics (total=10). The multiple-choice items were designed in a way to test both bottom-up processing (word recognition, literal comprehension and finding referents of pronouns) and top-down processing (making inferences, skimming, scanning, etc). The findings showed that our students performed significantly better on local items compared with global items both for (un)familiar texts. It was also observed that their overall performance was mostly influenced by text familiarity. Their higher scores on local items can be explained by the fact that these items are totally easier to process due to the linguistic context available. In contrast, the difficulty of the global items can be explained because our EFL learners need extra linguistic knowledge to process such items. Also, this difference could be attributed to the teaching situation in which language teachers do not teach students how to read at all and learners are not familiar with higher-level, global processes being important in reading comprehension.

Práxis Educacional, 2020

Resumo: A sobrecarga de trabalho do professor pode causar desafios para os professores, levando a... more Resumo: A sobrecarga de trabalho do professor pode causar desafios para os professores, levando a esgotamento a longo prazo, se não forem abordados. Consequentemente, o presente estudo tem como objetivo examinar as fontes de prevenção de burnout das perspectivas dos supervisores de EFL (inglês como língua estrangeira). Os participantes foram 85 supervisores iranianos de EFL, cujo trabalho era observar e dar feedback aos professores sobre seu desempenho no ensino em vários níveis de proficiência linguística, do nível básico ao avançado. Um projeto de método misto seqüencial foi empregado neste estudo. Primeiro, a coleta de dados qualitativos foi realizada por meio de entrevistas com 30 participantes, a fim de determinar as fontes de prevenção de burnout na perspectiva dos supervisores. A seguir, foi elaborado um questionário de prevenção de burnout, utilizando os resultados das entrevistas, após o qual foi aplicado aos demais participantes. Os dados coletados foram analisados por fatores para identificar os componentes do construto de prevenção de burnout. Os resultados da análise de conteúdo dos dados da entrevista indicaram que o apoio dos professores de seus colegas, a situação menos estressante e a satisfação no trabalho foram as principais fontes de prevenção de burnout. A análise fatorial mostrou as mesmas fontes de burnout que os principais componentes do construto de prevenção de burnout. As conclusões deste estudo enfatizam a contribuição do apoio educacional e emocional dos professores, proporcionando um local de trabalho construtivo e saudável, bem como a renda desejável como formas de prevenção do esgotamento nos professores de EFL.

Linguistics and Literature Studies, Jul 1, 2017

This study examined how Iranian EFL learners' level of academic self-schema is related to their w... more This study examined how Iranian EFL learners' level of academic self-schema is related to their willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, 243 female undergraduate EFL university students from Islamic Azad University, Shiraz Branch (convenience sampling) completed two questionnaires, namely, a WTC and a researcher-made self-schema questionnaire. The latter questionnaire was developed based on two types of self-schemas, namely, entity and incremental. Entity self-schema regard ability as fixed or unchangeable while incremental self-schema regards it as improvable and changeable in future. Correlation results (r=0.380, p<0.000) indicated a statistically moderate but significant relationship between self-schema and WTC scores. To measure the predictability of WTC scores on the basis of the two levels of self-schema scores, a linear regression was calculated. The entity R value (0.165) illustrates a low correlation between entity self-schema and WTC while the incremental R value (0.516) shows a moderate correlation between the incremental self-schema scores and WTC. It means that 26.6% of the WTC can be predicted by the incremental self-schema scores. The findings of the present study showed that the incremental self-schema can be an important factor in the EFL learners' willingness to communicate because it is related to choices and actions that affect learning.

Professional Development in Education, Feb 10, 2020

This study aims at investigating how a group of state school teachers in Iran perceived professio... more This study aims at investigating how a group of state school teachers in Iran perceived professionalism in their career. The study draws on the two senses of the concept of professionalism: indepen...

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2015

Journal of Teaching Language Skills, Dec 26, 2012

This study aims to examine the strategies utilized by eleven postgraduate students in an EFL univ... more This study aims to examine the strategies utilized by eleven postgraduate students in an EFL university context in their attempts to acquire the textual practices of their discipline. First-and second-year MA students, one Ph.D. student as well as individuals who had completed their MA programs in TEFL took part in interviews in order to elicit the strategies they used when they endeavored to write their disciplinespecific writings, such as articles, proposals and theses. The results revealed that the participants utilized socio-affective, communication and resourcing strategies more than cognitive strategies. However, they ignored metacognitive strategies, which might be due to a lack of conscious awareness of certain writing genres in the field. Social apprenticeship strategies were not considered to be of great importance by participants. Students were highly dependent on their instructors for feedback, though without bearing any sense of collaboration with them or their peers. The role of the explicit instruction of metacognitive genre awareness as well as the provision of an atmosphere of collaboration among students has been emphasized.

English Language Teaching, Oct 1, 2017

A challenge for many postgraduate students is to move from the state of novice observers to those... more A challenge for many postgraduate students is to move from the state of novice observers to those of professional contributors of a particular discourse community. They need to develop certain skills, practices, and competences, the demonstration of which is mostly through writing, called disciplinary writing expertise (DWE). DWE can be examined from two aspects of nature and development. This study aims at proposing a model of disciplinary writing expertise including both the competencies of DWE and factors developing these components. In-depth interviews with 28 postgraduate students of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) were collected and research papers written by these students were used to collect data. Based on substantive considerations and the results of the content analysis, five subcomponents of DWE were identified including strategic, genre, rhetorical, subject matter and discourse community knowledge components. Meanwhile, writing strategies and goal orientations were identified as two important factors influencing the development of disciplinary writing proficiency in a foreign language context. Two questionnaires were made and piloted to endorse these two factors among 538 postgraduate TEFL students. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we proposed a model to show the relationship among these two factors and the components of DWE. The results showed that those who followed mastery goals used all types of writing strategies to develop different subcomponents of DWE. On the other hand, those who followed context and career-directed goals used strategies to develop rhetorical knowledge mostly.

Topics in linguistics, Jun 1, 2016

Transitivity alternation refers to the causative/inchoative alternation of some unaccusative verb... more Transitivity alternation refers to the causative/inchoative alternation of some unaccusative verbs. Different languages use different patterns to show transitivity alternation morphologically. While some languages like English use zero or no overt lexical marking, other languages (e.g. Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese) use overt morphological markers to show transitivity. This study aims to investigate the degree to which similarities and/or mismatches between English and Persian influence the use of unaccusative and unergative verbs by Persianspeaking learners of English. Based on different verb types in English and Persian, seven verb categories were identified as the basis for comparison. A forced-choice elicitation test including 48 items was developed based on these seven verb categories. A proficiency test was also used to divide participants (116 undergraduate students of English) into high and low proficiency groups. The results revealed findings more in line with transfer at the morphological rather than the argument structure level (Montrul, 2000). Alternating unaccusatives with similar equivalent structures for transitive/intransitive pairs in Persian and non-alternating unaccusatives with different structures for transitive/intransitive pairs in Persian seem to be the most difficult verb categories for learners. The effect of proficiency level was also significant on the recognition of correct structures.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

This paper compares two areas of Egypt and Khorāsān in post-Islamic era regarding the loss and ma... more This paper compares two areas of Egypt and Khorāsān in post-Islamic era regarding the loss and maintenance of their mother tongues. While in Egypt, Coptic was gradually removed from both formal and colloquial usages, in Khorāsān, Persian (Farsi or Parsi Dari), though was out of official and governmental services for more than two centuries, was able to finally maintain its status. The most important reason found behind this difference can be attributed to the independence seeking movements in Khorāsān (e.g. Sho’ūbieh), leading to the establishment of the first post-Islamic independent Iranian governments who supported the revival of Iranian culture and the maintenance of Persian language. Secondly, the migration of Arab tribes and the Arabization of the conquered societies were more successful in Egypt compared to Eastern Iran, which changed the demographic composition of Egypt. Moreover, the role of Persian-speaking epic poets, the social class of dihgāns in Iranian society and the...

Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies, Mar 10, 2021

Background & Objectives: Students' inability to draft academic texts is among their main problems... more Background & Objectives: Students' inability to draft academic texts is among their main problems in learning English. Progress in this skill requires high concentration and motivation; thus, this problem even occurs in some cases as a disability. Self-Determination, which depends on fulfilling the basic psychological needs of individuals concerning autonomy, communication, and competence, can predict a desirable academic achievement. Students' inability to draft academic articles in English is mainly due to their lack of motivation, leading to inefficiency in this skill. Moreover, students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms encounter further issues in this area. Numerous researchers believe that students' academic writing ability is undesirable. This problem, sometimes, could be mainly manifested as an inability to draft an article in English. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of self-regulation strategies on academic motivation in learning English essay writing, as a second language, in students presenting ADHD symptoms. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and a control group design. The statistical population of the study consisted of all undergraduate students majoring in English (education, translation, & literature) at the Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, who were enrolled in the essay writing class, in 2017. In total, 126 students responded to the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS; Conners et al., 1999). Among them, 62 volunteers who met the inclusion criteria were selected by the convenience sampling method. They were then randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The inclusion criteria included the age range of 18-45 years and obtaining a score higher than the cutoff point (i.e., >50) on the CAARS. The study subjects completed the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Ryan, 1982) at the pretest and posttest stages. Self-Regulation training, according to the package of Graham and Harris (2005) was provided in fourteen 105minute sessions to the experimental group. The collected descriptive data were analyzed by mean and standard deviation. Furthermore, inferential statistics were performed by Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Chi-squared test in SPSS. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05. Results: The present study data indicated that the mean±SD scores of intrinsic motivation increased in the posttest (2.80±0.24), compared to the pretest (3.25±0.13) in the experimental group. The ANCOVA results suggested that (after removing the effect of the pretest), teaching selfregulation strategies was effective in improving intrinsic motivation in learning English essay writing in the explored students with ADHD symptoms (p<0.001). Additionally, the relevant eta-squared was measured to be 0.541. Conclusion: Implementing self-regulation strategies training method effectively increased academic motivation in learning English essay writing, as a second language, in students presenting ADHD symptoms.

رشد آموزش زبان, Mar 24, 2021

Robustness, teacher stress, and burnout were distinguished in a sample of 83 English prospective ... more Robustness, teacher stress, and burnout were distinguished in a sample of 83 English prospective EFL teachers in Iran. Teachers’ different responses to positively and negatively worded robustness items suggested positive and negative robustness reflecting stress resilience and stress vulnerability. Stress, positive robustness, and negative robustness all had main, independent and significant impact on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, whereas only positive robustness had a significant main effect on personal accomplishment. There was only some suggestive evidence to support that negative robustness mediated slightly the impact of stress on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and there was no evidence to support that positive robustness or negative robustness had stress-buffering effects on teacher burnout. Implications of the findings for preventive interventions to combat stress and avert burnout are discussed.

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2015

The objective of this study was to examine the Iranian language teachers’ perceptions of burnout ... more The objective of this study was to examine the Iranian language teachers’ perceptions of burnout causes and sources of prevention. Participants of the study consisted of 76 male and female language teachers with 2-10 years of teaching experience in Tehran. Selection of the participants was performed according to convenience sampling form a famous language school in Tehran. A sequential mixed approach was used, in which 20 teachers participated in interviews and the remaining participants completed the burnout prevention survey that was designed based on the qualitative data collected from the interviews. Then the burnout prevention questionnaire was developed using the results of the interviews and administered to the remaining participants. In the next step, analysis of the collected data was performed through factor analysis to identify the components of burnout prevention. According to the results of the content analysis of the interview data, Iranian EFL teachers viewed work and...

Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, Mar 1, 2012

AbstractThe present study explored two contradictory ideas about the domain of critical disciplin... more AbstractThe present study explored two contradictory ideas about the domain of critical disciplinary literacy development, namely, a culture-deterministic view, on the one hand and a training-based view on the other and the extent to which Iranian EFL disciplinary community members' (university professors and post-graduate students who will join this community in future) ideologies on critical literacy are in line with either of the two contradictory perspectives. The findings of the study showed that both viewpoints are involved in EFL community members' ideas about disciplinary literacy and its development.The ideas explored showed that both perspectives are involved in shaping EFL community members' ideas about critical disciplinary literacy. Three factors of culture, context and training were obtained as constructing Iranian EFL university professors and their post-graduate students' ideas about the nature and scope of critical disciplinary literacy skills. Genre-based instruction in desired disciplinary areas can be used as an important way to develop such skills in EFL post-graduate students.Keywords: Critical literacy, disciplinary literacy, advanced academic literacy, ideology, discourse, discourse communityIntroductionThe goal of all academic instructions especially at postgraduate levels is to train students who can become members of their particular discourse communities. Theses, dissertations and research articles are the most important academic accomplishments of university students. Gaining this level of disciplinary literacy is a difficult process even in one's native language and it is obvious that gaining such an accomplishment in a foreign language is a much more challenging task. It is through academic literacy experiences (reading and writing) that L2 students acquire knowledge and demonstrate it. This is especially the case with postgraduate students as they are more likely to undergo disciplinary enculturation Writing is integral to students' induction into academic cultures and discourse communities, and is the principal way they demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have acquired during their studies and "their fitness for accreditation" (Goodfellow, 2005, p. 481). In other words, an integral aspect of individuals' academic competences includes familiarity with the accepted discursive practices of the disciplinary community they belong to (Hyland, 1998; Swales, 1990).In this way, gaining a critical perspective is an important aspect of academic products. As Riazi (2010, p.l) states, these types of "higher-order literacy skills ... [are] operationalized in students' critical reading of academic texts and their ability to produce discipline-specific genres". Ferenz (2005, p. 339) also believes that advanced academic literacy for non-native English writers includes "knowledge of the rhetorical, linguistic, social and cultural features of academic discourse as well as knowledge of English as used by their academic disciplines". This type of writing is a manifestation of students' critical reading skills.The present study aims to explore two contradictory perspectives on the development of critical academic and disciplinary literacy (culture-specific and training view) and also tries to examine how Iranian EFL post-graduate students and their professors' ideas are in line with these different viewpoints.Critical academic literacyIt has long been established that there are significant differences in the purposes, functions, and social values of literacy and that the purposes for reading and writing are not universal in nature and can differ across contexts and cultures (Heath, 1983, Ozbilgin, 2010; Scribner & Cole, 1981). Faigley (1986, p. 535) claims that writing "can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a single individual." Hyland (2008) believes that the interrelationship between genre and community is one reason why writing in English is difficult for EFL writers. …

Iranian EFL learners ’ reading performance: A case of local and

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2016

Over the past decades, there has been an increasing tendency to incorporate new technologies in l... more Over the past decades, there has been an increasing tendency to incorporate new technologies in language education. Although EFL students and teachers are accustomed to using new technologies in their everyday life, they may not be well aware of such assets in education. This qualitative study aimed at investigating how Iranian B.A. English students perceived and used new technologies before and after an undergraduate course of CALL. A total of 27 senior students of Yasouj University participated in this study. They were interviewed by one of the researchers before and after the course. Content analysis of the interviews revealed that almost all participants appreciated the course and it had engendered their enthusiasm about CALL potentialities and the new learning options it might offer. The respondents maintained that the course raised their awareness on how CALL could expedite their learning through providing more chances of both oral and written communications with native and no...

Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies, Mar 10, 2021

... Archive of SID Relationship between Foreign Language Beliefs, Proficiency Level and the Use o... more ... Archive of SID Relationship between Foreign Language Beliefs, Proficiency Level and the Use of Language Learning Strategies (Case Study: Female English Majors in Shiraz)1 Morteza Yamini* Farzaneh Dehghan** Abstract: This paper reports on a study that explores the ...

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2011

Reading skill has taken on an important role in most EFL teaching situations. While linguistic kn... more Reading skill has taken on an important role in most EFL teaching situations. While linguistic knowledge is only one aspect of this skill, background knowledge including culture can also play an important role (Alptekin, 2006; Johnson, 1981; Pritchard, 1990; Steffensen, Chitra, & Anderson, 1979). This study investigated the effect of cultural background or cultural schema on the performance of Iranian EFL students on local (bottom-up) and global (top-down) processes. Sixty-six female pre-university students took part in the study. They read five texts with familiar cultural themes and five texts with culturally unfamiliar topics (total=10). The multiple-choice items were designed in a way to test both bottom-up processing (word recognition, literal comprehension and finding referents of pronouns) and top-down processing (making inferences, skimming, scanning, etc). The findings showed that our students performed significantly better on local items compared with global items both for (un)familiar texts. It was also observed that their overall performance was mostly influenced by text familiarity. Their higher scores on local items can be explained by the fact that these items are totally easier to process due to the linguistic context available. In contrast, the difficulty of the global items can be explained because our EFL learners need extra linguistic knowledge to process such items. Also, this difference could be attributed to the teaching situation in which language teachers do not teach students how to read at all and learners are not familiar with higher-level, global processes being important in reading comprehension.

Práxis Educacional, 2020

Resumo: A sobrecarga de trabalho do professor pode causar desafios para os professores, levando a... more Resumo: A sobrecarga de trabalho do professor pode causar desafios para os professores, levando a esgotamento a longo prazo, se não forem abordados. Consequentemente, o presente estudo tem como objetivo examinar as fontes de prevenção de burnout das perspectivas dos supervisores de EFL (inglês como língua estrangeira). Os participantes foram 85 supervisores iranianos de EFL, cujo trabalho era observar e dar feedback aos professores sobre seu desempenho no ensino em vários níveis de proficiência linguística, do nível básico ao avançado. Um projeto de método misto seqüencial foi empregado neste estudo. Primeiro, a coleta de dados qualitativos foi realizada por meio de entrevistas com 30 participantes, a fim de determinar as fontes de prevenção de burnout na perspectiva dos supervisores. A seguir, foi elaborado um questionário de prevenção de burnout, utilizando os resultados das entrevistas, após o qual foi aplicado aos demais participantes. Os dados coletados foram analisados por fatores para identificar os componentes do construto de prevenção de burnout. Os resultados da análise de conteúdo dos dados da entrevista indicaram que o apoio dos professores de seus colegas, a situação menos estressante e a satisfação no trabalho foram as principais fontes de prevenção de burnout. A análise fatorial mostrou as mesmas fontes de burnout que os principais componentes do construto de prevenção de burnout. As conclusões deste estudo enfatizam a contribuição do apoio educacional e emocional dos professores, proporcionando um local de trabalho construtivo e saudável, bem como a renda desejável como formas de prevenção do esgotamento nos professores de EFL.

Linguistics and Literature Studies, Jul 1, 2017

This study examined how Iranian EFL learners' level of academic self-schema is related to their w... more This study examined how Iranian EFL learners' level of academic self-schema is related to their willingness to communicate (WTC). To this end, 243 female undergraduate EFL university students from Islamic Azad University, Shiraz Branch (convenience sampling) completed two questionnaires, namely, a WTC and a researcher-made self-schema questionnaire. The latter questionnaire was developed based on two types of self-schemas, namely, entity and incremental. Entity self-schema regard ability as fixed or unchangeable while incremental self-schema regards it as improvable and changeable in future. Correlation results (r=0.380, p<0.000) indicated a statistically moderate but significant relationship between self-schema and WTC scores. To measure the predictability of WTC scores on the basis of the two levels of self-schema scores, a linear regression was calculated. The entity R value (0.165) illustrates a low correlation between entity self-schema and WTC while the incremental R value (0.516) shows a moderate correlation between the incremental self-schema scores and WTC. It means that 26.6% of the WTC can be predicted by the incremental self-schema scores. The findings of the present study showed that the incremental self-schema can be an important factor in the EFL learners' willingness to communicate because it is related to choices and actions that affect learning.

Professional Development in Education, Feb 10, 2020

This study aims at investigating how a group of state school teachers in Iran perceived professio... more This study aims at investigating how a group of state school teachers in Iran perceived professionalism in their career. The study draws on the two senses of the concept of professionalism: indepen...

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2015

Journal of Teaching Language Skills, Dec 26, 2012

This study aims to examine the strategies utilized by eleven postgraduate students in an EFL univ... more This study aims to examine the strategies utilized by eleven postgraduate students in an EFL university context in their attempts to acquire the textual practices of their discipline. First-and second-year MA students, one Ph.D. student as well as individuals who had completed their MA programs in TEFL took part in interviews in order to elicit the strategies they used when they endeavored to write their disciplinespecific writings, such as articles, proposals and theses. The results revealed that the participants utilized socio-affective, communication and resourcing strategies more than cognitive strategies. However, they ignored metacognitive strategies, which might be due to a lack of conscious awareness of certain writing genres in the field. Social apprenticeship strategies were not considered to be of great importance by participants. Students were highly dependent on their instructors for feedback, though without bearing any sense of collaboration with them or their peers. The role of the explicit instruction of metacognitive genre awareness as well as the provision of an atmosphere of collaboration among students has been emphasized.

English Language Teaching, Oct 1, 2017

A challenge for many postgraduate students is to move from the state of novice observers to those... more A challenge for many postgraduate students is to move from the state of novice observers to those of professional contributors of a particular discourse community. They need to develop certain skills, practices, and competences, the demonstration of which is mostly through writing, called disciplinary writing expertise (DWE). DWE can be examined from two aspects of nature and development. This study aims at proposing a model of disciplinary writing expertise including both the competencies of DWE and factors developing these components. In-depth interviews with 28 postgraduate students of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) were collected and research papers written by these students were used to collect data. Based on substantive considerations and the results of the content analysis, five subcomponents of DWE were identified including strategic, genre, rhetorical, subject matter and discourse community knowledge components. Meanwhile, writing strategies and goal orientations were identified as two important factors influencing the development of disciplinary writing proficiency in a foreign language context. Two questionnaires were made and piloted to endorse these two factors among 538 postgraduate TEFL students. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we proposed a model to show the relationship among these two factors and the components of DWE. The results showed that those who followed mastery goals used all types of writing strategies to develop different subcomponents of DWE. On the other hand, those who followed context and career-directed goals used strategies to develop rhetorical knowledge mostly.

Topics in linguistics, Jun 1, 2016

Transitivity alternation refers to the causative/inchoative alternation of some unaccusative verb... more Transitivity alternation refers to the causative/inchoative alternation of some unaccusative verbs. Different languages use different patterns to show transitivity alternation morphologically. While some languages like English use zero or no overt lexical marking, other languages (e.g. Spanish, Turkish, and Japanese) use overt morphological markers to show transitivity. This study aims to investigate the degree to which similarities and/or mismatches between English and Persian influence the use of unaccusative and unergative verbs by Persianspeaking learners of English. Based on different verb types in English and Persian, seven verb categories were identified as the basis for comparison. A forced-choice elicitation test including 48 items was developed based on these seven verb categories. A proficiency test was also used to divide participants (116 undergraduate students of English) into high and low proficiency groups. The results revealed findings more in line with transfer at the morphological rather than the argument structure level (Montrul, 2000). Alternating unaccusatives with similar equivalent structures for transitive/intransitive pairs in Persian and non-alternating unaccusatives with different structures for transitive/intransitive pairs in Persian seem to be the most difficult verb categories for learners. The effect of proficiency level was also significant on the recognition of correct structures.

International Journal of the Sociology of Language

This paper compares two areas of Egypt and Khorāsān in post-Islamic era regarding the loss and ma... more This paper compares two areas of Egypt and Khorāsān in post-Islamic era regarding the loss and maintenance of their mother tongues. While in Egypt, Coptic was gradually removed from both formal and colloquial usages, in Khorāsān, Persian (Farsi or Parsi Dari), though was out of official and governmental services for more than two centuries, was able to finally maintain its status. The most important reason found behind this difference can be attributed to the independence seeking movements in Khorāsān (e.g. Sho’ūbieh), leading to the establishment of the first post-Islamic independent Iranian governments who supported the revival of Iranian culture and the maintenance of Persian language. Secondly, the migration of Arab tribes and the Arabization of the conquered societies were more successful in Egypt compared to Eastern Iran, which changed the demographic composition of Egypt. Moreover, the role of Persian-speaking epic poets, the social class of dihgāns in Iranian society and the...

Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies, Mar 10, 2021

Background & Objectives: Students' inability to draft academic texts is among their main problems... more Background & Objectives: Students' inability to draft academic texts is among their main problems in learning English. Progress in this skill requires high concentration and motivation; thus, this problem even occurs in some cases as a disability. Self-Determination, which depends on fulfilling the basic psychological needs of individuals concerning autonomy, communication, and competence, can predict a desirable academic achievement. Students' inability to draft academic articles in English is mainly due to their lack of motivation, leading to inefficiency in this skill. Moreover, students with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptoms encounter further issues in this area. Numerous researchers believe that students' academic writing ability is undesirable. This problem, sometimes, could be mainly manifested as an inability to draft an article in English. The current study aimed to investigate the effects of self-regulation strategies on academic motivation in learning English essay writing, as a second language, in students presenting ADHD symptoms. Methods: This was a quasi-experimental study with pretest-posttest and a control group design. The statistical population of the study consisted of all undergraduate students majoring in English (education, translation, & literature) at the Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, who were enrolled in the essay writing class, in 2017. In total, 126 students responded to the Conners' Adult ADHD Rating Scales (CAARS; Conners et al., 1999). Among them, 62 volunteers who met the inclusion criteria were selected by the convenience sampling method. They were then randomly assigned to the experimental and control groups. The inclusion criteria included the age range of 18-45 years and obtaining a score higher than the cutoff point (i.e., >50) on the CAARS. The study subjects completed the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (Ryan, 1982) at the pretest and posttest stages. Self-Regulation training, according to the package of Graham and Harris (2005) was provided in fourteen 105minute sessions to the experimental group. The collected descriptive data were analyzed by mean and standard deviation. Furthermore, inferential statistics were performed by Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and Chi-squared test in SPSS. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05. Results: The present study data indicated that the mean±SD scores of intrinsic motivation increased in the posttest (2.80±0.24), compared to the pretest (3.25±0.13) in the experimental group. The ANCOVA results suggested that (after removing the effect of the pretest), teaching selfregulation strategies was effective in improving intrinsic motivation in learning English essay writing in the explored students with ADHD symptoms (p<0.001). Additionally, the relevant eta-squared was measured to be 0.541. Conclusion: Implementing self-regulation strategies training method effectively increased academic motivation in learning English essay writing, as a second language, in students presenting ADHD symptoms.

رشد آموزش زبان, Mar 24, 2021

Robustness, teacher stress, and burnout were distinguished in a sample of 83 English prospective ... more Robustness, teacher stress, and burnout were distinguished in a sample of 83 English prospective EFL teachers in Iran. Teachers’ different responses to positively and negatively worded robustness items suggested positive and negative robustness reflecting stress resilience and stress vulnerability. Stress, positive robustness, and negative robustness all had main, independent and significant impact on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, whereas only positive robustness had a significant main effect on personal accomplishment. There was only some suggestive evidence to support that negative robustness mediated slightly the impact of stress on emotional exhaustion and depersonalization, and there was no evidence to support that positive robustness or negative robustness had stress-buffering effects on teacher burnout. Implications of the findings for preventive interventions to combat stress and avert burnout are discussed.

Journal of Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics, 2015

The objective of this study was to examine the Iranian language teachers’ perceptions of burnout ... more The objective of this study was to examine the Iranian language teachers’ perceptions of burnout causes and sources of prevention. Participants of the study consisted of 76 male and female language teachers with 2-10 years of teaching experience in Tehran. Selection of the participants was performed according to convenience sampling form a famous language school in Tehran. A sequential mixed approach was used, in which 20 teachers participated in interviews and the remaining participants completed the burnout prevention survey that was designed based on the qualitative data collected from the interviews. Then the burnout prevention questionnaire was developed using the results of the interviews and administered to the remaining participants. In the next step, analysis of the collected data was performed through factor analysis to identify the components of burnout prevention. According to the results of the content analysis of the interview data, Iranian EFL teachers viewed work and...

Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, Mar 1, 2012

AbstractThe present study explored two contradictory ideas about the domain of critical disciplin... more AbstractThe present study explored two contradictory ideas about the domain of critical disciplinary literacy development, namely, a culture-deterministic view, on the one hand and a training-based view on the other and the extent to which Iranian EFL disciplinary community members' (university professors and post-graduate students who will join this community in future) ideologies on critical literacy are in line with either of the two contradictory perspectives. The findings of the study showed that both viewpoints are involved in EFL community members' ideas about disciplinary literacy and its development.The ideas explored showed that both perspectives are involved in shaping EFL community members' ideas about critical disciplinary literacy. Three factors of culture, context and training were obtained as constructing Iranian EFL university professors and their post-graduate students' ideas about the nature and scope of critical disciplinary literacy skills. Genre-based instruction in desired disciplinary areas can be used as an important way to develop such skills in EFL post-graduate students.Keywords: Critical literacy, disciplinary literacy, advanced academic literacy, ideology, discourse, discourse communityIntroductionThe goal of all academic instructions especially at postgraduate levels is to train students who can become members of their particular discourse communities. Theses, dissertations and research articles are the most important academic accomplishments of university students. Gaining this level of disciplinary literacy is a difficult process even in one's native language and it is obvious that gaining such an accomplishment in a foreign language is a much more challenging task. It is through academic literacy experiences (reading and writing) that L2 students acquire knowledge and demonstrate it. This is especially the case with postgraduate students as they are more likely to undergo disciplinary enculturation Writing is integral to students' induction into academic cultures and discourse communities, and is the principal way they demonstrate the knowledge and skills they have acquired during their studies and "their fitness for accreditation" (Goodfellow, 2005, p. 481). In other words, an integral aspect of individuals' academic competences includes familiarity with the accepted discursive practices of the disciplinary community they belong to (Hyland, 1998; Swales, 1990).In this way, gaining a critical perspective is an important aspect of academic products. As Riazi (2010, p.l) states, these types of "higher-order literacy skills ... [are] operationalized in students' critical reading of academic texts and their ability to produce discipline-specific genres". Ferenz (2005, p. 339) also believes that advanced academic literacy for non-native English writers includes "knowledge of the rhetorical, linguistic, social and cultural features of academic discourse as well as knowledge of English as used by their academic disciplines". This type of writing is a manifestation of students' critical reading skills.The present study aims to explore two contradictory perspectives on the development of critical academic and disciplinary literacy (culture-specific and training view) and also tries to examine how Iranian EFL post-graduate students and their professors' ideas are in line with these different viewpoints.Critical academic literacyIt has long been established that there are significant differences in the purposes, functions, and social values of literacy and that the purposes for reading and writing are not universal in nature and can differ across contexts and cultures (Heath, 1983, Ozbilgin, 2010; Scribner & Cole, 1981). Faigley (1986, p. 535) claims that writing "can be understood only from the perspective of a society rather than a single individual." Hyland (2008) believes that the interrelationship between genre and community is one reason why writing in English is difficult for EFL writers. …

Iranian EFL learners ’ reading performance: A case of local and