The problem of using English reading strategies perceived by Thai EFL students: Implications for reading instructions

It is recognized that reading ability is essential for Thai EFL students and English reading is perceived as a difficult task among them. To understand the difficulty experienced by the students while reading English text, this study hence aimed at investigating problems of using English reading strategies perceived by Thai EFL students as well as providing suggested reading instructions for Thai lecturers to cope with the emerging problems. This study employed a mixed-method design. The participants of the study were 412 Thai EFL students who, in this study, were also considered as Gen Z students at a large-size university in Bangkok, Thailand. The participants were asked to complete an online questionnaire on 4-point Likert’s scale, which was adapted from Aebersold and Field (1997). Moreover, 10 students were recruited for two focus group interviews. The results revealed that Thai EFL students experience difficulties in using English reading strategies when they have to skip unknown words during the first reading (mean = 2.67, SD = 1.01) followed by varying reading speed rates according to the type of the reading passage (mean = 2.66, SD = 0.97), and guessing the meanings of unknown words by using the context clues (mean = 2.59, SD = 0.92) respectively. Based on both quantitative and qualitative results and personality traits of Thai Gen Z, suggested reading instructions including guided reading, improving student’s vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, technology-blended classroom and critical reading were purposed

Influence of Chain Microstructure on Liquid–Liquid Phase Structure and Crystallization of Dual Reactor Ziegler–Natta Made Impact Propylene–Ethylene Copolymers

The relationship between ethylene content, phase structure, crystallization behavior, and the inferred mechanical performance has been studied in five impact copolymers with overall ethylene content between 8 and 11 mol %. Thermal characterization data and crystallization kinetics of impact polypropylene copolymers (IPC) do not scale with content of ethylene. Emphasis is given to understand the correlation between heterophasic morphology assessed by scanning electron microscopy and polarized optical microscopy and the properties of the crystalline propylene–ethylene copolymer component extracted via fractionation. As the mass fraction of the rubber component is equivalent for all IPC, the scaling between ethylene content and increased droplet size is explained by the observed differences in dynamics of the crystalline ethylene–propylene copolymer molecules during the liquid–liquid phase separation step. On this basis, a correlation is inferred between cocrystallization and compatibility of the components that make the observed multiphase morphologies and the IPC mechanical behavior