Gholam Reza Zarei - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Gholam Reza Zarei

The current paper is intended to investigate if learners of English who have been taught special ... more The current paper is intended to investigate if learners of English who have been taught special books (Interchange Series) would come to perceive cultural issues differently compared with their parents as their regular cultural guides. To conduct the study, a researcher constructed questionnaire of cultural components was administered to the two groups of participants. The first group involved English language learners about to complete the 3 volume Interchange Series program in a language institute. The second group consisted of the learners' parents who did not know English except for a few grammatical rules or some general greeting and basic interpersonal sentences. The results indicated that learning English extensively transforms the language learners' perceptions of cultural issues as compared with their parents whose Language in India www.languageinindia.com 12 : 1 January 2012 Gholam Reza Zarei Effect of L2 Learning on Learners' Perception of Culture-A Case of Iranian Young Learners Compared with Their Parents 128 cultural perceptions were domestically inclined. It can be concluded that textbooks may make learners conceptualize the world as portrayed therein.

A Social Quest for Language and Cultural Capital: Exploring Iranian English Language Majors’ Habitus

This research study was conducted to investigate the most representative characteristics of the h... more This research study was conducted to investigate the most representative characteristics of the habitus developed by academically successful Iranian English majors. Learning a second or foreign language, like many sociocultural practices, from a Bourdieusian perspective, is informed by the interrelation between habitus, field, and cultural capital (CC). Within an exploratory qualitative design, utilizing the Biographical Narrative Interpretive Method of both semi-structured and unstructured one-on-one interviews, seven academically successful BA students majoring in English language studies were studied in an attempt to explore their CC and habitus. Each participant was interviewed in 3 separate sessions. The constructivist grounded theory method was adopted to analyze the collected data. Constructed on 75 initial codes, 22 focused codes, 10 categories, and 4 themes, two major themes were most relevantly indicative of theoretical associations with the research problem. The findings ...

Adaptivity of Learning Transfer from Theory to Practice: A Case Study of Second Language Writers

This case study examined the adaptivity of learning transfer from an English for general academic... more This case study examined the adaptivity of learning transfer from an English for general academic purposes course to different disciplinary writing contexts. Data were collected at the end of one academic semester from 7 students of engineering disciplines enrolled in the writing course. Their EGAP writing course lasted for 16 weeks over which they were taught The St. Martin's Handbook, 6th Edition. The participants’ disciplinary writings together with interview transcripts served as the data sources for the extraction of adaptive transfers and also the processes of realizing the transfers. Adaptive transfers were identified by participants. Findings indicated that learning outcomes can transfer adaptively through a variety of processes to accommodate to the new writing demands. The results showed that the participants could adapt their learning along two broad dimensions of transfer, ‘idea generation’ (IG) and ‘text construction’ (TC) with the former involving ‘explication’ and...

The Effect of Shadow-Reading on Recall of Lexical Items

Modern Journal of Language Teaching Methods, 2016

1. IntroductionWe learn language by producing it and this is a standing based on Swain's outp... more 1. IntroductionWe learn language by producing it and this is a standing based on Swain's output theory. Considering Swain's output theory, many researchers have focused on the role that production can play in second/foreign language acquisition (e.g. Adams, 2003; Izumi, 2002; Hanaoka & Izumi, 2012; Storch, 2008). Furthermore, in many studies, scholars tried to find appropriate ways with which learners could take control over their own learning. However, many of the studies remain ineffective as teachers encounter wide range of learners around the world with their own unique social, psychological and cultural characteristics. This enforces teachers to find new ways of teaching and elaborate more on the mechanism of learning. For instance, Thwaites (2014) conducted a research and based on the results achieved, he proposed an iterative approach to promote learners' learning. He asserts that many techniques might fall under the umbrella of "learning to write", a st...

Analysis and Categorization of the Most Prevalent Errors of Intermediate and Elementary Iranian EFL Learners in Writing in Iran

Nowadays English is used as a lingua franca for international relationships. Committing errors in... more Nowadays English is used as a lingua franca for international relationships. Committing errors in using it may become a hindrance to effective communication. Therefore, knowing about the kinds of errors which are commonly committed by the language users, specially the non-native users of this language, seems essential. This paper presents an analysis and categorization of the most dominant errors of intermediate and elementary Iranian EFL learners in writing.

A Comparative Study of the Rhetorical Moves in Spam Emails: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation between English and Persian Spammers

This paper elaborates a contrastive research on schematic or rhetorical structures in English and... more This paper elaborates a contrastive research on schematic or rhetorical structures in English and Persian spam emails. The rationale behind the present study is to analyze how schematic structures used in spam emails of two languages vary and check the constancy of spam mail conventions across the spammers. Adopting Bhatia’s (1993) research on promotional letters and Barron’s (2006) on macro-textual analysis of medical spam emails, points of difference and similarity were examined with due attention to the two corpora of spasm emails received by the present researchers from on-line medical suppliers over a period of ten weeks in 2013. The results of statistical test (chi-square) employed to different parallel corpora were indicative of regularity in the specific moves and steps, but there were some specific variations in their occurrence. That is, in terms of distribution and sequence of the moves, some discrepancies exist that may be attributed to cross-linguistic differences in En...

The current study aims to investigate how Iranian EFL students make use of compliments in Persian... more The current study aims to investigate how Iranian EFL students make use of compliments in Persian and English. To that end, 50 students majoring in English as a foreign language from Isfahan and Tehran, and Sheikhbahaee universities were asked to respond to a Discourse Completion Test consisting of six situations in both English and Persian. They were asked to put themselves in those situations and respond to the compliments made on them. The results of the study showed that in addition to pre-existing categories of compliment responses, Iranians made use of other strategies not included in the pre-existing categories of compliments. Furthermore, in both English and Persian languages, students made use of compliments in the same order: accept, evade and reject strategies. The results of this study could add to crosscultural findings, differences or similarities regarding compliments as a beneficial way of studying speech acts.

The focus of this study was to explore the efficacy of mobile learning (m-learning) in the contex... more The focus of this study was to explore the efficacy of mobile learning (m-learning) in the context of teaching English vocabulary items to Iranian semi-illiterates in a traditional versus blended manner of content delivery. To that end, 60 semi-illiterate adults were randomly assigned to the traditional (G1) and the blended groups (G2) after their familiarity with English alphabet was assessed via English alphabet letter writing test. Then, they were taught 30 new English vocabularies in traditional (G1) and blended (G2) methods, with the vocabulary items in two forms of without annotation and with pictorial annotation presented to the second (blended) group. Following the teaching phase and at the end of the course, paper- and-pencil-based English Vocabulary Recognition and Recall (EVRR) tests were administered. The data were collected and then subjected to the appropriate statistical operations, that is, paired sample t-test. The t- test analysis indicated that blended group of se...

This classroom-based study sets out to study the relationships that EFL learners would form in pe... more This classroom-based study sets out to study the relationships that EFL learners would form in peer responses in an EFL writing class. It examines Storch’s (2002a) patterns of peer interaction when intermediate learners are paired with partners of different L2 proficiency levels. To discover the factors that could affect the nature of peer interactions, at first a proficiency test of TOEFL was administered and thus the participants were distinguished based on their scores, into the beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Further, the participants were asked to choose a partner and review each other’s writing in pair while being audio recorded. To examine learners’ behaviors from the perspective of participants involved, they were interviewed individually after the recording session. As the focus was on intermediate partnership, the data of 12 intermediate students (i.e. 6 pairs) interacting with an advanced, intermediate or beginner partner were analyzed. The findings showed th...

Iranian Journal of Research in English Language Teaching, 2015

The role of L1 in second/foreign language learning has been the subject of much debate and contro... more The role of L1 in second/foreign language learning has been the subject of much debate and controversy. This article reports on a piece of research carried out in a junior high school in Isfahan, Iran. This study was conducted to examine the effect of using translation from L1 to L2 on the improvement of EFL learners' language accuracy. To fulfill the purpose of the study, 62 students in grade three of junior high school were chosen by means of administering a researcher made pretest. The participants were divided into a control group and an experimental group. The experimental group received grammar exercises in translating some phrases and sentences from Persian into English related to the intended grammatical structures during the study period while the control group just did their textbook exercises. At the end, a post-test was given to the students and the mean scores of the two groups were identified. Using t-test revealed that the treatment had a considerable effect on st...

New Era of Language Learning

Academic exchange quarterly, 2003

The two general learning streams in psychology, namely behaviorism and cognitivism, have so far p... more The two general learning streams in psychology, namely behaviorism and cognitivism, have so far provided the agenda for the education system. With the tremendous and multi-faceted changes and demands of the new millenium, it is a propitious time to infuse fresh inspirations into the education in general and second/foreign language education in particular. Thus, this article reconsiders behaviorism and cognitivism on philosophical and theoretical grounds, attempting to show that the two theories are not removed from each other. This fact justifies the introduction of a new learning theory, i.e., constructivism in the area of second/foreign language learning. Introduction The education system is in constant change to remain consistent with and responsive to the requirements of the new millenieum. The belief is that traditional approaches to education can no longer help with the learning phenomena effectively. The two general views of learning, namely behaviorism and cognitivism, have ...

As opposed to western cultures, marriage proposal in Iran takes place in a formal family-gatherin... more As opposed to western cultures, marriage proposal in Iran takes place in a formal family-gathering called Khaastgaari ceremony and develops through negotiations between the prospective couples’ families. There are embedded factors that invisibly control these negotiations; thus, word choices and behaviors of participants mirror the invisible sources of domination that govern these negotiations. Drawing on the definition of discourse as any meaningful symbolic behavior, this study aims to probe into the deep layers of discoursal exchanges in Khaastgaari events and address the salient sociocultural sources of domination that govern this ancient Iranian tradition. The data obtained from observation of typical Khaastgaari events were analyzed through a thematic analysis and interpreted in light of insights gleaned from Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The findings revealed that discoursal exchanges in Khaastgaari events represent the traditional superiority of family and parents over ...

The study tried to discover disciplinary distinctions between Persian and English in the academic... more The study tried to discover disciplinary distinctions between Persian and English in the academic genre. The focus was on the use of metadiscourse in the discipline of computer engineering research articles across the two languages. The selected corpus was analyzed through the model suggested by Hyland and Tse (2004). The results demonstrated that the two languages are distinct in their use of metadiscourse in the discipline studied. It was found that Persian, unlike English, relied on interactive resources more. The disciplinary distinction indicates that Persian computer engineering provides more textual elements while English language values a reader responsible trend.

Research in Applied Linguistics, 2012

This paper reports the findings of a study designed to investigate English e-requestsof Iranian E... more This paper reports the findings of a study designed to investigate English e-requestsof Iranian EFL postgraduate students (i.e., nonnative speakers of English) made totheir professors during their education at Islamic Azad University, Najaf AbadBranch, Isfahan, Iran, to find out types of politeness features employed in the students’e-mails and the extent to which these features might influence the degree of politenessof the students’ e-mails to the faculty. To that end, both quantitative and qualitativeapproaches were employed to investigate 60 English e-mails composed by theparticipants. The findings revealed that the Iranian students’ English e-mails were notoverly adorned with politeness features. The results also indicated that such direct andunmodified e-mails failed to create e-polite messages to the faculty and, therefore,were capable of causing pragmatic failure.

This study was undertaken to cast light over EFL learners' perception of culture. To that end... more This study was undertaken to cast light over EFL learners' perception of culture. To that end, a group of English language learners was taught English through Interchange Series and their perception of culture was assessed using a researcher constructed questionnaire. The same questionnaire was also administered to the parents of the same learners to detect any probable differences. The results revealed that the EFL learners are largely distinct from their parents in perceptions of the designated cultural issues. While EFL learners were oriented towards Western Culture, their parents were lopsided towards domestic issues.

Journal of Applied Linguistics and Language Research, 2018

The current review aims at highlighting the main theoretical assumptions of historical sociolingu... more The current review aims at highlighting the main theoretical assumptions of historical sociolinguistics associated with its origins with special attention given to how these theoretical assumptions can assist language activists in their endeavor to provide the right conditions for analyzing linguistic variations and changes. Clearly, this review is organized around closely related paragraphs accompanied by commentaries on the historical sociolinguistics. This review provides a clearly written and concise introduction to the origins, philosophical developments, motivations, and main paradigms in historical sociolinguistics with a particular focus on the basic research done in the field over the last four decades with its diverse foundations in sociolinguistics, social history, historical linguistics, histories of individual languages, corpus linguistics, philology, discourse studies, socio-pragmatics, and traditional dialectology. Comparing the first four decades based on the studies...

Research in Applied Linguistics, 2016

This study investigated the effect of applying the dynamic system theory (DST) and cognitive ling... more This study investigated the effect of applying the dynamic system theory (DST) and cognitive linguistics (CL) insights into grammar instruction on EFL learners’ learning of English prepositions and learner autonomy. Sixty Iranian EFL learners at the lower-intermediate level of language proficiency were randomly assigned to 1 experimental and 1 control group. The 2 groups filled out an autonomy questionnaire and took a test of preposition measuring their knowledge of on, over, around, for, and under. Then, the experimental group received a DST/CL-based instruction using image-schemas, whereas the control group followed a traditional approach of repetitions, drills, and substitutions for teaching of the same prepositions. Finally, to examine the effectiveness of the DST/CL-based program, the 2 groups were given the posttests of preposition and learner autonomy. Based on the results, the experimental group outperformed the control group on the test of prepositions, but did not show sig...

The present paper tried to highlight the use of metadiscourse in a discipline (applied linguistic... more The present paper tried to highlight the use of metadiscourse in a discipline (applied linguistics across two languages (Persian and English). The selected corpus was analyzed through the model suggested by Hyland and Tse (2004). The results revealed that while both languages use interactive resources more than interactional ones, they differ in some subsidiary elements. The results also showed that unlike English applied linguistics which is reader responsible, Persian applied linguistics is to a lesser degree so, tending to be writer responsible. Overall, the analysis demonstrates that applied linguistics representing humanities focuses on the textuality at the expense of reader involvement.

The present study investigated the effect of L2 communication failure on the identity of an indiv... more The present study investigated the effect of L2 communication failure on the identity of an individual. As identity is a social construct and a function of communication and group membership, we aimed to investigate how failure in language use by itself, as a dimension of socialization process, can influence an individual’s identity. To study the effect of communication failure on the mental states of individuals, 25 adult subjects of both genders, 13 men and 12 women having had a failing experience of L2 communication in L2 context were randomly selected. An in-depth interview including and reflecting the feelings of the research participants at the time of their unsuccessful communication rendered much information about the social effects of such failure. A qualitative analysis of the interviews revealed that communication failure resulting from low language proficiency can threaten a person’s identity not only in the second language, but also to some extent in the first language.

The present study was carried out to compare and contrast the use of metadiscourse elements in Pe... more The present study was carried out to compare and contrast the use of metadiscourse elements in Persian and English research articles. The research tried to find out how English and Persian made use of metadiscourse elements, and whether the two languages differed in using metadiscourse resources in academic texts. The corpus used in this study, which was analyzed based on Hyland and Tse (2004) taxonomy, comprised 19 articles and 102,293 words in the two languages, English and Persian. The intralingual analysis showed that both Persian and English used interactive resources more than interactional ones, emphasizing the significance of text coherence over interpersonal function of language in the academic genre. Compared with English, Persian capitalized on more interactive resources, which shows that Persian puts a premium on textuality at the expense of reader involvement, hence, being comparatively less reader responsible. The results support the interlingual rhetorical differences...