CAR - 5

Citation: Moraru, Andreea., Labutiller, Janelle. Enhancing undergraduate critical reading skills in neuroscience using instructor-developed study, collected essays on teaching and learning, 1(2): 122-127.

    The aims of this study are improving undergraduate neuroscience students critical reading in translating across multiple disciplines and reading a scientific journal article. In this study, the researchers stated most of the undergraduate neuroscience students get difficulties in analyzing and interpreting or reviewing journal articles. However, in this study, the researchers did not mention about the phase of the study. They stated that the first activity in this research is the students are asked to make a question due to the article in the web courses.The researchers asked to them to do it repeatedly. Then at the mid-term, the students are asked to write the possible question according to the text in the web courses. Those questions will be used for the final exam, and the questions consist of 15 multiple choice and 7 short answer questions. Then, each student must present the questions in a slide and ask the other students to give response to that questions whether those are too difficult, moderately difficult,  moderately easy, easy or no option. The finding of this study states that those activities are useful for the students in improving the students critical reading skill.

CCU - 5

Citation: Fadeeva., and Kalinin. (2012). The importance of cross-cultural Understanding for efl students: 144-152.

After reading this journal I got difficulty in separating the parts of the journal. I mean, the researcher did not separate which one is the literature review, discussion, conclusion, and so on. In writing this journal, the researcher seems like just putting the expert theory or assumption without giving more explanation using his own opinion.

Based on this journal, to achieve the successful communication, te speaker not only must be excellent in foreign language skills but also in knowing the cross-cultural understanding too. in teaching the cross-cultural understanding the researcher stated he got difficulties and problems. And he states knowing about other countries ability and language is important, if we are live in that country and we have mastered the cultures and the language it will be like our own home. In teaching the cross-cultural understanding and encourage them to study this lesson the researcher used some steps, those steps are:

1. Revising the names of the world countries, their capitals, and nationalities. Showing them on the map 
2. Defining religions in different countries 
3. Dividing countries according to their cultures into Affective and Neutral 
4. Dividing countries according to their cultures into Specific and Defuse 
5.  Dividing countries according to their cultures into high-context or low-context  
6.  Studying different ways of greeting and saying good-bye in different cultures 
7. Studying cross-cultural dining etiquette 
8. Studying cross-cultural guest etiquette and ways of entertaining people
9.  Final project paper work

CCU - 4

Citation: Shadiev, Rustam., Hwang, Wu-Yuin., and Huang, Yueh-Min. (2015). A pilot study: facilitating ccu with project-based collaborative learning in an online environment, Australian journal of education technology, 31(2): 123-140.

    The main purposes of this study are to investigate how project-based collaborative learning facilitates cross culture understanding, how students perceive project-based collaborative learning implementation in a collaborative cyber community (3C) online environment, and what types of communication among students are used.

    After reading this journal, I learned that the activity which used in this research is interesting. It encourages students' motivation and enhances students' cross-culture understanding. Also, the students thought that the 3C environment was useful for the implementation of the activity, the environment provided a suitable gathering place for students from diverse cultures and locations to communicate and experience the authentic culture of the other countries.

CAR 4

Citation: Talebi, Meraj., Talebi, Maryam. (2015). The effect of teaching critical reading strategy on making advanced Iranian EFL learners the critical readers, science journal, 36(3): 1179-1189.

   After I read this journal, I learned that the main purpose of this study is to investigate whether the critical reading strategy can make Iranian EFL learners' being critical readers or not. This study is classroom action research, and in this study, the researchers used pre-test and post-test to know the students' achievement. They explained some theories due to critical reading strategy, critical thinking, and critical readers. 

    This study was done in three phases and it conducted to 48 students in a university in Iran. The first week of the first phase is used for the researchers to observe the students' behavior in doing a reading test. Then the next two meetings, the researchers are taught critical reading strategy to the classroom. In this stage, the students are asked to read a text critically and they are allowed to take a note while reading the text. Those techniques are included in the critical reading strategy which called annotating and summarizing
     To check the students' background knowledge, the researchers used pre-test, the students can use those critical reading strategies in doing the reading test. At the end of the research, the researchers give post-test to the students. It is used to check whether the students are familiar with those strategies or not and also it is used to check how far the students comprehend in reading a text by applying those critical reading strategies.
      Based on the result, the students score on the post-test much better than the pre-test. I saw at table 1 that there are significant differences of the pre-test and post-test. So, it can be concluded that using critical reading strategy can improve the students reading ability and makes them become critical readers.

CCU - 3

Citation: Murray, Garold., and Brollinger, Deborah. (2011). Developing cross-culture awareness: learning through the experiences of others, tesl canadian journal,19(1): 82-93.

This study offers to enhance the cross-culture awareness of Japanese students who are beginner-intermediate of English.

The researcher stated the main problem of this study is most of the students are lack of information about living in abroad. In conducting this study the researchers used experimental study, there are some activities which could help the students interact with the foreigner.

The first activity is e-mail exchanges, it is used to encouraged the students writing skill. Before they contact their foreign friends, the researchers make sure that the tools which support this activity are available. Such as computer, English software, and writing English message.
The second activity is guest speaker interviews. In this activity the students doing an interview with the people who are come back from their trip or journey in abroad. So, the students can hear from the people who have experienced live in other countries.
The third activity is video project. The video project is the main component in a cross-cultural communication course for the students who are at the beginner-intermediate level. In this activity, the students are practicing their oral English, increasing their knowledge of other cultures and learning to communicate more effective with people from abroad. In the conclusion part, the researcher explained that this study gives the positive impact to the students both in their English and their cross-cultural knowledge.

CAR - 3

Citation: Nasrollahi, Muhammad., Khrisnasamy, Pamela., and Noor, Noorizah. (2015). Process of implementing critical reading strategies in an Iranian EFL classroom: an action research, international education studies, 8(1): 9-16. 

The purpose of this study is to investigate the critical reading strategies of Iranian EFL students. To achieve the goal the researchers using action research which done in cycles and repetitive process. In this research the researchers mention some steps in critical reading strategy, those are: 

1. Annotating
2. Previewing
3. Scan and Skimming
4. Facts vs. Opinion
5. Drawing Conclusion
6. Monitoring
7. Summarizing
8. Paraphrasing
9. Synthesizing
10. Questioning

This action Research divided into three phases.

• Phase 1

  This phase is done in four weeks and each week consists of two sessions. in this phase, the researchers are identifying the type of reading strategy used by the students habitually. then, they must formulate the suitable lesson plan. 

• Phase 2 (Instruction)

 This phase is done in ten weeks and each week consists of two sessions. in this phase, the researchers are applying the proposed selected critical reading strategy through the prepared worksheet. The researchers give a short illustration and short explanation due to the selected critical reading strategy in the beginning of each lesson. Also, in this phase includes observing, assessing, and affirming and remediating. 

In observing the researchers observe the progress students' performance, behavior, and activities. Assessing the students' performance and behavior means the researchers try to identify problems, issue, and gaps in the students work. The next is affirming and remediating, in this step the researchers provide feedback to encourage and assist the students' performances. Also, the researchers must understand the nature of the students' problems. 

• Phase 3 (Assessment and Evaluation)

In this phase the researchers must review the lesson plan outcome, the students' performance, identifying weaknesses and gap, planning remedial actions, planning ways of improving instruction and learning.

     In the conclusion, the researchers stated that teaching critical reading strategies is the key toward helping the students to improve their critical reading, critical thinking, and higher order thinking ability.

CCU - 2

Citation: Lambert, Laurel., Hoon Kim, Young., Molaison, Elaine., and Tidewell, Daniel. (2012). Dietetics students' cultural food knowledge and experiences with various cultures,  journal of food service management and education, 6(2): 6-9.

    The aim of this study is to investigate the cultural awareness of dietetics students in measuring food knowledge, perceptions, and learning experiences with various and different culture awareness based on their gender, age, job, graduation date, and their nutrition education. 

    Based on some experts explanation in this journal, the students' interest, awareness, and knowledge of multicultural issue were increased when they had outside classroom activity. Also, the students were got the highest knowledge score in food habit questions.

   This study was used a pilot study to get the data, nd it consists of three sections. According to the result and discussion, there were no significant differences in cultural knowledge for food and custom based on the gender, career choice, and graduation date. also, there was no consistent relationship between knowledge and age.

CAR - 2

Citation: Malik, Muhammad. (2014). Code switching as an effective technique of teaching English at the intermediate level in Pakistan, jprss, 1(1): 56-69.

“Code-switching is an up-shot of bilingualism. It shows mixture of two languages in interaction”.

The main purpose of this study is to know the usefulness of code-switching while teaching low proficiency language students at the intermediate level. According To Asmah Hj Omar (1992) advantageous of bilingualism is it effectively functions in case of students who are weak in the English conversation classroom.

In this study the researcher stated the types of code-switching, those are :

•  Conversational code-switching

This code-switching happens while the conversation between the bilingual or multilingual.

•  Situational and Metaphorical code-switching

This code-switching depends on changes from one external situation to the other.

•  Intersential Code-switching

In this code switching, the speaker switches over a clause, a phrase or lexical level.

The instrument of this study is questionnaire and based on the data analysis shows that most of the students are confident to use code-switching while in the teaching and learning activity.