Papers by Gholamhossein Shahini
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2010
Abstract This study was an attempt to find out if philosophical questions and dialogs, introduced... more Abstract This study was an attempt to find out if philosophical questions and dialogs, introduced for the first time by the present researchers, can enhance EFL college students’ speaking skill. It also set out to identify which components of this skill will be developed (more) through a newly developed approach to language pedagogy called Philosophy- based Language Teaching (PBLT). To this end, 34 Iranian students were randomly assigned into two groups of experimental (PBLT) and control (conventional). The results revealed that the students in experimental group (EG) superseded those in control group (CG) on speaking skill and all its related components except one (accuracy). Findings of the study have implications for educationists, in general, and second/foreign language teachers, in particular.
Advances in Language and Literary Studies
This qualitative study, using an open interview, set out to investigate the roles six factors, in... more This qualitative study, using an open interview, set out to investigate the roles six factors, including age, university education, teachers of English Language institutes, teaching English, dictionary, and note-taking, played in improving English speaking fluency of seventeen fluent Iranian EFL speakers. The participants were chosen purposefully based on the speaking scale of Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFRL). The findings indicated that early age had a great impact on the participants’ speaking fluency. They mentioned that they could not pick up fluency if they had started learning English at older ages. Moreover, university education had no effect on enhancing their fluency. They stated that not having enough opportunities to speak English in classrooms, being exposed to wrong amounts of input from their classmates or even from some university instructors, having no access to English native speakers in English Language Departments, professors’ talking i...
Journal of Teaching Language Skills, 2017
The present qualitative research, for the first time, aimed at comparing and contrasting the exte... more The present qualitative research, for the first time, aimed at comparing and contrasting the extent cultural components and subcomponents are represented in the elementary levels of A Course in General Persian and Top Notch Series as foreign language teaching textbooks. The adapted checklist of Lee's Big ‘C' and little ‘c' cultural components (2009) was used for the current study. After content analysis, Big ‘C' cultural components with the highest, lowest, and no frequency in each textbook were identified, and the possible reasons behind the occurrence of each one were addressed. Based on the findings, it was revealed that although the two textbooks enjoyed approximately similar functions concerning non-/presenting Big ‘C' cultural components, the Persian textbook was richer in introducing cultural capsules. And while the cultural capsules in the Persian textbook were associated more with people's common life styles and their daily interactions, those in th...
Fatemeh Shahamirian Department of Foreign Languages and linguistics, Shiraz University Iran ABSTR... more Fatemeh Shahamirian Department of Foreign Languages and linguistics, Shiraz University Iran ABSTRACT The present qualitative research, using an open interview, intended to identify the proportion of contribution of input and output and each of four language skills in improvement of English language speaking fluency of the most fluent EFL speakers who have picked up fluency in their own country. To accomplish this, 17 participants (7 females and 10 males) including 11 EFL learners in B.A. and M.A. degree and 6 EFL teachers (holding B.A. and M.A. degree) in English language institutes in Shiraz, Iran were purposefully selected. The number of participants, with age range of 19 to 55, depended on data saturation. The criterion for selecting the fluent speakers, besides the instructors and colleagues‟ knowledge of the participants‟ speaking fluency, was the Speaking Rubric scale chosen from the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001). The results revealed that both in...
International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, Mar 1, 2018
The major goal of education, according to the educationalist Matthew Lipman (2003), is to culture... more The major goal of education, according to the educationalist Matthew Lipman (2003), is to culture students to become thoughtful by attaining excellent thinking power; i.e. critical, creative, and caring thinking ability. The purpose of this study was to examine the current status of excellent thinking among EFL students. Using accessible sampling, 41 EFL students at Shiraz University, Iran read two passages of various types and were asked to make a number of essay-type questions on each one. The results indicated that the majority of the questions were trivial reading comprehension ones with no sign of excellent thinking. The findings may imply that despite the significance of cultivating excellent thinking within students, no/scant attention is paid to this issue and EFL students have not still gained the necessary skills of excellent thinking.
Given the role philosophical mentality can fulfill in bringing individuals the essential skills o... more Given the role philosophical mentality can fulfill in bringing individuals the essential skills of wisdom and well thinking, the present paper, by applying Smith’s (2007) theoretical framework, strived to explore the extent philosophic-mindedness exists among the participants. Considering the fact that, a philosophic mind begets philosophical answers, the participants’ philosophical thinking ability was evaluated through analyzing their answers to philosophical questions. To this end, through convenience sampling, a group of 40 EFL students in BA degree, 21 female and 19 male with the age range of 19 to 35, at Shiraz University, Iran, were selected. They were asked to read two simple short passages, story and non-story, and answer the related questions. Based on three characteristics of philosophic-mindedness (i.e. comprehensiveness, penetration, and flexibility) it was revealed that the majority of the participants signified rigidity and dogmatism in their way of thinking and were ...
IIUM Journal of Educational Studies, Jul 2, 2019
Given the crucial role philosophical thinking can serve in enhancing the cultivation of mind, it ... more Given the crucial role philosophical thinking can serve in enhancing the cultivation of mind, it seems urgent that prior to nurturing such thinking its status be investigated within individuals in various educational contexts. Moreover, since philosophy is characteristically a questionraising discipline, one way one's philosophic-mindedness can be investigated is to see if s/he is capable of casting a philosophical look at a text, and in turn pose philosophical questions on it. Hence, the present paper aims at a) exploring the participants' ability in making philosophical questions; and b) finding out factors leading to the production or non-production of such questions. To this end, through convenience sampling, a group of 50 BA sophomore and junior students in an EFL context participated in this study. The participants were asked to read two simple short passages, each one about 300 words, and make any type of question(s) (i.e. text-based, beyond the text) that would occur to their mind in essay-type format. Then, using purposeful sampling, 17 out of 50 were selected for an open interview. Based on Cam's (2006) question framework, the findings revealed that the majority of the participants were not able to produce philosophical questions, and the factors leading to generating nonphilosophical questions were memorization-based system, teacher-centered curriculum, undemocratic atmosphere of classes, unsuitable family environment, weak role of the mass media, and irrational social customs among others. On the contrary, the factors enabling the production of philosophical questions were innate disposition towards thinking, introversion, appropriate family environment, proper nurturing conditions, and appropriate methods of teaching. Furthermore, the technique of question-making and question-analysis together with a question framework are introduced to be employed for realizing philosophic-mindedness. Finally, Philosophy-based Language Teaching is suggested as an approach for removing the obstacles to philosophical thinking.
Elt Journal, 2012
This paper introduces Philosophy-based Language Teaching (PBLT) as a new approach to developing p... more This paper introduces Philosophy-based Language Teaching (PBLT) as a new approach to developing productive language and thinking skills in students. The approach involves posing philosophical questions and engaging students in dialogues within a community of enquiry context. To ...
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Papers by Gholamhossein Shahini