The current study sought to investigate the relationship between critical thinking and speaking ability among EFL students at Payame Noor University (PNU) of Rasht. This research concerned determining the fact that whether language students who are as critical thinker, perform better in their speaking ability or not. In order to answer the research question and test the hypothesis, 100 PNU English students were selected by applying IELTS speaking test as the samples of this study. Then in order to figure out critical and uncritical learners, Lauren Starkey Critical Thinking Test including 30-multiple choice item was administered to the participants. After that, based on the obtained data and due to lack of normal distribution, Spearman non-parametric correlation was employed. The findings of the current study revealed a significant correlation coefficient among these two major variables. In fact, those English learners who were recognized as critical thinkers performed better in their speaking.

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Abstract-A host of movements have been performed to broaden English language learners' writing scholarship. A major rethink of L2 writing materials is what syllabus designers should pursue in some collegiate contexts; all the more so because writing is considered as a scholarly skill for English language learners to do academic assignments and manifest their academic attainments in different academic areas. Having this in mind, the present study explored the implications of new English writing course syllabuses designed based on procedural rhetoric, which made English majors significantly outperform conventional syllabuses users in terms of content, vocabulary, and language use. The achieved results ensured that university writing courses can bring about more accomplishments when a multi-faceted program aligned with contemporary concerns of academic writing is adopted.Index Terms-argumentation, discourse community, genre, procedural rhetoric, writing program I. REVIEW OF LITERATUREMost curricular decisions and innovations, most examination of texts, most exploration of writing strategies and difficulties have been allotted to North America inasmuch as it enjoys a variety of writing backgrounds and embraces state of the art concerns in teaching and learning writing skills (Cumming, 2009). Casanave (2009) notes that this western orientation of writing studies may cause an uncritical application of findings in other EFL contexts or marginalization of their writing curricula, hence a wide range of writing concerns in terms of teaching and learning. This marginalization has made Vanmaele and Lowyck (2005) see the writing performance of novice writers uninformative on the grounds that they find themselves confronted by 'the transformation of experiential reality in concepts, the identification of the right term and the construction of this 'abstracted reality' in a transparent text" (p. 393). Along with the fact that the role of teachers' knowledge to afford student writers instructional support should be emphasized, the development of a state-of-the-art curriculum which its constructive roots are formed in other courses such as grammar or reading is the basic measure that should be taken by curriculum developers. What seems clear, as Johnson and Roen (1989) believe, is that the organization of language materials is done through the interaction of policy-based and cultural concerns, and redressing the balance between them is a strategy that works for the purpose of improving the quality of writing as to new pedagogical movements.Micciche (2004) asserts that teaching grammar and teaching writing are currently considered separate enterprises in English language curricula and grammar is viewed as "not empowering but disempowering, not rhetorical but decontextualized, not progressive but remedial" (p.718). This orientation naturally can affect the writing performance of language learners negatively. Having carefully investigated 42 articles authored on EFL college writing in Journal of Second Language Writing and 11 stud...