In 2003, the Amazigh (Berber) language and the Tifinagh script were, for the first time in history, introduced as a subject for all students in public primary schools in Morocco. This study first investigates the language planning policy behind the introduction of the new Amazigh curriculum: selection, codification, standardization, curriculum…

This paper reports on a rare phenomenon in language development--the production of words without consonants, and thus syllables without an onset. Such words, which are referred as Consonant-free words (CFWs), appeared for a short period in the early speech of hearing impaired Hebrew-speaking children, who produced words consisting of one or two…

Four experiments were conducted in order to examine effects of notation--Arabic and verbal numbers--on relevant and irrelevant numerical processing. In Experiment 1, notation interacted with the numerical distance effect, and irrelevant physical size affected numerical processing (i.e., size congruity effect) for both notations but to a lesser…

Alternatives to vertical scales are compared for measuring longitudinal academic growth and for producing school-level growth measures. The alternatives examined were empirical cross-grade regression, ordinary least squares and logistic regression, and multilevel models. The student data used for the comparisons were Arabic Grades 4 to 10 in…

The purpose of this study was to investigate ESL students' performance and strategies when writing direct and translated essays. The study also aimed at exploring students' strategies when writing in L2 (English) and L1 (Arabic). The study used a mixture of quantitative and qualitative procedures for data collection and analysis. Adapted strategy…

When power tests include a time limit, it is important to assess the possibility of "speededness" for examinees. Research on differential speededness in the past has included looking at gender and ethnic subgroups in the United States on paper and pencil tests. The needs of a global audience necessitated, and the availability of computer…

Purpose: This study is an attempt to develop an automatic identification method for Arabic web queries and divide them into several query types using data mining. In addition, it seeks to evaluate the impact of the academic environment on using the internet. Design/methodology/approach: The web log files were collected from one of the higher…

Demonstratives have traditionally been analyzed as "pointing words" whose primary function is to indicate relative spatial or temporal distance of a referent from speech participants. Recent research argues that the meaning of demonstratives is not limited to spatial distance and has given alternative accounts for the use of…

Between 1965 and 1979 the demand for places at Jewish day schools in England rose dramatically. In the preceding decades, most parents sent their children to state non-denominational schools, showing little interest in providing their children with a solid Jewish education. Sunday or after-school Hebrew classes, rarely extending beyond Bar/Bat…

This research considers aspects of literacy in Maltese-English bilingual children. The study examined the reading and phonological awareness skills in English and Maltese of children whose home language is Maltese and second language English. A sample of 50 typically developing Maltese pupils aged 8 years 0 months to 10 years 5 months was…

This ethnographic study of linguistic landscape (LL) (Landry & Bourhis, 1997), describes the urban multilingual practices of Tunisia as evidenced by its policy statements, street signage, and local perceptions. Data for this investigation were collected primarily from publicly visible signage in both the capital city (Tunis), and in the suburb…

The "foreign languages" considered in this paper are the non-European contemporary tongues whose study was encouraged by the Crusades and related projects for recovering the Holy Land from the Muslims, Arabic, Hebrew and Syriac (Chaldaic), of which Arabic held pride of place. No-one was more significant in advancing the study and…

This study aimed at exploring how high school students deal with designing an information system, for example, for a small business or a medical clinic, the extent to which students develop as independent learners while working on their projects, and the factors that help or hinder fostering students' design skills. The three-phase dual-loop…

This article describes the educational effects of the Time To Know Digital Teaching Platform used with low socio-economic status (SES) students' in learning mathematics, Hebrew, and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Israel. The study described in the article is based on the assumption that one of the possible solutions for bridging the social…

We explored the perceptions of children's cognitive development among Moroccan Arabic and Berber immigrant mothers who cannot read, who are less educated, middle educated or highly educated in the Netherlands. A series of in-depth interviews was conducted with 22 mothers with young children (mean age = 5 years and 6 months). Qualitative data…