The present study aims to show the importance of ESL reading ability in acquiring English as a second language. The study involves 92 college students (males and females) from the Department of English at Nizwa College of Applied Sciences, Sultanate of Oman. They represent two groups, the foundation year students and the first year English majors. A number of tests were used to measure students’ overall proficiency in English as well as their reading ability (i.e., the ability to contribute to the main idea of the text, scanning, skimming, to derive word meanings from context, to use a dictionary to find meanings, definitions, to identify prefixes, antonyms and synonyms). Students’ ability to read was correlated to their proficiency level in the second language. It was found in the study that good readers were better users of the dictionary, derived meanings of words from the context and contributed to the main idea of the text better than poor readers did. Good readers were found to be high achievers in the second language.
The study aims at investigating the effectiveness of the Virtual Library Technology, in developing the achievement of the English Language Skills in the Center of Development and Continuous Education, in comparison with the individual learning via personal computer to investigate the students' attitude towards the use of both approaches. The population of the study includes the participants in the English Language course arranged in the Center. The sample includes 60 students who were randomly chosen from the whole population (participants in English Courses for the year 2009-2010). The sample is randomly chosen and divided into two experimental groups. The first group has learned through classroom technology; while the other group has l
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This research aims to develop a unit as part of a sixth-grade Arabic language textbook and measure its effectiveness in the development of twenty-first-century skills of female students. The author adopted the experimental approach with a quasi-experimental design of the pre-post single-group. A list of the major skills was derived from the framework for the 21st-century skills of the mother tongue that was developed by the Partnership for 21st-Century Skills and reviewed and adjusted by some specialists. According to their views, the unit was developed. The study targeted 15 sub-skills falling under three main skills. The results of the study showed the effectiveness of the developed unit in the develo
... Show MoreIn the present paper, the features of democratization of vocabulary in the language of mass media are tackled. Particularly, the functions of this phenomenon in the context of language as an ontological reality are analysed. As well, the growing role of the language of the media, and the language of politics as an integral part pertaining to it, is noted. Further, attention is paid to the excessive saturation of the language of the media along with the literary language, by means of evaluation which may include negative results.
In this concern, scholars had different views, specifically in relation to the use of colloquial vocabulary along with some vernacular profess
... Show MoreMany undergraduate learners at English departments who study English as a foreign language are unable to speak and use language correctly in their post -graduate careers. This problem can be attributed to certain difficulties, which they faced throughout their education years that hinder their endeavors to learn. Therefore, this study aims to discover the main difficulties faced by EFL students in language learning and test the difficulty variable according to gender and college variables then find suitable solutions for enhancing learning. A questionnaire with 15 items and 5 scales were used to help in discovering the difficulties. The questionnaire was distributed to the selected sample of study wh
... Show MoreThe aim of the study is to diagnose the real level of technology usage in teaching and learning EFL at university from teachers and students’ viewpoints, and see if it is possible to achieve something of the researchers’ dream - accessing top universities. Two questionnaires have been used to measure the range of technology usage in Colleges of Education for Women, Baghdad and Iraqi Universities, and College of Basic Education. The results have shown that the reality of using technology is still away from the dream. The results have been ascribed to two reasons: The first is the little knowledge of using technology in teaching, and the second is that technology is not included in the curriculum.
The study aimed to identify the degree of availability of design Thinking Indicators in The content of the Arabic Language Curricula at the secondary stage in the Syrian Arab Republic; to achieve the goal of the study. The researcher used the Descriptive Approach based on the analysis method according to the Cognitive Theory. The study tools consist of a list of Design Thinking Indicators and a Content Analysis Tool. The researcher completed the Validity and Reliability procedures for the tools. After applying them, the results of the study resulted in the following: Greater Interest than other sub-skills. The results also showed a Divergence of care for the sub-skills and the Difference in their recurrence rate, and the Omission of some
... Show MoreThe researches to discover useful ways to represent the agents and agent-based
systems are continuous. Unified Modeling Language (UML) is a visual modeling language
used for software and non software modeling systems. The aim of this paper is: using UML
class diagram to design treasury pharmaceuticals agent and explain its internal action. The
diagram explains the movement of the agent among other nodes to achieve user's requests
(external) after it takes them. The paper shows that it is easy to model the practical systems by
using agent UML when they are used in a complex environment.
Resumen:
El horóscopo que es una predicción deducida de la posición de los astros del sistema solar y de los signos de Zodiaco, intenta no sólo predecir el futuro, sino también influir en el comportamiento del lector, orientándolo para que actúe adecuadamente y la invitación a actuar ante ese futuro que se aconseja mediante imperativos, perífrasis y otros recursos lingüísticos. Los horóscopos se caracterizan por su gran popularidad que existen en periódico o revista en columnas enteras dedicadas al tema, en donde se detallan la influencia que tendrá el día o el mes de cada uno de los signos correspondientes al zodíaco, siempre teniendo en cuenta la posici
... Show MoreThe present paper addresses one of the most challenging topics in translation; namely legal translation in the framework of two different approaches; the classical (formal) and the more recent (functional). The latter approach is the outcome of the process of simplifying legal language known technically as Plain Language Movement. The advent of this movement dates back to the 1950s, in response to the widely-held complain about the awkwardness of the legal register. Within this framework, the salient features of legal language, at the various linguistic and textual levels, underwent reconsideration in favor of more publicly digested expressions. The paper then subjects two translations of a lease contract to analysis in the ligh
... Show MoreThe current research aims to determine the necessary linguistic competencies for Arabic language teachers of the preparatory stage (fourth grade preparatory), which were five main competencies: Arabic grammar competencies, literary competencies, cultural competencies, rhetorical competencies, and expression competencies. To achieve the objective of the research, the researcher developed a questionnaire as the main tool for collecting data based on literature, it consists of (28) items including the five main competencies. The questionnaire was administered to (60) male and female teachers at Al-Karkh's first Education Directorate in the city of Baghdad. The findings of the research indicated that Arabic language proficiency got the highe
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