Abstract-the purpose of the present study was to investigate the impact of teaching critical thinking skills on reading comprehension of Iranian intermediate EFL learners. A sample of 50 students from Arshia Language Institute in Ilam, Iran participated in this study. They were both male and female students who were selected among 80 students based on their performances on PET. The participants were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. First, the two groups were exposed to the pre-test of reading comprehension in order to evaluate their knowledge on reading before the treatment. Based on scores obtained from the Pretest, no significance differences were observed between two groups. After that the treatment was started and the experimental group was exposed to teaching critical thinking skills. Meanwhile, traditional methods of teaching reading comprehension were used for teaching reading comprehension to the control group. Finally, post-test of reading comprehension was delivered to both groups at the end of treatment to check possible differences. To analyze the collected data, ANCOVA was run using SPSS Software Version 16. The results showed that teaching critical thinking skills positively affect reading comprehension of intermediate EFL learners, but the interaction of gender and teaching critical thinking was not significant.
Abstract-This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between cultural background of Iranian EFL learners and reading comprehension. 45 Iranian language learners majoring in TEFL and English language translation from three different ethnicities in different provinces were selected through purposive sampling. All participants received three different reading comprehension sub-tests: a reading sub-test including culturally familiar topics and two reading sub-tests with culturally unfamiliar topics. The results showed that the means of all groups on culturally familiar reading tests were greater than their means on reading tests with unfamiliar contents.
Abstract-This study attempted to investigate the relationship between Iranian EFL teachers' critical thinking skills, their Emotional Quotient (EQ) and their students' engagement in the task. To that end, 20 EFL high school teachers completed "Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal" (Form A) and the "Bar-On Emotional Quotient Inventory". Furthermore, 600 male and female learners, the students of the teacher participants at the time, participated in the study by answering the Persian version of "Tinio High School Survey on Student Engagement". The findings of the study indicated that there was a significant relationship between teachers' critical thinking skills and their students' engagement in the task. However, the results did not show any meaningful relationship between teachers' EQ and their students' engagement in the task and also between teachers' critical thinking skills and their EQ, although the results pointed to a high degree of correlation between 'intrapersonal aspects of teachers' EQ' and 'students' behavioral engagement'.
Index Terms-critical thinking skills, emotional quotient, engagement in the task
An efficient ESP learning plays a very major role in all the syllabi. This is why teachers, course designers and material writers consider learners' need as an indispensible part of syllabus. Also, the analysis of the particular needs of a special learner group is considered as an introductory part for evaluating an ESP textbook. Having to say this, this paper (the present study) tends to analyze the 'Agricultural Extension and Rural Development ESP Textbook' taught in Bu Ali Sina University. Therefore, this ESP textbook was evaluated by making the best use of Hutchinson and Waters' Framework. Then, the adaptability of the content of these textbooks in agricultural extension and rural development had been discussed regarding the learners' needs. Finally, regarding the presented results on the evaluation of ESP textbooks, it is found that these ESP textbooks are highly appropriate and proper for the students of the mentioned course in Bu Ali Sina University and this textbook is very compatible to students' requirements and success.
<abstract><p>In the research work, we discuss a multi-singular pointwise defined fractional $ q $–integro-differential equation under some boundary conditions via the Riemann-Liouville $ q $–integral and Caputo fractional $ q $–derivatives. New existence results rely on the $ \alpha $-admissible map and fixed point theorem for $ \alpha $-$ \mathtt{ψ} $-contraction map. At the end, we present an example with application and some algorithms to illustrate the primary effects.</p></abstract>
A bounded linear operator T on a Hilbert space H, satisfying T 2 h 2 h 2 ≥ 2 Th 2 for every h ∈ H, is called a convex operator. In this paper, we give necessary and sufficient conditions under which a convex composition operator on a large class of weighted Hardy spaces is an isometry. Also, we discuss convexity of multiplication operators.
A bounded linear operator T on a Hilbert space H is concave if, for each x ∈ H , ∥T 2 x∥ 2 −2∥T x∥ 2 +∥x∥ 2 ≤ 0. In this paper, it is shown that if T is a concave operator then so is every power of T. Moreover, we investigate the concavity of shift operators. Furthermore, we obtain necessary and sufficient conditions for N-supercyclicity of co-concave operators. Finally, we establish necessary and sufficient conditions for the left and right multiplications to be concave on the Hilbert-Schmidt class.
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