Dr' AliAsghar Aghbar

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Dr. Ali-Asghar Aghbar

• Serving the Composition and
• TESOL Students at
• Indiana University of Pennsylvania
• By Ryan Costanzo

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This presentation is intended to provide the
Composition and TESOL student with a basic
understanding of Professor Aghbars teaching
duties and scholarship. Included are sections on
his formal education, academic appointments,
major contributions, and selected publications.
This presentation was created following a
personal interview and an examination of
Professor Aghbars vita and selected scholarly
publications.
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Formal Education

• Undergraduate in English from the University of
  Mashad in Iran
• MA in English from Kent State University and MS
  in Linguistics from Georgetown
• Doctorate from Georgetown, where he studied
  applied linguistics, theoretical linguistics, and
  English
• Instructors included Walter Cook and Richard
  Tucker (personal interview)
• At Georgetown, Aghbar was awarded a Distinction
  in PhD Comprehensives and a Distinction in PhD
  Dissertation
• Source vita, unless otherwise indicated

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Academic Appointments

• Currently appointed Professor of English at IUP
• After Georgetown, worked as ESL Instructor and
  Testing and Research Coordinator at George Mason
  University, where he would also serve as
  Assistant Director for the English Language
  Institute
• Taught English as a Foreign Language at the
  University of Mashad
• Source vita

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Contributions to the Field of Literacy and
Linguistics

• Fascinated by collocations (personal interview),
  which are defined in his research as two words
  that are linked together in our memory (Fixed
  Expressions, 1990, p. 2)
• Other interests include second language writing
  and testing and linguistics (personal interview)
• Has held the office of Vice-President and
  President with Three Rivers TESOL (vita)
• Teaches the following graduate courses American
  English Grammar, Linguistics and the English
  Teacher, Second Language Acquisition, TEFL/TESL
  Methodology, and ESL/EFL Media and Materials
  (vita)

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Selected Publications

• Fixed Expressions in Written Texts Implications
  for Assessing Writing Sophistication (1990)
• Grices Maxims as Applied to the Translation of
  Fiction (1995)
• Partial Credit Scoring of Cloze-Type Items
  (1991)
• When Theory and Intuition Meet An Approach to
  Composition Instruction (1985)

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Fixed Expressions in Written Texts Implications
for Assessing Writing Sophistication (1990)

• Addresses the knowledge of collocations and other
  formulaic language (p. 1) as a key factor in
  English fluency
• Contains statistical analysis of data from IUP
  faculty, American students, and ESL students
• Concludes that the proper use of the proper
  registers of formulaic language is an important
  aspect of language ability and writing
  sophistication (p. 7)
• Very practical research piece

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Grices Maxims as Applied to the Translation of
Fiction (1995)

• Appears in Studies in the Humanities
• Applies Maxims of Quality, Quantity, Relevance,
  and Manner to a short story by Bernard Malamud
  that appeared in a Persian translation
• Theoretical yet comprehendible
• Should be examined by any student interested in
  translation studies or the relationship between
  linguistics and the literary text

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Partial Credit Scoring of Cloze-Type Items
(1991)

• Timely and relevant All educators are focused on
  evaluation and assessment
• Aghbar and Tang build on the notion that
  Native-like fluency depends heavily on the
  mastery of fixed expressions (p. 2)
• Includes a complex analysis of students
  responses scored on both the partial credit
  scale . . . And a dichotomous scale following the
  conventional procedure of assigning a score of 1
  to the best answer and a score of 0 to all other
  answers (p. 4)
• Authors explain that computer applications hold
  great potential for the open-ended testing of ESL
  students (p. 15)

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When Theory and Intuition Meet An Approach to
Composition Instruction (1985)

• Aghbar and Trump tried to show how composition
  instructors can use . . . knowledge of the
  writing process to make their classrooms more
  conducive to good writing (pp. 36-37)
• Aghbars personal experience as a second language
  learner adds a special touch
• Monolingual educators will benefit from this
  article

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Conclusion Professor Aghbars dedication to IUP
Composition and TESOL students

• Commitment to scholarship demonstrated by his
  active involvement as a dissertation director,
  and also by his numerous conference presentations
  and publications (see vita)
• Enjoys teaching all of his classes at IUP,
  especially American English Grammar
• Scholarly interests are a balanced combination of
  the theoretical and the practical

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References

• Aghbar, A. A. (1990). Fixed expressions in
  written texts Implications for assessing
  writing sophistication. (ERIC Document
  Reproduction Service No. ED329125)
• Aghbar, A. A. (1995). Grices Maxims as applied
  to the translation of fiction. Studies in the
  Humanities 22(1-2), 76-85.
• Aghbar, A. A., Tang, H. (1991). Partial credit
  scoring of Cloze- Type items. (ERIC Document
  Reproduction Service No. ED339201)
• Aghbar, A. A. Vita.
• Aghbar, A. A., Trump, K. (1985). When theory
  and intuition meet An approach to composition
  instruction. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service
  No. ED267587)
• ProQuest Digital Dissertations. Accessed November
  11, 2003, from http//wwwlib.umi.com/dissertation
  s/results?set_num3