Designing an ESP writing course for pre-intermediate EFL engineering students

This paper reports the whole process on an attempt to design an ESP English Writing Course (EWC) at a pre-intermediate level for engineering students studying at English medium departments at a state university in Turkey. Designing an English Writing Course specific for engineering students is necessary since the current EWC fails to provide the students with necessary preparations for their future careers as well. Based on Hyland’s (2003) guiding concepts for teaching L2 writing and following the Language Curriculum Design Model of Nation & Macalister (2010), we aim to design an EWC that will equip engineering students with specific content and terminology as well as giving them a chance to practice writing in a way that will be sufficient for their future studies at their departments and future academic and professional careers. Data were collected via face-to-face interviews with preparatory school students and instructors as well as faculty of engineering students and an instructor. Using qualitative content analysis, the needs, wants, and lacks were determined and an ESP English Writing Course Syllabus is offered as a result of this study which provides implications for developing writing skills of the mentioned group, as well as other ESP writing course contexts

Language Learning Strategies Used by the Turkish EFL Learners to Improve their Reading Skill

This study investigated strategies of the learners who started their learning process from A1 level to improve their reading skill. 10 different students were chosen considering their range of learner profiles. Thus, 3 of them were chosen from high-achievers, whereas 3 of them were chosen among low-achievers. The other 4 students were among the ones whose success level was on average. These students were interviewed at the end of the first term when they were supposed to complete the A2 level. Additionally, they were taken to think-aloud-protocols right after the interviews to evaluate their reading performance and to monitor what kind of strategies they were using to do the tasks given to them and to check whether they were doing what they had said in the interviews. The same procedure, which included the interviews and think-aloud protocols, were applied at the end of the second semester. It was found that in the second term the hardworking group changed the strategies that they had been using in the first term, Changes in learners’ responsibilities whereas there seemed to be no change in the strategies used by the other group members

Teaching foreign languages at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Rijeka: A historical overview

This paper offers an overview of the development of teaching foreign languages at the Department of social sciences and Medical Humanities, Faculty of Medicine in Rijeka, and its influence on the growth of the Faculty of Medicine in general. The specialization of teaching foreign languages will be considered from its introduction up to the present day when there are different foreign language courses for each study programme. In analysing the collected material, a historical approach was taken, and methods of analysis and synthesis were used. The development of teaching foreign languages began with the English language, and today the teaching of Italian and German has also been introduced. Teaching foreign languages is an integral part of all studies, either as a compulsory or elective course. Foreign language courses introduce international medical terminology and enable students to follow the development of modern medicine. teaching foreign languages enables both teaching and scientific staff to have a certain freedom in creating teaching materials and referring students to relevant foreign literature. All this has resulted, on the one hand, in faster and better involvement of the Faculty of Medicine in European and world trends of modern medicine, and on the other hand, has given students the necessary skills they are going to need in their professional continuous education

Muscle Defects Lead to Skeletal Deformities in a Zebrafish Model of Distal Arthrogryposis

Distal Arthrogryposis Type 1 (DA1) involves mild muscle weakness and limb skeletal abnormalities thought to be caused by paralysis in utero. Why the limbs are particularly affected in DA1 and the degree of paralysis that leads to these skeletal deformities in utero remains unclear. Several muscle genes are known to cause DA1, including MYLPF (myosin light chain phosphorylatable), which encodes a myosin light chain protein that binds close to the force-generating head of myosin heavy chains. The zebrafish mylpfa-/- mutant displays a phenotype consistent with DA1, including impaired myosin activity, reduced muscle force overall, and complete fin paralysis. I began my work by analyzing myofibril structure in the mylpfa-/- mutant, as well as the mylpfa-/-; mylpfb-/- double mutant which had not been previously characterized carefully. We developed new quantitative techniques to analyze sarcomere formation in high-resolution images, tested the role of Mylpf in sarcomere assembly with statistical rigor, and investigated how these defects impact pectoral fin development. The quantitative suite we developed extends prior image analysis methods by determining the degree to which proteins localize to sarcomere-length repeats within images selected regions of interest from an image are sarcomeric in high-resolution images. To independently verify the technique, we examined wild-type sarcomere formation and growth from 24-72 hours post fertilization (hpf) and identify unique phases of muscle maturation in this time frame. Then, we applied the method to the mylpfa/mylpfb datasets, showing quantitatively found that sarcomeres are entirely unaffected by mylpfb mutation, are partially organized in the mylpfa-/- mutant, and are consistently absent when both genes are mutated (mylpfa; mylpfb double mutants). Analysis of the pectoral fin region showed that sarcomere defects in the mylpfa mutant are nearly as severe as in the mylpfa-/-; mylpfb-/- double. Consistent with the model that DA arises by limb paralysis and the observations that fins are completely paralyzed and lack sarcomeres in the mylpfa-/- mutant, I find that the pectoral fin cartilage size is reduced by 25% in the mylpfa-/- mutant, a defect that I confirmed using two alleles; this degree of the defect was also consistent across multiple stages of development. Consistent with the observation that both the mylpfa-/- mutant and the mylpfa-/-; mylpfb-/- double mutants have complete fin paralysis, I similarly find a 25% reduction in the double mutant. Intriguingly, preliminary analysis of a mutant completely lacking muscle in the fin (∆six1a;4a-/-;∆six1b;4b-/-) has an even more severe fin cartilage defect. These findings suggest that Mylpf gene function is required for sarcomeric protein organization to promote normal fast-twitch muscle and cartilage development