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...

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...

according to coates’s (2004, as cited in zhang, 2010) definition of "conversational dominance" (p.111), it refers to the phenomenon of a speaker dominating others in interaction. specifically, it means how a speaker makes use of certain strategies to get the floor and maintain the floor. thus, the amount of talk is the main measurement for the dominance of the conversation. whether a speaker do...

august wilson is undoubtedly one of the rare black playwrights whose works have attracted streams of attention and worldwide audience. the present study aims at analyzing fences and piano lesson which are two of the most successful plays in his pittsburgh cycle from the perspective of michel foucault’s theories and ideas. studying these two plays from foucault’s perspective opens new windows in...

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...

  Banks as financial institutions must estimate the credit risk of their debtors. This is the basis of pricing a loan, determining appropriate interest rates and determining the mortgage required to each borrower. Since the continuity of bank activities largely depends on the amount of credit losses in a particular period, banks should consider the credit quality of their loan portfolio as a co...

in this thesis, a better reaction conditions for the synthesis of spirobarbiturates catalyzed by task-specific ionic liquid (2-hydroxy-n-(2-hydroxyethyl)-n,n-dimethylethanaminium formate), calcium hypochlorite ca(ocl)2 or n-bromosuccinimide (nbs) in the presence of water at room temperature by ultrasonic technique is provided. the design and synthesis of spirocycles is a challenging task becaus...

assigning premium to the insurance contract in iran mostly has based on some old rules have been authorized by government, in such a situation predicting premium by analyzing database and it’s characteristics will be definitely such a big mistake. therefore the most beneficial information one can gathered from these data is the amount of loss happens during one contract to predicting insurance ...