This study aimed to explore whether first‐language (L1) readers of different language backgrounds would employ similar metacognitive online reading strategies and whether reading online in a second language (L2) could be influenced by L1 reading strategies. To this end, 52 Canadian college students as English L1 readers and 38 Iranian university students as both Farsi L1 and English L2 readers were selected. After completing three reading tasks on the Web, their perceptions about their use of strategies were assessed via a survey of reading strategies. Analyses of the data, using an analysis of variance and the Scheffé post hoc test, revealed certain differences. The Canadian readers perceived themselves to be high‐strategy users employing mostly a top‐down approach, whereas the Iranian readers in both Farsi and English appeared to be medium‐strategy users, favouring mostly a bottom‐up approach. Additionally, the correlation between readers' perceived use of strategies and their reading scores was statistically significant.
This article examines the ideological import of (a) a selection of internationally distributed ELT textbooks to find out whether a recurrent ideological pattern could be observed and (b) the ELT books used in Iranian high schools to see if the ideological import of these books was different from that of the internationally distributed ELT textbooks. To this end, the theory and procedures of critical discourse analysis (CDA), as expounded by Fairclough (1989), were applied to conversations in these textbooks and three dimensions of meaning — the social relations of textbook characters, their subject positions, and the content of the texts — were categorized and statistically analyzed. The analysis revealed that the internationally distributed ELT textbooks tend to represent a particular discourse type — the discourse of western economy and consumer society. Moreover, in the locally produced ELT materials, owing to the absence of certain topics and features, the preparation of the high school books appears to have been influenced by post-revolution norms and standards.
This study investigated the effect of weblog-based collaborative learning on young Iranian EFL learners' writing skill and motivation. To this end, the participants were selected from a language institute and divided into two groups of experimental and control each with 40 female students in the age range of 18 to 25. They were classified as low, intermediate, and high according to their level of language proficiency. While the control group attended classes, the students in the experimental group were simply asked to put their writing assignments on the weblog. They were asked to read each others' writings and make comments and corrections. A pre-test measured the participants' initial behavior in writing. A parallel test was conducted at the end of the study to check the effect of the treatment on the students' final behavior in writing. Their writing was scored by using the scoring rubric adapted from Rog (2007). A questionnaire was also used to check the blogger's motivation. The analysis of the data revealed that the blogging integrated collaborative learning instruction was more effective than in-class language learning instruction. The results of the study indicate that blogs as a tool for language learning provide a platform for language International Journal of Linguistics ISSN 1948-5425 2012 www.macrothink.org/ijl 413 learners to use the language actively. Finally, learners were motivated to use language and build their autonomy in learning language.
Abstract-With encompassing power of cell phones and potentials of mobile learning for language teaching/learning, employing cell phones in language learning seems indispensable. Through exploiting the inherent capabilities of such devices this study investigated the efficacy of multimodal representation of L2 vocabularies for 158 pre-intermediate level L2 learners aged 18-23. Since short-term memory plays an important role in vocabulary learning, they were placed into four different short-term memory (STM) ability groups using visual and verbal STM Tests. Also, cell phone-based vocabulary presentations with different annotations, i.e. pictorial vs. written, were adapted to the cell phone screen to render on learners' cell phones via Bluetooth. Finally, the participants took English vocabulary recognition and recall tests. The statistical analysis of the results showed that presenting learning materials with pictorial or written annotations rather than without annotations to learners with high-visual and high-verbal abilities resulted in better learning. Also, presenting learning materials with pictorial annotation to learners with high-visual ability as well as presenting the materials with written annotation to learners with high-verbal ability resulted in better learning. Low-visual and low-verbal ability groups showed better results under no annotation condition. The findings can provide an appropriate model for designing learning materials for L2 learners.
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