Rahman Sahragard

[ 1 ] - Pedagogy of Possibility for EFL Learners: Principles, Application, and Course Development

This study reports on the development of a reading comprehension course based on Critical Pedagogy principles, and the result of its application on EFL learners' reading comprehension competence, their motivation to read English materials, their democratic attitudes towards their English classrooms, and also their attitudes towards the critical course. The present study is, in fact, a step forw...

[ 2 ] - On the Development of a Model of Discipline-specific Reading Strategies in the Context of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract Reading strategies are seen as supportive means to help learners process and comprehend English texts effectively. The present research probed to posit a discipline-specific model of reading strategies for Iranian TEFL postgraduate students. The motive behind developing a local model of reading strategy is twofold: first, a variety of postgraduate students admitted for M.A and Ph.D. pr...

[ 3 ] - Sociocultural Identity DevelopmentScaffolded byCollaboration-ConduciveStrategies:A Case of an Iranian EFL Writing Class

This investigation postulatesVygotsky’s (1978) concept of zone of proximal development (ZPD) and his related “scaffolding” metaphor as well as Norton’s (2006) principles of sociocultural identity as its theoretical foundation.Thisresearchintends to scrutinizethe socioculturally-oriented mediationalmechanisms utilized in student-student and student-teacher collaborationsin an Iranian EFL writing...

[ 4 ] - On Anthropomorphism in Technology-Enhanced Language Learning: Does Modality Matter in Agent-Based Multimedia Instruction on L2 Idioms?

The present study aimed to satisfy a twofold purpose: On the one hand, it sought to verify the postulation that agent-based instruction could offer a compromise approach to teaching L2 idioms where form and meaning would be equally emphasized during instruction. Given that anthropomorphism has not been much under scrutiny, this research, on the other hand, sought to ascertain whether learning a...

[ 5 ] - TEXTUAL AND INTER-TEXTUAL ANALYSES OF IRANIAN EFL UNDERGRADUATES’ TYPES OF ENGLISH READING TOWARDS DEVELOPING A CAREFUL READING FRAMEWORK

This study investigated textual and inter-textual reading of a group of Iranian EFL undergraduates’ careful English reading types. In this research, Khalifa and Weir’s (2009) reading framework was used to propose a more inclusive aspect of a careful reading framework and the reading construct for instructional and assessment goals. The participants of this study were B.A. students of English Tr...

[ 6 ] - The Effect of Lexical Collocational Density on the Iranian EFL Learners’ Reading Comprehension

The present study aims at investigating the effect of different levels of lexical collocational density on EFL learners’ reading comprehension. Eighty sophomore students with different levels of proficiency studying at Zand Institute of Higher Education in Shiraz, Iran were chosen from among eighty five learners based on their score distribution on a reduced TOEFL test constructed by Education...

[ 7 ] - The Role of Conceptualizable Agent in Overpassivization of English Unaccusatives in Iranian English Majors

The present study is an attempt to explore the effect of one of the pragmatic elements of discourse (namely the conceptualizable agent) on overpassivization of English unaccusative verbs. Through employing the questionnaire originally used by Ju, (2000), 206 Iranian intermediate and advanced English majors were asked to choose the more grammatical form (active or passive) in target sentences wi...

[ 8 ] - The Representation of Social Actors In Interchange Third Edition Series: A Critical Discourse Analysis

This study takes a critical discourse analysis approach to investigate the linguistic representation of male and female social actors and construction of gender identities in the Interchange Third Edition. The analytical models used are van Leeuwen's (1996) framework and Halliday's transitivity model (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). The findings of this study indicated a differential representat...

[ 9 ] - On the Development of a Model of Discipline-specific Reading Strategies in the Context of Iranian EFL Learners

Abstract Reading strategies are seen as supportive means to help learners process and comprehend English texts effectively. The present research probed to posit a discipline-specific model of reading strategies for Iranian TEFL postgraduate students. The motive behind developing a local model of reading strategy is twofold: first, a variety of postgraduate students admitted for M.A and Ph.D. pr...

[ 10 ] - Iranian Language Teachers’ Passion for the Profession: A Qualitative Study

To explore Iranian professionally developed English teachers’ passion for the English language teaching profession, an interview with 7 open-ended questions was conducted to 14 Iranian professionally developed teachers to discover what factors were at work in their professional growth. Participants included 8 Ph.D. holders, 3 Ph.D. candidates, and 3 M.A. holders in TEFL who had more than 20 yea...