Exploring the Challenges Faced by Iranian TEFL Students in their Doctoral Dissertation Writing

Writing a dissertation is a laborious task that requires adequate knowledge of the field as well as writing skill. This study tried to uncover the PhD candidates’ main challenges in writing a dissertation. The participants of this study were 30 PhD EFL male and female candidates on the point of writing their dissertation. A semi-structured interview with series of open-ended questions was employed to gather the data. The study adopted mixed-methods design in which the data were collected through qualitative content analysis and then were subjected to statistical procedures through SPSS. Cohen’s Kappa (κ) was used to report intra and inter rater reliability which were found to be .89% and .88%, respectively. The data analysis indicated that all candidates encountered various problems such as linguistic challenges, lack of knowledge about SPSS, APA and copyright law, poor planning and time management, finding novel topics, personal problems that impede them from the due schedule, finding the related literature, finding the participants and getting institutes to participate, negotiation with thesis supervisor and advisor, loss of interest and difficulty in finding the required instrument. Moreover, based on the findings of the present study, it is recommended that more practical courses on research be embedded in the curricula and more attention be paid to the existing courses in order to overcome the encountered challenges as described by the PhD students. The results can be of help to the policy makers, curriculum developers, instructors and students

Investigating the Nature of Interaction at Elementary and Intermediate EFL Classes

Classroom research mainly concentrates on what happens in classrooms and tries to explore these events. One aspect that has been under investigation in this area is 'classroom interaction'. The current work was inspired by Kumaravadivelu's (2006) classification of interaction types: textual, interpersonal and ideational interaction. The main objective of the present study was to investigate the nature of interaction types proposed by Kumaravadivelu, the extent of their occurrence and their contribution to L2 development regarding two levels of Elementary and Intermediate. During data collection process, 20 sessions of EFL classes in a Language Institute were observed and the main events regarding the types of interaction under investigation were written in the form of field notes and audio-recorded for later reflection. The results were analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. The quantitative data from the observation were analyzed through inferential statistics. Qualitative analysis of data was carried out through transcription of important events. The quantitative results indicated that the difference between means of time spent on three types of interaction regarding two levels was not significant. For the qualitative analysis, the nature of these three types of interaction was compared based on two levels and some similarities and differences were found

Nanostructured luminescently labeled nucleic acids

Important and emerging trends at the interface of luminescence, nucleic acids and nanotechnology are: (i) the conventional luminescence labeling of nucleic acid nanostructures (e.g. DNA tetrahedron); (ii) the labeling of bulk nucleic acids (e.g. single‐stranded DNA, double‐stranded DNA) with nanostructured luminescent labels (e.g. copper nanoclusters); and (iii) the labeling of nucleic acid nanostructures (e.g. origami DNA) with nanostructured luminescent labels (e.g. silver nanoclusters). This review surveys recent advances in these three different approaches to the generation of nanostructured luminescently labeled nucleic acids, and includes both direct and indirect labeling methods

A Symbiosis of Contingent Models to Scaffold EFL Learners towards Self-regulation and Willingness to Communicate

Scaffolding entails contingency, denoting teachers’ level adaptation in providing transient support. In this study, a symbiosis of the model of contingent teaching (MCT) and the contingent shift framework (CSF) was utilized. Therefore, 360 elementary and advanced EFL learners took a course and filled out two sets of related questionnaires twice, administered at the outset and the end of the course. The transcribed data including the class interactions and intervention strategies were organized into contingent or non-contingent fragments based on models’ criteria. According to the results of the Wilcoxon rank test and the Paired Sample t-test, there was a significant difference between the results of the pre and post-tests in the two mentioned levels for the two constructs. Furthermore, the results of the Single Sample t-test showed that the CSF was more utilized than the MCT in both levels. Moreover, the intervention strategies of the MCT significantly differed in the two levels. Questioning was a highly used strategy at both levels. Hints and modeling were the least utilized strategies in elementary and advanced levels, respectively. Therefore, such contingent symbiosis could have prolific results in self-regulation and gaining willingness to communicat

Design of an optical sensor based on gold nanoparticles for detecting trace amounts of heavy metals in water samples

Abstract Due to the destructive effects of heavy metal ions on human health, providing a simple and inexpensive way to detect and measure them in an aquatic environment is one of the important research areas. In the present work, a simple optical sensor based on gold nanoparticles with chitosan was introduced to detect and measure heavy metal ions in water. These metal ions result in the accumulation of gold-chitosan nanoparticles through the chelating reaction between chitosans and metal ions. The sensitivity of the sensor was investigated for Cu2+, Ni2+, Pb2+, Cd2+ and Hg2+ ions. The results showed that different metal ions cause a different reduction in the plasmon bar. The detection limit for each copper, nickel, lead, cobalt, cadmium and mercury ions was 2.48, 0.27, 0.25, 0.40, 0.28 and 1.43, respectively. This optical sensor showed the most sensitivity to Pb2+ ions. According to the results, this sensor can successfully be used to detect heavy metal ions in water and wastewater samples

A Corpus-based Study of EFL Learners’ Errors in IELTS Essay Writing

The present study analyzed different types of errors in the EFL learners’ IELTS essays. In order to determine the major types of errors, a corpus of 70 IELTS examinees’ writings were collected, and their errors were extracted and categorized qualitatively. Errors were categorized based on a researcher-developed error-coding scheme into 13 aspects. Based on the descriptive statistical analyses, the frequency of each error type was calculated and the commonest errors committed by the EFL learners in IELTS essays were identified. The results indicated that the two most frequent errors that IELTS candidates committed were related to word choice and verb forms. Based on the research results, pedagogical implications highlight analyzing EFL learners’ writing errors as a useful basis for instructional purposes including creating pedagogical teaching materials that are in line with learners’ linguistic strengths and weaknesses