abstract tasks nowadays are at the center of attention in sla research. task types is one of the critical issues in this regard, their effectiveness and suitability to any particular context, their characteristics and the result they yield are among some of these issues. on the other hand, discourse markers (dms) have been very much investigated and their effectiveness in conveying the meaning...

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...

testing plays a vital role in any language teaching program. it allows teachers and stakeholders, including program administrators, parents, admissions officers and prospective employers to be assured that the learners are progressing according to an accepted standard (douglas, 2010). the problems currently facing language testers have both practical and theoretical implications but the first i...

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...

during the process of reading, sometimes learners use ineffective and inefficient strategies and some factors may influence their use of strategies. perhaps critical thinking is one of these factors. this study aims to identify those categories of reading strategies that are mostly used by iranian efl learners and to see if there is any significant relationship between the critical thinking abi...

acknowledge the importance of e-commerce to their countries and to survival of their businesses and in creating and encouraging an atmosphere for the wide adoption and success of e-commerce in the long term. the investment for implementing e-commerce in the public sector is one of the areas which is focused in government‘s action plan for cross-disciplinary it development and e-readiness in go...

abstract: in the paper of black and scholes (1973) a closed form solution for the price of a european option is derived . as extension to the black and scholes model with constant volatility, option pricing model with time varying volatility have been suggested within the frame work of generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (garch) . these processes can explain a number of em...

the present study aimed to investigate representation of discourse markers and metadiscourse markers in conversations and readings of general elt coursebook series used in the language centers of iran. to this aim, four elt coursebooks popularly taught in language centers of this country were analyzed based on fung and carter’s (2007) framework regarding discourse markers and hyland’s (2005) fr...

abstract in aggregate, active forms of reactive silica with mineral names are sometimes associated with sand and gravel in concrete mixture. alkali hydroxides originated from alkalis in the cement or other resources form an alkaline silica gel with this reactive silica which becomes swallowed and expanded during time causing damage to concrete. there have been growing researches on alkaline r...

abstract the third millennium has started, but the world is facing with serious challenges in achieving international security and peace. various human rights violations have lead the states to find means to protect human rights. also article 55 of the united nations charter introduces the respect to human rights and fundamental freedom as the most suitable ways to realize peace and security. ...