<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
<rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2511">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Exploring the Relationship between Critical Thinking, Reading Comprehension, and Reading Strategies of Iranian EFL Readers]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Active learning takes place in a context in which freedom of action is dominant and opportunities for the realization of integrative critical thinking and language skills are provided. Critical thinking is that sort of higher order thinking that helps learners act critically through using problem-solving strategies (Gheith, 2007). In the same vein, reading as a problem solving activity (Pressley et al., 1992) necessitates a good command of thinking on the part of learners. This study investigated the relationship of critical thinking ability, reading comprehension ability, and reading strategy use among 70 male and female Iranian university students majoring English Translation and English Literature. The data was collected through the TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) reading comprehension test, a critical thinking ability test (the California Critical Thinking Skill Tests (CCTST), Fachione, P. A &amp; Fachione, N. C., 1990), and Reading Strategy Inventory (adapted from Oxford, 1990, and Waxman and Pardon, 1987). The findings revealed that there was a significant positive relationship between Iranian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) readers’ critical thinking ability and reading strategy use, in general, and metacognitive and cognitive reading strategy use, in particular. Moreover, a significant positive relationship was observed between critical thinking and reading compensation. The results also revealed that cognitive and affective strategies along with critical thinking ability act as the best predictors of learners’ reading comprehension ability. ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[835]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2510">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[The Effect of Partners&#039; Gender during Peer Interaction Activities on Learning in EFL Classes]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[This study investigated the merits of pairing learners into different genders in peer interaction activates, here the cloze activities, in EFL classes in Iran. The participants were twelve pre-intermediate EFL students learning English in a Foreign Language Institute.  During two nine sessions, students worked together on cloze activities. To diminish the effect of peer interaction activates done during the course, first learners were paired in different sex for 10 sessions and for the last ten sessions they were put in to same sex pairs. They were given a pretest and a posttest in the tenth and twentieth session to find out the impact of gender in peer interaction activities. The results indicated that the learners who had participation with a partner of different sex during the pair and small group activities demonstrated improved production of target forms and their overall their performance significantly improved when they worked with a heterogeneous gender partner. The result of the participants&#039; pretest and posttest was compared through Paired Sample T-Test the table below, the mean score of the learner&#039;s on their pretest was which shows a higher achievement compered to posttest in It reflects that the result of each pair&#039;s pretest and posttest as indicated in   ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[840]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2509">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[An Investigation of the Effecets of Critical Thinking Lessons on Learners’ and Teachers’ Perceptions and the Quality of Classroom Discussins: A Case Study]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Recent studies have reached positive findings regarding the significant role of critical thinking pedagogy in learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL). (See Davidson and Dunham, 1995; Erkaya, 2005; Correia, 2006; Yang, 2009; Chen, 2010; Li Li, 2011). However, further research is still needed to highlight the issue that this pedagogy could be challenging for learners and might lead to unsatisfactory outcomes, a point that the present paper addresses. Moreover, the majority of existing studies have paid more attention to examining learning outcomes rather than learning processes through employing pre and post achievement measures. This paper presents a case study that has infused critical thinking into an EFL speaking classroom over one semester in Saudi Arabia. The aim of this study was to investigate both barriers and merits of implementing the critical thinking pedagogy. The SPARE model (Burden and Williams, 1996) for evaluating classroom interventions has been adapted to evaluate this intervention.      Participants were 18 high school graduates who have enrolled a compulsory English language programme, before starting their undergraduate degrees at a prestigious university. Data were collected through regular interviews with the learners and their teacher, observation field notes and audio recordings of classroom discussions. Findings suggested that participants did generally value learning through critical thinking lessons in terms of engagement. However, the quality of talk was influenced by the topics of discussions rather than the types of thinking tasks. Another finding was that learners avoided using argumentative phrases in both pre and post course speaking activities. They viewed these phrases as barriers to fluency. Speaking of transferability of argumentative skills, there was no evidence that learners have transferred these skills into discussions that occurred in other courses. Implications for future implementation of critical thinking pedagogy have been drawn from these findings.   ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[842]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2508">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Farsçada Ön Eklerle Yapılan Sıfatlar]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Farsça Hind-Avrupa dillerin Hind-Iran grubunda yer alan Iran dillerinden birdir ve öbür Hind-Avrupa dilleri gibi çekimli dillerdendir. Farsça&#039;da sıifat, adları niteleyen, nasıl olduklarını gösteren veya ceşitli yönlerden belirten sözlerdir. Farsçada bulanan sıfatlari Türkçe&#039;deki sıifatlardan ayıran  en önemli özellik farsçada isim ve fiil tabanlarına ön ekler getirilerek sıfat işleyişinde kelimeler yapabilmektedir.   Bu öneklerden bazılar şunlardır:  هم  hem: Ortaklık   bildiren kelimeler yapar. Bu ek Türkçede  daş-deş-taş-teş- ekleriyle karşılanmaktadır:  Müteradif, anlamdaş,   na : Olumsuzluk ve ayrışma anlamlarında kelimeler yapar. Turkcede bu ek sız, siz, suz, süz ekleriyle karşılanır.  ,  .  der zarfiyet, kabiliyet, kapasite anlamlarında kelimeler yapar. Türkçede bu ek da, de, ta, te eklerine karşılık gelir.   ber, ba, be: Varlık, uygunluk, arkadaşlık dostluk bildiren kelimeler yapar.  ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[843]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2507">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Suggested Ways of Providing an Immersive Environment in an EFL Context: An Extensive Rreading Program in a Shanghai Senior High School]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[In recent decades, there have been numerous studies on the significance of extensive reading to English as a second language (ESL) and English as a foreign language (EFL) teaching and learning showing that extensive reading can effectively improve students’ proficiency in various skill areas and language knowledge components.    However, extensive reading has a low profile in mainland China, despite mainland China representing the largest number of English language learners in the world. In fact, extensive reading may have particular value in mainland China, as it is optimal for providing an immersive environment to English language learners in this EFL context. To address this lack of information about extensive reading in mainland China, this study seeks to disseminate the results of one particular extensive reading program implemented at a public high school in Shanghai.    In this study, ninety-nine students were stratified into three groups of thirty-three on the basis of overall English language proficiency and gender, namely the Integration Reading group, the Free Reading group and the Control group. The Integration Reading Treatment was used in the Integration Reading Group, and the Free Reading Treatment was used in the Free Reading Group. The Intensive Reading Treatment was used in the Control Group. The post-test was administered at the end of this study to evaluate the significance of extensive reading to senior high school English teaching and learning. The pre- and post-study questionnaires were administered to investigate whether extensive reading affected the students in terms of their perception of and attitude towards reading in English.   Analysis of the data revealed the following major findings: (1) Extensive reading can effectively improve senior high school students’ listening, reading and writing proficiency and linguistic knowledge; and (2) extensive reading positively affects students’ attitude and behaviours towards reading in English.   ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[848]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2506">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[An Approach to Understanding Native English through Listening]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Our attention has been drawn increasingly to the problems our learners have in listening, and in particular to hearing the weak forms, especially the most commonly used sound in the English language, the schwa.    We see that many non-native speakers of English find it difficult to understand the English spoken by native speakers or other fluent speakers of English.That is to say, they cannot recognise words they know when they hear . We consider that this difficulty generally arises because of their unfamiliarity with the schwa , which is weak, unstressed , occuring in auxiliary verbs , pronouns, articles , linkers and prepositions that are not usually stressed , and are reduced to keep the stress  pattern regular.Recognising the fact that the weak forms are problematical for Turkish learners, and English language tuition tends to focus primarily on grammar, it is therefore not surprising that Turkish learners have  considerable  difficulty in  hearing sounds uttered by native-English speakers. A further problem is spoken English should not be confused nor considered to be the same as academic English, nor written English, or perfectly structured grammatical English sentences; spoken English is inherently in short form regardless of being formal or informal spoken English. The most articulate standard English speaker will use short forms when speaking.    This presentation shows the results of a small- scale  research project undertaken with a mostly random selection of about 150 students attending Rize University, from different faculties in the range preparatory level to 2nd year level, and with varying levels of English tuition in terms of years of study but attending both private and government schools. Each student listened to 50  elementary-level sentences that are common to hear in everyday life , which were repeated three times by a recorded native English speaker,  and they were asked to write down what they heard. No attention was given to spelling and some learners wrote phonetically. Interestingly the vocational students’ listening capacity was equal to some of the medical students  and higher than the educational faculty  students. Those with the most proficient listening skills came from the merchant navy faculty students  who  had had exposure to native- English speakers in their home towns situated on the touristic Aegean and Mediterranean coast.    Our purpose in this presentation is to raise the awareness of non-native teachers, especially the new inexperienced teachers of English usage to value, understand the nature of listening and to practise  a more constructive methodology of  teaching listening skills to their learners. In doing so, we can help our learners not only  understand native speakers better but enable them to sound a bit more natural when they speak English.In addition, we believe the other skills, that of reading, writing and speaking of English will not only be advanced but internalised into becoming a lifelong skill.  ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[858]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2505">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Yabancılara Türkçe Öğretiminde Alt Yazılı Kliplerin Yeri ]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Görsel ve işitsel araçlarla dil öğretimi daha kalıcı ve zevkli olmaktadır. Hem görsel hem işitsel bir araç olan alt yazılı klipler yabancılara Türkçe öğretiminde etkin olarak kullanılmaktadır. Bu tür alt yazılı klipler ile yabancı dil olarak Türkçe öğrenenler hızlı ve kalıcı olarak Türkçeyi öğrenebilmektedirler.     Müzikle dil öğretimi yabancılara dil öğretiminde önemli bir yer teşkil etmektedir. Bu alanda yabancılara Türkçe öğretim kitaplarında özellikle ilköğretime yönelik hazırlanan kitaplarda konulara uygun bestelerin yapıldığı görülmektedir. Bu çalışmalar sayesinde yabancı dil olarak Türkçeyi öğrenen öğrencilerin öğrenme isteğini daha da artmaktadır. Ancak profesyonel manada bu tür çalışmaların daha çok yapılması gerektiği görülmektedir.     Yabancılara Türkçe öğretiminde kullanılmak üzere alt yazılı kliplerden faydalanmak isteyen öğretmenler bu konuda kullanabilecekleri materyallere ulaşmakta zorluk çekmektedirler. Bazı öğretmenlerin şahsi gayretleriyle hazırlanan amatör çalışmalar bulunmaktadır. Bu tür kliplerin hazırlanması için profesyonel bir çalışma yapılması gerekmektedir. Bu çalışmaların yapılmasıyla alt yazılı kliplerden daha etkin bir şekilde kullanıcılar istifade edebileceklerdir.    Bu çalışmayla alt yazılı kliplerin yabancılara Türkçe öğretiminde kullanımı açıklanmış ve bu çalışmada örnek uygulamalara yer verilmiştir. Yabancılara Türkçe öğretenler benzer uygulamalar hazırlayarak Türkçe öğretiminde alt yazılı kliplerden faydalanabilirler.   ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[761]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2504">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Socio-Cultural Influence on Cooperative Foreign Language Learning]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Cooperative learning focuses on the interaction with peers in a learning environment. So, most important factor that affects learning is socio-cultural situation of learners that plays a role in learning. Some students are timid due to their piety while others are too extravert. Some students are not willing to interact because of their ideological differences while others behave more pragmatic. Socio-cultural differences are therefore quite important in the application of cooperative learning theory in the class. Sociocultural approaches emphasize the interdependence of social and individual processes in the construction of knowledge. Socio-cultural approach, theorized by Vygotsky, which is the fact that all learning takes place as a result of social interaction, giving rise to the concept of “social constructivism”, is actually a new concept in cooperative learning strategy. Socio-cultural approach supports collaboration as the means that would prove to be the catalyst to help the meta-conceptions mature into learned concepts. The aim of this study is to contribute to the research on cooperative learning in foreign language classes by investigating the social relations of Turkish students in the foreign language classroom. We examined the socio-cultural influence on cooperative learning in foreign language learning process from socio-culturalist perspective and tried to find out if there was any cultural and gender effect on cooperative language learning in the classroom at the university.  ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[936]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2503">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Turkish Writers vs. Native Writers of English: Heading in the Discussion Section of ELT Research Articles Written by Native and Non- Native Writers of English]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Hedging as a very crucial pragmatic-discourse device for the academic writers to be accepted by the academic discourse community has gained much attention among the academics and linguists researching hedges in scientific literature. To define it shortly, hedges are the words or phrases whose job is to make things fuzzier implying that the writer is less than fully committed to the certainty of the referential information given. That is the most effective use of hedges in academic writing, and for this way the academic writers may build a mutual interaction between them and the reader. This study, which was based on corpus analysis, compared the use of hedges in the discussion section of Research Articles (RAs) – published in ELT Journal – of two groups of writers who are the native writers (English) versus the non-native writers (Turkish). For this purpose, Hyland’s (1994) categorization of hedging patterns (modal verbs, lexical verbs, modal adverbs, modal adjectives and modal nouns) in 20 RAs (10 of NNWs and 10 of NWs) were analysed contextually. The findings from the study showed that both English writers and Turkish writers did use the hedges in the discussion section of RAs with almost same frequency. However, by comparison, English writers tended to use different varieties of hedges while Turkish writers preferred using the hedges of modal verbs in their Research Articles more frequently. On the other hand, it was also seen that, contrary to some scholars’ views, the non-native writers (Turkish) were well qualified to use hedges effectively in their Research Articles as well as the native writers (English) were. In sum, this data may emphasize the importance of the use of hedges in academic writing and therefore, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) teachers should sensitize the novice writers to the effective use of hedging in their academic writing.]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[901]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description><rdf:Description rdf:about="https://omeka.ibu.edu.ba/items/show/2502">
    <dcterms:title><![CDATA[Learning Turkish as a Foreign Language via Electronic Tandem (eTandem)]]></dcterms:title>
    <dcterms:abstract><![CDATA[Technological developments present various opportunities to foreign language learners. On the other hand, teaching and learning a foreign language should not be solely based on a classroom teaching environment after witnessing such technological developments. These developments provide foreign language learners with more communicative interaction and natural environment. One of the opportunities which technological developments bring in learning of a foreign language is electronic tandem (eTandem). In eTandem, language learners learn a foreign language from their learning partners and teach their main language to their learning partners through telephone, e-mail or other media tools. This paper introduces eTandem and describes how eTandem was used to facilitate the learning of Turkish as a foreign language. There hasn’t been any study concerning eTandem in the field of teaching Turkish as a foreign language yet. For this reason, it is thought that this study will contribute to the field of teaching Turkish as a foreign language. ]]></dcterms:abstract>
    <dcterms:date><![CDATA[2012-05]]></dcterms:date>
    <dcterms:extent><![CDATA[854]]></dcterms:extent>
</rdf:Description></rdf:RDF>