This article introduces the reader to two online sources of materials for working on improving listening and reading skills. The materials are intended for learners already at Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) Level 3 (Superior) proficiency in Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Russian, and Spanish, who desire to reach Level 4 (Distinguished, or…

A two-year (1998-2000) School-Family Partnership for Coexistence (SFPC) programme was implemented in Acre, a mixed Jewish-Arab city in Israel, to promote parents' role as facilitators of their children literacy development and to empower parents to advance coexistence and inter-group relations. The SFPC program was part of a five-year (1995-2000)…

In Study 1, English-speaking 3- and 4-year-olds heard a novel adjective used to label one of two objects and were asked for the referent of a different novel adjective. Children were more likely to select the unlabeled object if the two adjectives appeared prenominally (e.g., "a very DAXY dog") than as predicates (e.g., "a dog that is very DAXY").…

Linguistic landscape (LL) refers to linguistic objects that mark the public space. This paper compares patterns of LL in a variety of homogeneous and mixed Israeli cities, and in East Jerusalem. The groups studied were Israeli Jews, Palestinian Israelis and non-Israeli Palestinians from East Jerusalem, of whom most are not Israeli citizens. The…

The overall purpose of this research is to further our understanding of how students perceive service quality in Egypt's private universities. The paper also tests the SERVQUAL dimensions in higher education within an Arab, non-Western context. A sample of 508 students from four private universities in Egypt participated in the study. Student…

The mother tongue of the absolute majority of native Arabic speakers is Spoken Arabic (SA), which is a local dialect that does not have a written form. For reading and writing, as well as for formal communication Literary Arabic (LA) is used. For the literate Arabs, these two languages are extensively inter-twined in every day life. Consequently,…

Since terrorists from Arab countries attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. government has been desperately seeking to hire Arabic speakers. Even now, more than 2 1/2 years later, the nation has only a small pool of students who are seriously studying the language. Furthermore, the author states that only a smattering of public…

This is a unique collection of leading examples of education grounded in alternative philosophies and cultures--from initiatives to create more democratic schools, through Quaker, Buddhist, Islamic, Montessori and Steiner/Waldorf schools, to Maori and First Nations education in Canada and Palestinian Jewish schools in Israel. Aimed at educational…

This paper reports on the results of a small-scale study into the ways in which two bilingual boys attempt to manage the discontinuities between their identities at home and as members of an early years class at a mainly white primary school in the UK. To do this, a number of semi-structured interviews were undertaken with the boys and their…

In this article, I describe a practical application of the Roussos and Stout (1996) multidimensional analysis framework for interpreting group performance differences on an ESL reading proficiency test. Although a variety of statistical methods have been developed for flagging test items that function differentially for equal ability examinees…

Discusses the study of Lisramic, a phylum of six presumably related language groups: Semitic, Egyptian, Cushitic, Omotic, Berber, and Chadic. (AM)

This volume consists of 25 lessons of text material, to be used with 50 cassette tapes approximately 20 minutes long each. The instructional material for a typical unit is organized as follows: Interrogation, Military Terminology Drill, and Comprehension Test. Each unit revolves around a basic cultural theme, such as the family, childhood, and…

The purpose of this study was to translate and validate an Arabic version of the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) for use in Jordan. The LTSI was administered to 450 employees employed by public and private sector organizations operating in Jordan. Principle axis factoring with oblique rotation was used to uncover the underlying structure…

Surveys the legal status of English in Israel before and since the country became independent, attitudes toward the language, its use in schools and by the media, the influence of English on Hebrew, the kinds of English used, and related topics. Since 1948, English has played an increasingly greater role. (Author/PJM)