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Showing 4 results for Ebadi
Zia Tajeddin, Saman Ebadi,
Volume 14, Issue 2 (9-2011)
Abstract
This study explored EFL learners’ pragmalinguistic awareness in processing implicit pragmatic input and the extent to which their awareness of the target features was related to motivation and proficiency. It was carried out in an EFL context to explore the roles of these two variables, particularly intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, in noticing bi-clausal request forms in implicit pragmatic input. The participants in this research were 121 advanced EFL learners from a language center, participating as members of intact classes. All participants took a proficiency test and completed a motivation questionnaire in order to explore the factorial structure of motivation. Then, out of them, 35 learners were randomly selected to form the treatment group. They then took part in a noticing-the-gap activity as a treatment task. The degree of learners' awareness of the target pragmalingustic features was assessed through a respective awareness questionnaire administrated immediately after the treatment. However, the current study shows that EFL students are rather extrinsically motivated and instrumentally oriented to notice pragmalinguistic features, which is incompatible with what Takahashi reported on students’ intrinsic orientation to notice pragmaliguistics in the Japanese EFL context. This suggests that learners in different contexts have different motivational dispositions to pragmalinguistic awareness.
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Volume 17, Issue 1 (4-2014)
Abstract
Theoretically framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural theory of mind (SCT), Dynamic assessment (DA) is a new approach to classroom assessment offering mediation to help learners perform beyond their level of independent functioning. As a web-based qualitative inquiry into the nature of mediation in DA and its impacts on the participants’ private speech patterns, this study explored the role of private speech as a social and psychological tool to mediate learners' thinking and performance in online DA. The subjects of the study were two Iranian university students along with two English native speakers orally narrating a series of picture stories and having weekly DA mediation with the researcher via Skype. In the present study, the students' private speech markers’ typology emerged out of thematic analysis of oral narratives transcribed before and after DA mediation and it was presented as a criterion to evaluate the learners' progression towards self-regulation. The frequency of occurrence of the learners’ private speech markers was reported and interpreted based on the emergent typology to evaluate the possible changes in their use as the result of DA mediation. Meanwhile, the differences between native speaker participants and the learners’ use of private speech markers in oral narratives were highlighted and discussed. The results of the study indicated that mediation was effective in reducing the number of private speech markers in the learners' narratives after mediation which reflects their progression towards self-regulation in online DA. The findings of the study highlight the importance of private speech as a mediating tool in DA which reflects learners’ struggle to take control of direction of learning and move beyond their current capabilities.
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Volume 18, Issue 2 (9-2015)
Abstract
The present study, following Vygotskyan Sociocultural theory in education, and inspired by Rogoff’s conceptualization (1995, 2003) of development, aimed at conceptual development of in-service EFL teachers. To this end, two Iranian EFL teachers with pseudonyms (Tara and Sara) were selected as participants of the study. The participating teachers were first taught the sociocultural concepts related to language, teaching, and learning taken from Johnson (2009) and Rogoff’s (2003) mediatory model of development in six workshops through dialogic mediation. The data for the study comprised two semi-structured interviews, and three video-recording of critical reflection of each teacher on their video-taped classroom behavior. The recordings and transcripts were analyzed using Hatch’s (2002) procedure for interpretive analysis. The results of the study showed that participating teachers, over a process of struggle with their past experiences, gradually replaced their old everyday concepts such as grammatical accuracy, correct samples, and teacher interruption with new scientific concepts such as grammatical apprenticeship, guided grammatical participation, and grammatical appropriation through assisted participation. The results of present study can be illuminating for teacher educators and teacher education programs which have aimed at changing the classroom practice of in-service teachers.
Soroor Ashtarian, Saman Ebadi, Nourodin Yousofi,
Volume 21, Issue 2 (9-2018)
Abstract
| This study aimed to investigate the application of Group Dynamic Assessment (GDA) to writing accuracy of EFL learners and explore whether secondary interactants could benefit from interactions between mediator and primary interactants. The idea of implementing DA (Dynamic Assessment) in dyads seems unworkable since teachers are required to teach the whole class (Guk & Kellog, 2007). Moreover, Lantolf and Poehner (2004) suggest a new approach to DA that is GDA, which involves applying DA with a large number of learners rather than individuals. Following a multiple case study design and interactionist DA, the development of ten students in a class of twenty five was tracked during the eight sessions of DA program. Data were collected though written artifacts, video-recording of interactions, interview, and observation. The results indicated that GDA was an effective way of helping learners overcome their linguistic problems and there were signs of microgenetic as well as macrogenetic development within the same DA session and across sessions. The present findings provide further insight into understanding how secondary interactants benefit from the interactions between mediator and primary interactants. |
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