Dr. Ali-Asghar Aghbar
Serving the Composition and
TESOL Students at
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
By Ryan Costanzo
This presentation is intended to provide the
Composition and TESOL student with a basic
understanding of Professor Aghbar’s 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 Aghbar’s vita and
selected scholarly publications.
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
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
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)
Selected Publications
• “Fixed Expressions in Written Texts:
Implications for Assessing Writing
Sophistication” (1990)
• “Grice’s 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)
“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
“Grice’s 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
“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)
“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)
• Aghbar’s personal experience as a second
language learner adds a special touch
• Monolingual educators will benefit from this
article
Conclusion: Professor Aghbar’s
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
References
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Aghbar, A. A. (1990). Fixed expressions in written texts:
Implications for assessing writing sophistication. (ERIC
Document Reproduction Service No. ED329125)
Aghbar, A. A. (1995). Grice’s 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 ClozeType 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/dissertations/results?set_num=3