phatic communion is a cultural concept which differs across cultures. according to hofstede (2001), the u.s. tends to have individualistic culture; however, asian countries tend to have collectivistic cultures. these cultures view phatic communion differently. in individualistic cultures like u.s., phatic communion reflects speakers’ socio-cultural relationships in conversations. to see whether...

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...

language learning courseware has been receiving growing attention by english educators since its advent. a variety of softwares have been designed by software designers and resorted to by language educators to supplement language textbooks. this experimental study investigated how the application of computerized version of language textbooks and the reception of the entire course through comput...

this study investigated how group formation method, namely student-selected vs. teacher-assigned, influences the results of the community model of teaching creative writing; i.e., group dynamics and group outcome (the quality of performance). the study adopted an experimental comparison group and microgenetic research design to observe the change process over a relatively short period of time. ...

the aim of the present study was to investigate the frequency and the type of discourse markers used in the argumentative and expository writings of iranian efl learners and the differences between these text features in the two essay genres. the study also aimed at examining the influence of the use of discourse markers on the participants’ writing quality. to this end the discourse markers us...

this research was conducted in two protect and destroy region in the middle zagros, in illam province. in order to identification of ecological species group and evaluate density of regeneration, effect of many factors such as protection, vegetation, physiographic factors, physical and chemical properties of soil in study locations were studied. to achieve these purpose number of 54 plots using...

abstract foreign and iranian cultures are far distinct in the constraints imposed on writing and translating for children, since the iranian literary system is mainly concerned with cultural and religious instructions which lead to manipulation of translated texts. this study sought to identify the cultural and social constraints and norms which determined the strategies applied in the transl...

‏‎the purpose of the present study was to investigate the latent pattern underlying reading ability . some 272 male and female participants. english majors at the ba level , participated in the study. two valid tests were used in this study, the reading test developed exclusively for the purpose of this project and academic reading section of ielts. to investigate the possible latent underlying...

most specialists in the field of foreign language teachingconsiderreading skill as an interactive process between the reader’s prior knowledge and the text.accordingly, the activation of prior knowledge for an effective comprehension is very important. it is generally agreed that the pre-reading phase is the stage where this type of interaction and activation may be enhanced throughcertain stra...

the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between teachers’ immediacy behaviors and iranian students’ willingness to talk in english classes. analysis of the results from willingness to talk scale represents a relatively high level of willingness to talk in english classrooms among iranian language learners. the total mean score of students’ willingness to talk was 66.3 ou...