As part of an experimental study carried out at a Turkish university about the effects of graphic novels in improving reading comprehension skills of EFL students, this paper intends to introduce the process of pre, during and after reading activities applied both to traditional text and graphic novel groups as production and reaction of students to those activities. Thus, we aim to demonstrate how graphic novel form as being an authentic material can be adopted to EFL classrooms to improve (critical) reading skills.

Discourse markers (DMs) are significant for fluent speech. Furthermore, they are essential elements of language for conversation organisation, reciprocal relation of interlocutors, productive speaking and comprehension. Although they have critical functions for pragmatic development, they are neglected in language teaching either because of the belief that they are challenging to teach or as a result of the focus on grammatical competence in language teaching. This study examined the use and functions of micro-level DMs in British and American featurelength films, and it provided implications for using feature-lengths films as a means for authentic language input in explicit or implicit teaching of DMs. The scripts of four films (two British and two American) were analysed using the AntConc Concordance program. The results showed that there is not a significant difference between British and American films regarding the frequency of DMs well, like, and you know. On the other hand, it was found that oh was used more frequently in British films than American films. The functional analysis of the DMs showed that both British and American feature-length films represent the use of English DMs in native discourse. Therefore, the study concludes that the films could be used for teaching and learning of DMs in foreign language classrooms. The results were discussed with pedagogical implications.

Critical thinking has been considered as one of the main goals of education at any level. The question of 'in what ways does critical thinking develop best?' still needs further exploration. Cognitive science may provide assistance in comprehending the elusive nature of critical thinking, which may lend itself to explanations by receiving theoretical background and studying skills from a wide array of perspectives. Regarding the teaching of critical thinking skills to pre-service language teachers in an EFL context, it is apparent that it requires meticulous attention from the onset of the design of the language course. Aiming to develop a critical reading and writing course which was newly added to the English Language Teaching curriculum by the Higher Education Council and putting the teaching of critical thinking skills into the core, the current study aims to explore the critical thinking and reading levels of the students at the beginning of the course and display whether any difference took place during the course of time in the academic semester specified. The inclusion of the new course entitled 'Critical Reading and Writing', required the development of the course content and a selection of materials were made according to the general framework provided by the Higher Education Council. The current study utilized descriptive and inferential means. It aimed to determine and compare the students' critical thinking and critical reading levels before and after the study. Findings indicate that students' critical thinking levels developed at the end of the study. However, it is found that female students' critical thinking scores contributed more than male students' scores. When gender is not considered as a factor, the whole group of participants improved their critical thinking skills during the study; however they did not perform the same improvement on their reading scores.

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