Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today’s education and can have a vital role in ... more Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today’s education and can have a vital role in ESP learners’ future professional success. This study investigated whether the employment of interactive practices in ESP courses had any impact on the identity formation of introvert students. Initially, 200 undergraduate students majoring in Computer Sciences, Accounting, and Physical Education answered the introversion/extraversion section of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Cheek and Briggs’ Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ-IV). Based on their performance on MBTI, 90 learners with the extravert, introvert, and non-discriminating personality traits were selected from six classes and formed the three Extravert, Introvert, and Control (n1=n2=n3=30) groups. The students had taken a Specialized English course in the second semester of their BA program. The classes lasted 14 sessions. During the treatment, the researchers employed different activities for teaching ESP. Afte...
Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps o... more Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps organize learners' thoughts to get involved in writing activities. The present convergent mixed methods study investigated whether the integration of technology and brainstorming could affect the argumentative writing of EFL learners. Initially, 68 university students in three intact classes (n=26, n=23, n=20) were exposed to mobile-assisted brainstorming (n=26), wordle-assisted brainstorming (n=23), and cooperative brainstorming (n=20) in the quantitative phase. For qualitative data collection, each session, some paper strips with three questions on them were distributed among the groups to help the researchers discover the participants' learning processes and perceptions during the instruction. Sixty-five participants who had attended all treatment sessions took one immediate post-test on a seen and one delayed post-test on an unseen topic. Two one-way analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) examined whether there were statistically significant differences between the means of the groups. The results revealed that the wordle-assisted brainstorming group outperformed the two other groups in both post-tests. The findings supported the use of word clouds as a cognitive activity in promoting the argumentative essay writing of Iranian EFL learners. The study has implications for teachers, practitioners, and educators.
Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes whi... more Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes which can help EFL learners to read and understand them. Also, learning the new vocabulary through reading can be difficult for EFL learners. As such, in order to utilize these texts as teaching materials in EFL classes, they should be modified. The present study investigated Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners and how they acquire English language vocabulary incidentally from modified English texts while their primary task is reading for meaning. In order to measure the impact of lexical input modification on the improvement of foreign language vocabulary learning, 60 adult Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 18 and 22 in two intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to two homogenous groups of control and experimental. The analysis of the data revealed that incidental second language vocabulary learning could be improved effectively by lexical input modifications such as...
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approache... more This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approaches to writing (product, process, genre) in the quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, it focused on the type and frequency of strategies employed by learners in each group by employing think-aloud protocols. Three intact groups (n1=25, n2=23, n3=24) who were selected based on convenience sampling took part in the study. The participants had taken an essay writing course in the fifth semester of their study in English Translation. First, the participants took a Nelson English language proficiency test and then sat for a writing pretest. Content Scoring Guide (Ashwell, 2000) was the rating scale for scoring the essays. The inter-rater reliability between the two raters (r=0.75) showed that they were consistent in their scoring. After verifying the homogeneity of the groups regarding language proficiency and writing ability, the researchers assigned them randomly to three types of wri...
Brainstorming is a valuable pre-writing activity in enabling learners to get started in writing c... more Brainstorming is a valuable pre-writing activity in enabling learners to get started in writing classes. The present qualitative study explored the participants’ perceptions regarding the use of the method after experiencing it in online writing classes. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling, and their age range was 19 to 23. They had participated in private writing classes and volunteered to take part in interviews performed after the course. The interviews were also done virtually via WhatsApp, during which the respondents answered six questions. The analysis of the interviews led the researchers to extract eight significant themes, which were then divided into advantages and disadvantages. The interviewees mentioned idea generation, encouraging new ideas, becoming open-minded, enhancing motivation to write, and creating stronger rapport with classmates as the positive features of brainstorming. The disadvantages consisted of being distracted by too many ide...
Speech acts have a decisive role in enabling EFL learners to communicate successfully. This study... more Speech acts have a decisive role in enabling EFL learners to communicate successfully. This study compared the efficacy of jigsaw and dictogloss tasks in learning speech act by 47 pre-intermediate adolescent EFL learners. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling and were homogenized based on the results of a PET. Discoursecompletion task (DCT) was employed as the pre and post-tests. The result of the DCT pretest showed that the participants were not familiar with the target speech acts. Twenty 3-minute vignettes taken from different films were employed as the medium of instruction. After the treatment, the participants sat for another DCT. The results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups regarding knowledge of speech acts. However, the results of the paired samples t-test conducted to ensure the effectiveness of the treatment showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the groups’ DCT pre and ...
Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today's education and can have a vital role in ... more Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today's education and can have a vital role in ESP learners' future professional success. This study investigated whether the employment of interactive practices in ESP courses had any impact on the identity formation of introvert students. Initially, 200 undergraduate students majoring in Computer Sciences, Accounting, and Physical Education answered the introversion/extraversion section of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Cheek and Briggs' Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ-IV). Based on their performance on MBTI, 90 learners with the extravert, introvert, and non-discriminating personality traits were selected from six classes and formed the three Extravert, Introvert, and Control (n1=n2=n3=30) groups. The students had taken a Specialized English course in the second semester of their BA program. The classes lasted 14 sessions. During the treatment, the researchers employed different activities for teaching ESP. After the instruction, the participants took the AIQ-IV. The results of ANCOVA indicated that the Introvert group gained significantly higher scores on the identity questionnaire than the Extravert and Control groups. The results of paired samples t-tests showed that while introverts had improved considerably in all components of the identity questionnaire, the Extravert and Control groups did not show any changes. The findings indicated that in interactive classroom environments, introvert learners had more inclination than the extravert and mixed introvert and extravert learners toward a shift in identity. The study has implications for ESP teachers, practitioners, and educators.
Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps o... more Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps organize learners' thoughts to get involved in writing activities. The present convergent mixed methods study investigated whether the integration of technology and brainstorming could affect the argumentative writing of EFL learners. Initially, 68 university students in three intact classes (n=26, n=23, n=20) were exposed to mobile-assisted brainstorming (n=26), wordle-assisted brainstorming (n=23), and cooperative brainstorming (n=20) in the quantitative phase. For qualitative data collection, each session, some paper strips with three questions on them were distributed among the groups to help the researchers discover the participants' learning processes and perceptions during the instruction. Sixty-five participants who had attended all treatment sessions took one immediate post-test on a seen and one delayed post-test on an unseen topic. Two one-way analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) examined whether there were statistically significant differences between the means of the groups. The results revealed that the wordle-assisted brainstorming group outperformed the two other groups in both post-tests. The findings supported the use of word clouds as a cognitive activity in promoting the argumentative essay writing of Iranian EFL learners. The study has implications for teachers, practitioners, and educators.
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approache... more This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approaches to writing (product, process, genre) in the quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, it focused on the type and frequency of strategies employed by learners in each group by employing think-aloud protocols. Three intact groups (n1=25, n2=23, n3=24) who were selected based on convenience sampling took part in the study. The participants had taken an essay writing course in the fifth semester of their study in English Translation. First, the participants took a Nelson English language proficiency test and then sat for a writing pretest. Content Scoring Guide (Ashwell, 2000) was the rating scale for scoring the essays. The inter-rater reliability between the two raters (r=0.75) showed that they were consistent in their scoring. After verifying the homogeneity of the groups regarding language proficiency and writing ability, the researchers assigned them randomly to three types of writing instruction; namely product-based, process-based, and genre-based groups. The treatment took 12 sessions, and distinct techniques related to each writing approach were employed in the classes. After the treatment, the participants took a writing posttest. The two raters scored the essays (inter-rater reliability=0.79). The results of the one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference between the groups. Scheffe post hoc test showed that the genre-based group outperformed the other two groups. However, no significant differences were found between the product-based and process-based groups. In the i Correspondence: European Journal of Education Studies-Volume 6 │ Issue 6 │ 2019 116 second phase of the study, 12 participants (four individuals from each group) participated in the think-aloud sessions to clarify the type of strategy they used while writing. Mu's (2005) taxonomy of ESL writing strategies was employed as the criterion for classifying the strategies. The study has implications for language teachers and educators who are seeking the best way to teach writing. Syllabus designers can also benefit from the findings when developing materials for writing classes.
Vocabulary Learning via Reading: Is Input Modification Useful?, 2019
Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes whi... more Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes which can help EFL learners to read and understand them. Also, learning the new vocabulary through reading can be difficult for EFL learners. As such, in order to utilize these texts as teaching materials in EFL classes, they should be modified. The present study investigated Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners and how they acquire English language vocabulary incidentally from modified English texts while their primary task is reading for meaning. In order to measure the impact of lexical input modification on the improvement of foreign language vocabulary learning, 60 adult Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 18 and 22 in two intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to two homogenous groups of control and experimental. The analysis of the data revealed that incidental second language vocabulary learning could be improved effectively by lexical input modifications such as lexical and typographical elaboration.
Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today’s education and can have a vital role in ... more Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today’s education and can have a vital role in ESP learners’ future professional success. This study investigated whether the employment of interactive practices in ESP courses had any impact on the identity formation of introvert students. Initially, 200 undergraduate students majoring in Computer Sciences, Accounting, and Physical Education answered the introversion/extraversion section of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Cheek and Briggs’ Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ-IV). Based on their performance on MBTI, 90 learners with the extravert, introvert, and non-discriminating personality traits were selected from six classes and formed the three Extravert, Introvert, and Control (n1=n2=n3=30) groups. The students had taken a Specialized English course in the second semester of their BA program. The classes lasted 14 sessions. During the treatment, the researchers employed different activities for teaching ESP. Afte...
Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps o... more Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps organize learners' thoughts to get involved in writing activities. The present convergent mixed methods study investigated whether the integration of technology and brainstorming could affect the argumentative writing of EFL learners. Initially, 68 university students in three intact classes (n=26, n=23, n=20) were exposed to mobile-assisted brainstorming (n=26), wordle-assisted brainstorming (n=23), and cooperative brainstorming (n=20) in the quantitative phase. For qualitative data collection, each session, some paper strips with three questions on them were distributed among the groups to help the researchers discover the participants' learning processes and perceptions during the instruction. Sixty-five participants who had attended all treatment sessions took one immediate post-test on a seen and one delayed post-test on an unseen topic. Two one-way analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) examined whether there were statistically significant differences between the means of the groups. The results revealed that the wordle-assisted brainstorming group outperformed the two other groups in both post-tests. The findings supported the use of word clouds as a cognitive activity in promoting the argumentative essay writing of Iranian EFL learners. The study has implications for teachers, practitioners, and educators.
Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes whi... more Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes which can help EFL learners to read and understand them. Also, learning the new vocabulary through reading can be difficult for EFL learners. As such, in order to utilize these texts as teaching materials in EFL classes, they should be modified. The present study investigated Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners and how they acquire English language vocabulary incidentally from modified English texts while their primary task is reading for meaning. In order to measure the impact of lexical input modification on the improvement of foreign language vocabulary learning, 60 adult Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 18 and 22 in two intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to two homogenous groups of control and experimental. The analysis of the data revealed that incidental second language vocabulary learning could be improved effectively by lexical input modifications such as...
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approache... more This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approaches to writing (product, process, genre) in the quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, it focused on the type and frequency of strategies employed by learners in each group by employing think-aloud protocols. Three intact groups (n1=25, n2=23, n3=24) who were selected based on convenience sampling took part in the study. The participants had taken an essay writing course in the fifth semester of their study in English Translation. First, the participants took a Nelson English language proficiency test and then sat for a writing pretest. Content Scoring Guide (Ashwell, 2000) was the rating scale for scoring the essays. The inter-rater reliability between the two raters (r=0.75) showed that they were consistent in their scoring. After verifying the homogeneity of the groups regarding language proficiency and writing ability, the researchers assigned them randomly to three types of wri...
Brainstorming is a valuable pre-writing activity in enabling learners to get started in writing c... more Brainstorming is a valuable pre-writing activity in enabling learners to get started in writing classes. The present qualitative study explored the participants’ perceptions regarding the use of the method after experiencing it in online writing classes. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling, and their age range was 19 to 23. They had participated in private writing classes and volunteered to take part in interviews performed after the course. The interviews were also done virtually via WhatsApp, during which the respondents answered six questions. The analysis of the interviews led the researchers to extract eight significant themes, which were then divided into advantages and disadvantages. The interviewees mentioned idea generation, encouraging new ideas, becoming open-minded, enhancing motivation to write, and creating stronger rapport with classmates as the positive features of brainstorming. The disadvantages consisted of being distracted by too many ide...
Speech acts have a decisive role in enabling EFL learners to communicate successfully. This study... more Speech acts have a decisive role in enabling EFL learners to communicate successfully. This study compared the efficacy of jigsaw and dictogloss tasks in learning speech act by 47 pre-intermediate adolescent EFL learners. The participants were selected based on convenience sampling and were homogenized based on the results of a PET. Discoursecompletion task (DCT) was employed as the pre and post-tests. The result of the DCT pretest showed that the participants were not familiar with the target speech acts. Twenty 3-minute vignettes taken from different films were employed as the medium of instruction. After the treatment, the participants sat for another DCT. The results revealed that there was no statistically significant difference between the groups regarding knowledge of speech acts. However, the results of the paired samples t-test conducted to ensure the effectiveness of the treatment showed that there was a statistically significant difference between the groups’ DCT pre and ...
Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today's education and can have a vital role in ... more Identity formation is one of the main concerns of today's education and can have a vital role in ESP learners' future professional success. This study investigated whether the employment of interactive practices in ESP courses had any impact on the identity formation of introvert students. Initially, 200 undergraduate students majoring in Computer Sciences, Accounting, and Physical Education answered the introversion/extraversion section of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and Cheek and Briggs' Aspects of Identity Questionnaire (AIQ-IV). Based on their performance on MBTI, 90 learners with the extravert, introvert, and non-discriminating personality traits were selected from six classes and formed the three Extravert, Introvert, and Control (n1=n2=n3=30) groups. The students had taken a Specialized English course in the second semester of their BA program. The classes lasted 14 sessions. During the treatment, the researchers employed different activities for teaching ESP. After the instruction, the participants took the AIQ-IV. The results of ANCOVA indicated that the Introvert group gained significantly higher scores on the identity questionnaire than the Extravert and Control groups. The results of paired samples t-tests showed that while introverts had improved considerably in all components of the identity questionnaire, the Extravert and Control groups did not show any changes. The findings indicated that in interactive classroom environments, introvert learners had more inclination than the extravert and mixed introvert and extravert learners toward a shift in identity. The study has implications for ESP teachers, practitioners, and educators.
Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps o... more Brainstorming, as a pre-writing activity, facilitates the process of generating ideas and helps organize learners' thoughts to get involved in writing activities. The present convergent mixed methods study investigated whether the integration of technology and brainstorming could affect the argumentative writing of EFL learners. Initially, 68 university students in three intact classes (n=26, n=23, n=20) were exposed to mobile-assisted brainstorming (n=26), wordle-assisted brainstorming (n=23), and cooperative brainstorming (n=20) in the quantitative phase. For qualitative data collection, each session, some paper strips with three questions on them were distributed among the groups to help the researchers discover the participants' learning processes and perceptions during the instruction. Sixty-five participants who had attended all treatment sessions took one immediate post-test on a seen and one delayed post-test on an unseen topic. Two one-way analysis of variance tests (ANOVA) examined whether there were statistically significant differences between the means of the groups. The results revealed that the wordle-assisted brainstorming group outperformed the two other groups in both post-tests. The findings supported the use of word clouds as a cognitive activity in promoting the argumentative essay writing of Iranian EFL learners. The study has implications for teachers, practitioners, and educators.
This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approache... more This explanatory sequential mixed methods study compared the effects of three different approaches to writing (product, process, genre) in the quantitative phase. In the qualitative phase, it focused on the type and frequency of strategies employed by learners in each group by employing think-aloud protocols. Three intact groups (n1=25, n2=23, n3=24) who were selected based on convenience sampling took part in the study. The participants had taken an essay writing course in the fifth semester of their study in English Translation. First, the participants took a Nelson English language proficiency test and then sat for a writing pretest. Content Scoring Guide (Ashwell, 2000) was the rating scale for scoring the essays. The inter-rater reliability between the two raters (r=0.75) showed that they were consistent in their scoring. After verifying the homogeneity of the groups regarding language proficiency and writing ability, the researchers assigned them randomly to three types of writing instruction; namely product-based, process-based, and genre-based groups. The treatment took 12 sessions, and distinct techniques related to each writing approach were employed in the classes. After the treatment, the participants took a writing posttest. The two raters scored the essays (inter-rater reliability=0.79). The results of the one-way ANOVA revealed a statistically significant difference between the groups. Scheffe post hoc test showed that the genre-based group outperformed the other two groups. However, no significant differences were found between the product-based and process-based groups. In the i Correspondence: European Journal of Education Studies-Volume 6 │ Issue 6 │ 2019 116 second phase of the study, 12 participants (four individuals from each group) participated in the think-aloud sessions to clarify the type of strategy they used while writing. Mu's (2005) taxonomy of ESL writing strategies was employed as the criterion for classifying the strategies. The study has implications for language teachers and educators who are seeking the best way to teach writing. Syllabus designers can also benefit from the findings when developing materials for writing classes.
Vocabulary Learning via Reading: Is Input Modification Useful?, 2019
Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes whi... more Since authentic texts address native speakers, they might lack the reader-friendly attributes which can help EFL learners to read and understand them. Also, learning the new vocabulary through reading can be difficult for EFL learners. As such, in order to utilize these texts as teaching materials in EFL classes, they should be modified. The present study investigated Iranian intermediate-level EFL learners and how they acquire English language vocabulary incidentally from modified English texts while their primary task is reading for meaning. In order to measure the impact of lexical input modification on the improvement of foreign language vocabulary learning, 60 adult Iranian EFL learners between the ages of 18 and 22 in two intact classes were selected and randomly assigned to two homogenous groups of control and experimental. The analysis of the data revealed that incidental second language vocabulary learning could be improved effectively by lexical input modifications such as lexical and typographical elaboration.
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