An Investigation into Visual language in PowerPoint Presentations in Applied Linguistics

PowerPoint Knowledge presentation as a digital genre has established itself as one of the main software by which the findings of theses are disseminated in the academic settings. Although the importance of PowerPoint presentations is typically realized in academic settings like lectures, conferences, and seminars, studied to probe the role of visual resiurces in presentations have received little attention. The current study aligns its march towards scrutinizing the anatomy of visual interaction in the PowerPoint defense session presentations prepared by Iranian Master of Arts students majoring in Applied Linguistics. The study aims at describing the identity of visual resources in the PowerPoint presentations by categorizing the utilized visuals within the presentations according to their communicative purposes. To this end, the study analyzes 70 PowerPoint defense session presentations given at various universities across Iran in Applied Linguistics. So as to do analysis, the study draws on the typology of visuals introduced by Rowley-Jolivet for classifying the types of visuals. The results of visual analyzing mirrors the fact PowerPoint defense session presentations in Applied Linguistics visualized themselves more by scriptural visuals to their members of discourse community. The findings, moreover, demand a framework of presentations in Applied Linguistics for more norm-compatible presentations. Keywords: Visuals, PPs, Visual resoutces, Applied Linguistics.

The Relationship between Novice and Experienced Teachers' Self-Efficacy for Classroom Management and Students' Perceptions of their Teachers' Classroom Management

This study investigates the effect of teachers’self-efficacy on classroom management and students’ perceptions of their teachers’classroom management. The study involves 18 novice and 18 experienced English teachers teaching at Ilam high schools and their 120 students from March to September of 2014.Data were collected through two questionnaires.Boththe teacher and student questionnaires consist of 36 Likert scale items. To analyze the data, t-tests were applied. The results revealed  that teachers have high efficacy for classroom management. When the two groups werecompared, novice and experienced teachers were found to differ in their self-efficacy forclassroom management, but not in their efficacy for personal teaching and externalinfluences. Students did not distinguish between novice and experienced teachers’classroom management, viewing both positively. In order to improve teachers' efficacy for classroom management, in-servicetraining programs and regular meetings where teachers share their experiences can beheld. Teachers may also spare time for class discussions or administering questionnairesto their students to learn about their students' perceptions of their own teaching andclassroom management practices. Keywords: Self-efficacy, classroom management, misbehavior, novice teachers, experienced teacher

A Contrastive Analysis of Adjuncts Regarding their Manner of Expression in English and Persian

AbstractThe present study aims at investigating the manner of expression of adjuncts in English and Persian based on (Halliday, 2004). Halliday's categorization of adjuncts into “interpersonal, textual, and experiential” was adopted to classify the collected examples of adjuncts. Some English novels and their Persian translations were investigated and more than 220 adjuncts were identified in the two languages. Based on (Halliday, 2004), these adjuncts were categorized into “interpersonal, experiential and textual”. By employing descriptive and inferential statistics, the results were analyzed. The findings obtained by running statistical operations revealed that English and Persian use almost the similar tools (adverbial, prepositional phrase, and clause) to express experiential adjuncts. However, it was found that the two contrasted languages do not use the same linguistic tools to express interpersonal and textual adjuncts

An Analytical Evaluation of Iranian High School ELT Textbooks from 1970 to 2010

Textbooks play a very crucial role in the process of language teaching and learning. The present study carries out an evaluation of two series of ELT textbooks used for teaching English language in Iranian high schools since 1970 to 2010. For this purpose, Tucker’s (1975) textbook evaluation model (see Appendix) has been employed. The results suggest that one of the main factors for the students’ achievement in English language is the ELT textbooks. The researcher suggests that in the textbooks, there should be enough opportunity for the learners to communicatively practice the language they are learning

An Analytical Evaluation of Iranian High School ELT Textbooks from 1970 to 2010

Textbooks play a very crucial role in the process of language teaching and learning. The present study carries out an evaluation of two series of ELT textbooks used for teaching English language in Iranian high schools since 1970 to 2010. For this purpose

Investigating the of Explicit Instruction of Apology Speech Act on Pragmatic Development of Iranian EFL Learners

Learning a foreign language requires students to acquire both grammatical knowledge and socio-pragmatic rules of a language. Pragmatic competence as one of the most difficult aspects of language provides several challenges to L2 learners in the process of learning a foreign language. To overcome this problem, EFL teachers should find the most effective way of teaching pragmatic knowledge to their students. Accordingly, the present study investigated the effect of explicit teaching of apology speech act, as an aspect of pragmatic competence, on the Iranian EFL learners’ appropriate use of the mentioned speech act. In so doing, a total of 73 EFL students at intermediate and advanced levels participated in a pre-posttest design research with experimental and control group. Data were collected using a Discourse Completion Test (DCT). The selection of apologetic situations in DCT was based on two variables of social status and social distance. The results revealed that explicit instruction was a facilitative tool that helped students use the proper apology strategies in different situations. Moreover, it was found that L2 proficiency had a significant influence on overall appropriateness of speech act production.Keywords: Explicit instruction; Apology speech act;   Pragmatic competence; Iranian EFL learners 

A Contrastive Study of Realization Patterns of Request Strategies of Ilami-Kurdish and Persian Speakers based on Age and Education

This paper aimed at investigating speech act of 'request realization patterns' in Ilami Kurdish and Persian languages. It attempts to systematize the various strategies used for the purpose of request from the pragmatic point of view. We focus on the impact of gender, age and language as well as degree of education on the choice of forms of request in Ilami kurdi and Persian. It is intended to find the most frequently used strategies in different social groups based on their language, age and level of education. To achieve this goal, a descriptive approach was adopted by employing a researcher-made questionnaire to collect the data from a population of bilingual and monolingual subjects in Ilam, Iran. A remarkable finding was the meaningful relationship among age and level of education in request strategies used by Ilami Kurdish and Persian speakers. As for the kind of language, it was found that "Supportive moves" and "Internal modifier" were the most frequently used strategies among Kurdish subjects respectively and   "Supportive moves" and "Internal modifier" was the most popular employed strategies among Persian subjects respectively. As for age, it was found that out of the 69 collected request responses, "Internal modifier" and "Supportive moves " were the most frequently used strategies among under 26 years subjects respectively and "Internal modifier"  and  "Alerters" were the most popular employed strategies among above 26 years subjects respectively. Finally, regarding the level of education, it was found that "Internal modifier" and out of the 54 collected request responses, "Internal modifier" was the most frequently used strategies among B.A and M.A subjects respectively. The same table shows that out of 47 collected request responses "Internal modifier" and "Supportive moves" was the most popular employed strategies among PHD subjects respectively.

Investigating the Performance of Ilami EFL Teachers in Observing the English Intonational Patterns Based on Their Gender

The current study extracted, first, 17 general patterns of intonation. Additionally, the present study investigated the roles that might be played by the gender of Ilami EFL teachers in observing the 17 patterns of intonation. Finally, the study determined if intonation as a suprasegmental feature of speech is affected by the gender of Ilami EFL teachers. The population of the study encompassed all male and female EFL teachers in Ilam city from which 40 teachers (20 males and 20 females) were surveyed on interviews for their observing of 17 general patterns of intonation. For inferential statistics, Chi-Square tests were conducted to analyze the data. Statistical analysis was run using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Accordingly, male teachers outperformed female teachers on observing the rules of intonation.Keywords: Suprasegmental aspects of speech, Intonation, EFL teacher

The Study of Learning Styles and its Relationship with Educational Achievement Among Iranian High School Students

AbstractLearning process has been one of the important aspects of human life. Student's learning styles are among the acquired factors. Based on their individual differences, different students use different learning styles for their learning. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the study of learning styles among high school students and its relationship with educational achievement. The statistical population under investigation included girl's high school students in the city of Ilam, Iran in the school year of 2014. The statistical population was consisted of 3958 students. The sample group was selected by the stratified random sampling method based on Morgan's table and through multiple-steps sampling. In order to assess the learning styles, the online questionnaire for learning styles, by Felder and Solomon is used. Collected data analyzed using SPSS software. According to correlation coefficients, among students in experiential field, there is a positive significant relationship between students learning styles who use Visual-Verbal learning style and their score means and among students in mathematics field, there is a positive significant relationship between students learning styles who use Active-Reflective and Visual-Verbal learning style and their score mean. In humanities field, there is no significant relationship between the students learning styles that use Sequential-Global, Visual-Verbal and Sensing- Intuitive learning styles and their score means. The Kruskal-Wallis test shown that there is a significant difference between humanities students score means with mathematics and experiential students that have Active-Reflective learning style. There is a significant difference between score means of grade two students in all fields in Active-Reflective and Visual-Verbal learning styles and similarly in grade three students in all fields in Active-Reflective and Sequential-Global learning styles