there are two major theories of measurement in psychometrics: classical test theory (ctt) and item-response theory (irt). despite its widespread and long use, ctt has a number of shortcomings, which make it problematic to be used for practical and theoretical purposes. irt tries to solve these shortcomings, and provide better and more dependable answers. one of the applications of irt is the as...

this study intends to investigate samuel beckett’s waiting for godot and endgame under the lacanian psychoanalysis. it begins by explaining the most important concepts of lacanian psychoanalysis. the beckettian characters are studied regarding their state of unconscious, and not the state of consciousness as is common in most beckett studies. according to lacan, language plays the sole role in ...

according to cheng (1999), in recent esl/efl literature, asian (especially east asian) learners of english as a foreign/second language have been arguably reported as reticent and passive learners. the most common allegations are that these students are reluctant to participate in classroom discourse; they are unwilling to give responses; they do not ask questions; and they are passive and over...

abstract the aim of this study was threefold: (1) to investigate the relationship between knowledge of semantic prosody and efl learners general language proficiency; (2) to examine the relationship between qualitative as well as quantitative knowledge of words, and (3) to compare the performance of efl learner on receptive and productive measures of semantic prosody. the study is based on a...

this study investigated the effects of planning on second-language written production with regard to task type. the participants were 75 iranian learners of english as a foreign language attending a private foreign language institution. they were asked to complete two different types of writing tasks (expository writing task and argumentative writing task) in different planned conditions (indiv...

abstract the primary purpose of this study was to explore the actual practices and cognitions of two groups of iranian eap teachers, i.e. language teachers and content teachers, with respect to teaching reading-comprehension and vocabulary. to this end, tehran university of medical sciences which authorizes both groups of teachers to teach eap courses was selected as the context of the study s...

fluorescence chemical sensors for the highly sensitive and selective determination of pb2+ , hg2+, co2+ and fe3+ ions in aqueous solutions are described. the ion sensing system was prepared by incorporating lipophilic ligand (l) as a neutral ion-selective fluoroionophore in the plasticized pvc membrane containing sodium tetraphenylborate or potasium tetrakis (p-chlorophenyl) borate as a liphoph...

increasing academic and professional language demands around the world are not a deniable fact. the purpose of this study was to investigate english language needs and communication needs of the chemistry students at master and ph.d. levels at the iranian universities. in this research, different methods were used including un-structured interview, structured interview, and two sets of question...

this study aimed to investigate the effects of listening strategy training on iranian efl learners listening comprehension and use of such strategies. this work, employing an experimental methodology, was conducted among 60 adult efl learners from a language institute in isfahan, iran, as participants. the participants, who were selected based on the results of a placement test, were assigned t...

abstract over the past two decades, applied linguists and language teachers have shown a great deal of interest in genre-centered approaches , mainly because of pedagogic concerns . this has been due to the need to help non-native readers enhance their ability to understand academic and scientific texts. following swales’ (1981) works on genre analysis, studies of different sections of resear...