Managing Emotions in the Self & Iranian EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Size

Emotional intelligence as a general ability is increasingly relevant to organizational development as its principles provide a new way to understand and assess one’s attitude, management styles, personal and interpersonal capabilities. The present research basically aimed at finding out whether managing one’s thought as a subscale of emotional intelligence has any relationship with vocabulary achievement of EFL learners or not. For this purpose, a total number of 45 Iranian EFL learners participated in the study. An achievement pre and posttests of vocabulary along with a questionnaire on emotional intelligence were administered. Then, the relationship between vocabulary gain scores and emotional intelligence, as a total entity, and managing one’s thought, as one of its subcomponents, were obtained through Pearson Product-Moment correlation coefficient formula. The results revealed that there is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and vocabulary gain, on one hand, and managing one’s thought, on the other hand for Iranian EFL learners. This implies that the more an individual is emotionally intelligent and can manage the self, the more his vocabulary achievement in language classes would be

Teachers’ Evaluation of the ILI High Intermediate Book Series through an Eclectic Checklist

Taking a glance at the plethora of literature on language books evaluation, one can easily explore the critical role being played by coursebooks in language learning contexts. Selecting a course book which fits the requirements of a specific course and aides teaching and learning processes besides offering organization and discipline to an educational course is a critical task carried out by teachers, practitioners or materials developers. One of the most commonly used instruments in evaluating course books in order to adopt or even adapt them, in cases needed, is checklist. Focusing on this recent issue, the present study aimed at evaluating a series of the ILI books which are widely used all around Iran at high-intermediate levels in one of the most well-known national language schools called Iran Language Institute (ILI). The participants were 23 experienced teachers holding BA, MA or PhD at this language school in adult section from different branches in Shiraz. The instrument used in this survey was an eclectic checklist devised and suggested by Yusuf Demir and Abdullah Ertas (2014)

BVRI photometric observations, light curve solutions and orbital period analysis of BF Pav

A new ephemeris, period change analysis and light curve modeling of the W UMa-type eclipsing binary BF Pav are presented in this study. Light curves of the system taken in BVRI filters from two observatories, in Australia and Argentina, were modeled using the Wilson-Devinney code. The results of this analysis demonstrate that BF Pav is a contact binary system with a photometric mass ratio q = 1.460 ± 0.014, a fillout factor f = 12.5%, an inclination of 87.97 ± 0.45 deg and a cold spot on the secondary component. By applying the distance modulus formula, the distance of BF Pav was calculated to be d = 268 ± 18 pc which is in good agreement with the Gaia EDR3 distance. We obtain an orbital period increase at a rate of 0.142 s century−1 due to a quadratic trend in the O − C diagram. Also, an alternative sudden period jump probably occurred which could be interpreted as a rapid mass transfer from the lower mass star to its companion of about ∆M = 2.45×10−6 M. Furthermore, there is an oscillatory behavior with a period of 18.3 ± 0.3 yr. Since BF Pav does not seem to have significant magnetic activity, this behavior could be interpreted as the light-time effect caused by an undetected third body in this system. In this case, the probability for the third body to be a low mass star with M ≥ 0.075 M or a brown dwarf is 5.4% and 94.6% respectively. If we assume i0 = 90◦, a3 = 8.04 ± 0.33 AU. The mass of the secondary component was also determined following two different methods which result close to each other.Fil: Poro, Atila. The International Occultation Timing Association Middle East section; IránFil: Alicavus, Fahri. Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University; TurquíaFil: Fernandez Lajus, Eduardo Eusebio. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - La Plata. Instituto de Astrofísica La Plata. Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Facultad de Ciencias Astronómicas y Geofísicas. Instituto de Astrofísica La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Davoudi, Fatemeh. The International Occultation Timing Association Middle East section; IránFil: MirshafieKhozani, PegahSadat. The International Occultation Timing Association Middle East section; IránFil: Blackford, Mark G.. Congarinni Observatory; AustraliaFil: Budding, Edwin. Université du Québec a Montreal; CanadáFil: Jalalabadi, Behjat Zarei. Carter Observatory; Nueva ZelandaFil: Rahimi, Jabar. The International Occultation Timing Association Middle; IránFil: Farahani, Farzaneh Ahangarani. The International Occultation Timing Association Middle; Irá

Inductive vs. Deductive Grammar Instruction and the Grammatical Performance of EFL Learners

Learning a foreign language offers a great challenge to students since it involves learning different skills and subskills. Quite a few number of researches have been done so far on the relationship between gender and learning a foreign language. On the other hand, two major approaches in teaching grammar have been offered by language experts, inductive and deductive. The present study examines which method of teaching grammar is more fruitful for Iranian male and female students. For this purpose, 150 freshman students, 110 females and 40 males, majoring in English were selected from all available students at Abadeh and Shiraz Azad universities. All the subjects took the NTC's grammar test prior to the instruction as pre-test. Then, they were divided into two groups and were taught grammar inductively and deductively in each group for one semester. At the end of the instruction, the same test was taken as post-test. The comparison between the students' pre and post-test indicated that there was a significant improvement in their knowledge of grammar. By the way, through a two-way ANOVA, it was found out that males learned grammar better when they were taught inductively and females showed a better performance when they were taught deductively

E-Tools to Assist EFL Learners' Writing Skill: Wikis, Weblogs, and Podcasts

One of the promises of web-based education is to help students take control of their learning pace as the basic requirement of language learning is being life-long. The purpose of the present study was to find out which of the e-tools -- weblogs, wikis, or podcasts -- can better help EFL learners excel in their writing skill. To this end, 156 Iranian sophomore students majoring in English and studying at Islamic Azad University, Abadeh and Shiraz Branches and the Zand Institute of Higher Education were selected based on random sampling as participants. As the design of the study was a pre-experimental one, there were three experimental groups involved but no control group. Before the instruction, the participants were given an essay writing test, whose results were used to divide them into three groups. Two of the groups received in-class instruction and were assigned out-of-class activities through weblogs and wikis. The third group received the instruction through podcasts. The treatment lasted for two and a half months and at the end, another essay writing test was given to all groups. A two-way ANOVA for the comparison of the participants' gain scores indicated that using the tools available on the Internet could lead to improvement in the EFL students writing abilities, and gender was not a determining factor. The study reveals the fact that web tools, in general, and blogs, wikis, and podcasts, in particular, can foster EFL students’ writing skills and teachers can use them as supplements in their language instruction

The Basic Assumptions on Language Acquisition from Perspectives of Cognitive, Generative- Transformational, and Structural Linguistics: An Overview

Abstract Language acquisition is a varied field, and there is an ocean of approaches from which one can investigate first/second language acquisition. These approaches root in different fields, basically linguistics. As for linguistics, research in language acquisition ranges from structural and generative-transformational to cognitive linguistics. While in contrast with each other in main respects theoretically, and, critically speaking, each having its own pitfalls, they have common methodological applications. This article aims at scrutinizing structural, generative-transformational, and cognitive linguistics in relation with language acquisition and providing support for such a claim that not only they are not totally mutually exclusive and in contrast with each other, but they rather share the same objectives in language acquisition path concerning innate syntactic knowledge, usage-based, and word grammar (WG)

The Role of Games in Teaching English Numbers to Iranian EFL Learners at the Elementary Level

Abstract English vocabulary, especially at the elementary stage of language learning process, is easily forgotten. Language games seem to be a good strategy for learning a foreign language. This study aimed to find a way to help elementary EFL learners fix the new English numbers in their minds. First, the general test of English numbers as a pretest was administered to 60 participants. They were required to write equivalents of the target numbers in the blank spaces. After giving the pre-test, the researcher divided the learners into the experimental group and the control group. Students in experimental group were taught new English numbers through games including: One to TEN, Slap that, Number of chairs, How many plastic apples?, Count in jumps, Cooperative numbers Circling math challenge, Answer me, Buzz fizz, Circling math challenge, Choose your score now. In the control group, the new numbers were presented through traditional methods such as repetition or translation. The study was conducted at Poyandegan language Institute in Neyriz. Thirty students as an experimental group and 30 students as a control group aged between 9-12 participated in this study. The collected data were analyzed using paired and independent samples T-test. The study indicated that there were statistically significant differences in mean scores of vocabulary tests in favor of the experimental group in the post test. It is hoped that due to the findings of this study teachers will reconsider the role of games and appreciate its value

The Role of Games in Teaching English Numbers to Iranian EFL Learners at the Elementary Level

English vocabulary, especially at the elementary stage of language learning process, is easily forgotten. Language games seem to be a good strategy for learning a foreign language. This study aimed to find a way to help elementary EFL learners fix the new English numbers in their minds. First, the general test of English numbers as a pretest was administered to 60 participants. They were required to write equivalents of the target numbers in the blank spaces. After giving the pre-test, the researcher divided the learners into the experimental group and the control group. Students in experimental group were taught new English numbers through games including: One to TEN, Slap that, Number of chairs, How many plastic apples?, Count in jumps, Cooperative numbers Circling math challenge, Answer me, Buzz fizz, Circling math challenge, Choose your score now. In the control group, the new numbers were presented through traditional methods such as repetition or translation. The study was conducted at Poyandegan language Institute in Neyriz. Thirty students as an experimental group and 30 students as a control group aged between 9-12 participated in this study. The collected data were analyzed using paired and independent samples T- test. The study indicated that there were statistically significant differences in mean scores of vocabulary tests in favor of the experimental group in the post test. It is hoped that due to the findings of this study teachers will reconsider the role of games and appreciate its value

The Role of Weblogs in Iranian EFL Learners’ Vocabulary Knowledge and Writing Ability

Nowadays Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is becoming not only enormously popular but also increasingly important in our lives and education system. Generally, learners are usually eager to work on computers or with various kinds of modern technology. This research was carried out to find out whether using weblogs is effective in Iranian EFL learners’ vocabulary and writing skills. To do so, two samples of learners were selected through an OPT test as the control and experimental groups, and a pretest of vocabulary was administrated. Then, the traditional methods of teaching vocabulary and writing were used for the control group, and weblogs were used for the experimental group. After three months of instruction, another test of vocabulary and writing was given as the posttest to the students of both groups to assess their achievement. The results of the analysis of ANCOVA showed that weblogs were more effective than the traditional ways of teaching vocabulary and writing