Teacher’s Narration of Teaching Critical Literacy: It’s a KEY for Raising Students’ Awareness in Iran

To be literate, students need to able to think critically and read between the lines to find the implicit meanings and ideologies. To help Iranian English language learners learn writing as a social action and not independent of social (in)justices and (in)equalities, we included critical literacy in a writing course at the University of [for anonymity]. We intend to illuminate teacher’s narration about raising students’ awareness towards (mal)practices, (in)justices, and (in)equalities of the society in their writings.To do so, all 52 undergraduate 3rd-year-EFL learners of English Literature and Translation participated in our writing class. The teacher was also an associate professor (50 years old) with critical literacy as his main area of research. Students were required to write essays as mid-term and final exams. The teacher’s reflection on the course in general and on the EFL learners’ reflective essays highlighted that teaching writing through critical literacy helped students realize that writing is a process dependent on different social and political issues.Students’ growth in critical consciousness through their writing reminds teaching practitioners, policy-makers, and teacher educators to provide innovation in their classrooms to empower language learners with teaching methodologies contrary to what they are accustomed to during their learning

Iranian Students’ Experience of K-12 and Higher Education: Use of Drawings to Convey the Difference Between Ideals and Reality

The focus of education during K-12 and Higher Education (HE) in Iran is on theoretical empowerment of students; therefore, our students get an illusion of knowing. In fact, what happens is not learning and understanding; rather, it is verbatim transfer of available information in the textbooks into the students’ minds. It might be because the students and teachers (as the main stakeholders of the education) are the least powerful parties within the pyramid of power amongst educational practitioners and policymakers. It means their voice, feedback, needs, and ideologies have no place in the educational decisions and policies. In alignment with the mainstream of the present research; it is an innovative idea to explore the students’ living/ studying experience during K-12, and their ideals and expectations from higher education studies. To do so, we asked 60 university students to portray their experience (in a phenomenological research design) concerning living and studying through K-12 and their ideals and expectations from Higher Education. Students’ drawings are the main source of data collection and inductive analysis of data is administered to find students’ responses which are categorized under three major and six minor themes, respectively

GENDER DIFFERENCES IN SELF-ESTIMATES OF MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES AMONG LEARNERS OF ENGLISH

According to Howard Gardner, human intellectual ability cannot be measured by a unitary concept of general intelligence, and the performance of cognitive tasks draws on different types of intelligence, including linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinaesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, natural, and existential. Despite the lack of adequate empirical support and recent doubts raised about its validity, this view of multiple intelligences has been extensively employed for the characterization of learners and the development of tasks for language teaching and learning. Whereas gender differences in the learning and use of language have been extensively researched, context-specific information on gender differences in different domains of multiple intelligences has not been seriously examined. The survey reported here is based on the hypothesis that multiple intelligences vary not only at the individual level, but also in the case of gender at a cultural level, and uses Mckenzie's Multiple Intelligences Survey to explore possible gender differences in Gardner’s intelligences. Questionnaire data relating to each of the nine intelligences was elicited from 300 undergraduate volunteers studying English at the University of Kashan in central Iran. The questionnaire included 90 statements and 10 items on each intelligence, and was used to identify the intelligence profile of the participants according to their own self-estimates. The scores for each intelligence type were calculated, analyzed and compared across genders. The results of the study showed that in contrast to the trend observed in previous research, female learners tended to rate themselves higher on most intelligences and their means were significantly higher than those of male learners in the areas of naturalistic and existential intelligences. The findings have both theoretical and practical implications not only for the reconsideration of previous claims that males rate themselves more highly with regard to intelligences, but also for the MI theory itself. 

Iranian women's attitude towards gender and its perception in the society: A fly in the ointment

Inequality between men and women, distressing increase in gender discrimination, rape, misogyny, and polygamy are conspicuous on the headlines. The irrefutable interdependence of gender, culture and social status has recently been considered as one of the momentous motives for such controversial issues in each society. Considering the pivotal role of culture in forming individuals' minds and behaviors, the current research scrutinizes women's attitudes towards their gender and its appreciation by men in Iranian culture. Adopting quota sampling technique to choose the participants, sixty-eight women were appointed from different professions to answer the questions in a semi-structured interview. Contrary to what is generally illuminated in the literature concerning propounded gender differences among Iranian male and female participants, the obtained results from current research put forward totally different women's attitudes towards their gender, its appreciation by men as members of society, and the role of culture in attitude change and formation of new behaviors

Bringing Morgan’s metaphors in organization contexts: An essay review

Recently, the issue of metaphors in organizational studies has fascinated researchers’ attention and interests, leading to a substantial body of research generating theoretical understandings, philosophical concepts, insightful meanings, and experiential interpretations. In this review paper, the researchers critically approached reading and reviewing the studies which have been undertaken so far in order to achieve an orientation in metaphorical research on organizations. So, at first, Gareth Morgan’s Images of Organization in terms of different metaphors were discussed and elaborated. Then, the review of a number of papers illustrated that a majority of research works on this issue focused on the theoretical and conceptual aspects of organizational metaphors without taking their practicality in real contexts into account. Based on this review paper, it is suggested that in order to enrich this area with innovative ideas, understandings, and insights, there is a need for further research which targets the practical use of metaphors in organizations

Teacher’s Narration of Teaching Critical Literacy: It’s a KEY for Raising Students’ Awareness in Iran

To be literate, students need to able to think critically and read between the lines to find the implicit meanings and ideologies. To help Iranian English language learners learn writing as a social action and not independent of social (in)justices and (in)equalities, we included critical literacy in a writing course at the University of [for anonymity]. We intend to illuminate teacher’s narration about raising students’ awareness towards (mal)practices, (in)justices, and (in)equalities of the society in their writings.To do so, all 52 undergraduate 3rd-year-EFL learners of English Literature and Translation participated in our writing class. The teacher was also an associate professor (50 years old) with critical literacy as his main area of research. Students were required to write essays as mid-term and final exams. The teacher’s reflection on the course in general and on the EFL learners’ reflective essays highlighted that teaching writing through critical literacy helped students realize that writing is a process dependent on different social and political issues.Students’ growth in critical consciousness through their writing reminds teaching practitioners, policy-makers, and teacher educators to provide innovation in their classrooms to empower language learners with teaching methodologies contrary to what they are accustomed to during their learning

Teacher’s Narration of Teaching Critical Literacy: It’s a KEY for Raising Students’ Awareness in Iran

To be literate, students need to able to think critically and read between the lines to find the implicit meanings and ideologies. To help Iranian English language learners learn writing as a social action and not independent of social (in)justices and (in)equalities, we included critical literacy in a writing course at the University of [for anonymity]. We intend to illuminate teacher’s narration about raising students’ awareness towards (mal)practices, (in)justices, and (in)equalities of the society in their writings.To do so, all 52 undergraduate 3rd-year-EFL learners of English Literature and Translation participated in our writing class. The teacher was also an associate professor (50 years old) with critical literacy as his main area of research. Students were required to write essays as mid-term and final exams. The teacher’s reflection on the course in general and on the EFL learners’ reflective essays highlighted that teaching writing through critical literacy helped students realize that writing is a process dependent on different social and political issues.Students’ growth in critical consciousness through their writing reminds teaching practitioners, policy-makers, and teacher educators to provide innovation in their classrooms to empower language learners with teaching methodologies contrary to what they are accustomed to during their learning.Para una alfabetización de calidad, el alumnado debe pensar críticamente y leer entre líneas para encontrar los significados e ideologías implícitos. Para ayudar a los estudiantes iraníes de inglés como lengua extranjera (EFL) a escribir como acción socialy no independiente de las (in)justicias y las (des)igualdades sociales, incluimos la alfabetización crítica en un curso de escritura en la Universidad de Kashan. Con este artículo, pretendemos aportar conocimiento alrededor de la narración del profesorado con relación a la sensibilización del alumnado hacia las (malas) prácticas, (in)justicias y (des)igualdades de la sociedad en sus escritos. 52 estudiantes de 3er año de Literatura y Traducción Inglesa participaron en nuestra clase de escritura.El profesor tenía la alfabetización crítica como su área principal de investigación y pidió al alumnado que escribieran ensayos como exámenes de mitad y final de curso. La reflexión del profesor sobre el curso y los ensayos reflexivos del alumnado resaltóque la enseñanza de la escritura a través de la alfabetización crítica ayuda al alumnado a darse cuenta de que la escritura es un proceso que depende de diferentes problemas sociales y políticos. El incremento en la concienciación crítica del alumnado a través de sus escritos insta a docentes, responsables políticos y formadores de docentes a promover la innovación en sus aulas para capacitar a los estudiantes de idiomas. No es común encontrar una práctica de este tipo en la educación superior en Irán, donde se recomienda encarecidamente a todos los maestros de escuela e instructores universitarios que se apeguen a los programas de estudio predefinidos mientras el mundo de la práctica de enseñanza y aprendizaje está cambiando

Urgent Changes to Be Made in Iran’s Primary Education: Voices From Teachers

Highlights One of the main shortcomings of the Iranian educational system is its focus on training students to succeed in different testing/assessment practices. In this regard, primary emphasis is still placed on memorization rather than learning dialogue, collaboration, tolerance, and life expectation for today’s globalized communities. Few voices from Iranian teachers have been heard in international publications. This study collected focus group interviews from 84 Iranian primary school teachers in Tehran, Shiraz, and Yazd. Findings show that the interviewed teachers agreed on the urgent curriculum changes, including English, Law, and Entrepreneurship in the primary teaching. Additionally, the educational focus should be broadened from the current emphasis on assessment from the early years of schooling

Analysis and Design of a High-Order Discrete-Time Passive IIR Low-Pass Filter

In this paper, we propose a discrete-time IIR low-pass filter that achieves a high-order of filtering through a charge-sharing rotation. Its sampling rate is then multiplied through pipelining. The first stage of the filter can operate in either a voltage-sampling or charge-sampling mode. It uses switches, capacitors and a simple gm-cell, rather than opamps, thus being compatible with digital nanoscale technology. In the voltage-sampling mode, the gm-cell is bypassed so the filter is fully passive. A 7th-order filter prototype operating at 800 MS/s sampling rate is implemented in TSMC 65 nm CMOS. Bandwidth of this filter is programmable between 400 kHz to 30 MHz with 100 dB maximum stop-band rejection. Its IIP3 is +21 dBm and the averaged spot noise is 4.57 nV/\surd Hz. It consumes 2 mW at 1.2 V and occupies 0.42 mm2.European Research Counci