saudi arabia linguistic
15167003
The need for national medical licensing examination in Saudi Arabia
BackgroundMedical education in Saudi Arabia is facing multiple challenges, including the rapid increase in the number of medical schools over a short period of time, the influx of foreign medical graduates to work in Saudi Arabia, the award of scholarships to hundreds of students to study medicine in various countries, and the absence of published national guidelines for minimal acceptable competencies of a medical graduate.DiscussionWe are arguing for the need for a Saudi national medical licensing examination that consists of two parts: Part I (Written) which tests the basic science and clinical knowledge and Part II (Objective Structured Clinical Examination) which tests the clinical skills and attitudes. We propose this examination to be mandated as a licensure requirement for practicing medicine in Saudi Arabia.ConclusionThe driving and hindering forces as well as the strengths and weaknesses of implementing the licensing examination are discussed in details in this debate.
BMC medical education
Sohail Bajammal Rania G Zaini Wesam Abuznadah Mohammad Othman Al-Rukban Syed Moyn Aly Abdulaziz Boker Abdulmohsen Hamdan Al-Zalabani Mohammad Al-Omran Amro Al-habib Mona Hmoud Al-Sheikh Mohammad Al-Sultan Nadia Fida Khalid Hassan Alzahrani Bashir Hamad Mohammad Yahya Al Shehri Khalid A Bin Abdulrahman Saleh A Al-Damegh Mansour M Al-Nozha Tyrone Donnon
14350798
Comparative Study of ANN and HMM to Arabic Digits Recognition Systems
Arabic language is a Semitic language that has many differences when compared to Latin languages such as English. One of these differences is how to pronounce the ten digits, zero through nine. All Arabic digits are polysyllabic (except digit zero which is a monosyllabic) words and most of them contain Arabic unique phonemes, namely, pharyngeal and emphatic subset. In a previous paper the researcher designed an Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) based Arabic digits recognition system. In this paper we continued the research by designing Hidden Markov Model (HMM) based system that was designed and tested with automatic Arabic digits recognition. The old system was isolated whole word speech recognizer, but the current one was an isolated word phoneme based recognizer. Both systems were implemented both as a multi speaker (i.e. the same set of speakers were used in both the training and testing phases) mode and speaker independent (i.e. speakers used for training are different from those used for testing) mode. The main aim of this paper was to compare, analyze, and discuss the outcomes of these two recognition systems. The ANN based recognition system achieved 99.5% correct digit recognition in the case of multi speaker mode, and 94.5% in the case of speaker independent mode. On the other hand, the HMM based recognition system achieved 98.1% correct digit recognition in the case of multi speaker mode, and 94.8% in the case of speaker independent mode.
Yousef Ajami Alotaibi S Arabia
62819933
The University of Kansas
Bachelor of Science in Business (http:/catalog.ku.edu/archives/2015 16/ business/bs) Bachelor of Business Administration (http:/catalog.ku.edu/ archives/2015 16/business/bachelor business administration) Minor in Business (http:/catalog.ku.edu/archives/2015 16/business/ minor) Master of Business Administration (http:/catalog.ku.edu/ archives/2015 16/business/mba) Master of Accounting (http:/catalog.ku.edu/archives/2015 16/business/ master accounting) Master of Science in Business (http:/catalog.ku.edu/archives/2015 16/ business/ms) Doctor of Philosophy in Business (http:/catalog.ku.edu/archives/2015 16/ business/phd)
S Arabia
71034019
Integration of foreign culture into pre service EFL teacher education: a case study of Saudi Arabia
i Declaration iv Dedication v Acknowledgements vi List of Tables xii Definitions of terms xv Chapter One: Introduction and overview 1 The place of culture in L2 education 1 Statement of the problem 3 Aim and scope 5 Research approach and design 7 Overview of the thesis 9 Part I: Situating research 10 Chapter Two: Theoretical foundations 11 Historical context: Language and culture 11 Current practice 17 Places of FC in EFL education 25 FC and EFL educational policies 31 Issues in FC integration into pre service EFL teacher education 35 Summary of key gaps in the literature 44 Research questions 51 Chapter Three: Research methodology 54 Methodological issues 54 Contextualising the case study: Pre service EFL teacher education in SA 60
AbdulRahman Al Asmari
14486543
Saudi accented Arabic voice bank
The aim of this paper is to present an Arabic speech database that represents Arabic native speakers from all the cities of Saudi Arabia. The database is called the Saudi Accented Arabic Voice Bank (SAAVB) Preparing the prompt sheets, selecting the right speakers and transcribing their speech are some of the challenges that faced the project team. The procedures that meet these challenges are highlighted. SAAVB consists of 1033 speakers speak in Modern Standard Arabic with a Saudi accent. The SAAVB content is analyzed and the results are illustrated. The content was verified internally and externally by IBM Cairo and can be used to train speech engines such as automatic speech recognition and speaker verification systems.
ExLing
Mansour Al-Ghamdi Fayez A Alhargan Mohamed I Alkanhal Ashraf Alkhairy Munir Eldesouki Ammar Alenazi
203578915
Identifying the English Language Needs of Saudi Police Officers
This study attempts to identify and assess the English language needs of police officers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For this purpose a questionnaire was developed, piloted and distributed to 103 police officers on the job. The results indicate that English plays a remarkable role in police work. The administration of English courses by the various sectors and by the Higher Institute of Security Sciences show that the Ministry of the Interior is aware of the importance of English for police cadets and officers. The participant officers were found to be conscious of the significance of tailoring the language materials they study to their occupational needs. All officers rated those items which were relevant to their jobs as important. The results show that although police officers and their sectors understand the significance of English to police work, many officers stated that they have never been trained on how to use English for police purposes. This finding is alarming since the overall results indicate that English for police purposes should be emphasized. Based on this finding, the study has proposed some general guidelines for the improvement of the English program at King Fahd Security College, the Higher Institute of Security Sciences, and the individual security sectors. The paper concludes by highlighting a number of topics that await further research.
Mohammed Nasser Alhuqbani
146122503
The relationship between Saudi EFL college level students' use of reading strategies and their EFL reading comprehension
3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 6 LIST OF TABLES 11 LIST OF FIGURES 12 CHAPTER ONE 13 Introduction 13 English as a Foreign/Second Language (EFL/ESL) Reading Strategies 14 Significance of the Study 16 Statement of the Problem 19 The Purpose of the Study 20 Variables of the Study 22 Research Questions 22 Definition of Terms. 24 Organization of the Study 27 CHAPTER TWO 28 Literature Review. 28 Introduction 28 Models of Reading 29 The Interactive Model 38 Reading Strategies 41 Reading Strategies Studies in Saudi Arabia 57 Self Regulation 62 Summary 65 CHAPTER THREE 67 Methodology 67 Research Questions 67 Research Design 68 Operational Definition of the Variables 69 The Setting of the Study 71 Teaching English Language in Saudi Arabia 72 9 Current Classroom Reading Practices in Saudi Arabia 72 Instrumentation 74 The Reading Comprehension Test 81 Interview 81 Data Collection 82 Data Analysis Procedures 86 CHAPTER FOUR 88 Results 88 Reliability of the Instrument 88 Validity of the Instrument 89 Descriptive Statistics for Factors 90 Assumptions of Multiple Regression Analysis 92 Test for Normality, Linearity, Homoscedasticity, and Independence of Residuals 95 First Research Question 98 Second Research Question 100 Third Research Question. 102 Additional Findings 105 Gender and Comprehension Level 108 Gender and Reading Strategies 109 Gender and Self Regulation 110 Qualitative Data on Self regulation 111 Summary of Major Findings 112 CHAPTER FIVE 115 Discussion, Conclusion, and Recommendations 115 Summary of the Study and Discussion of Findings 115 Discussion of Additional Findings. 123 Implications for Reading Instruction in Saudi Arabia 124 Conclusion 126 Limitations of the study 127 Recommendations for Further Study 128 REFERENCES 130 APPENDIX A: READING COMPREHENSION TEST 147 APPENDIX B: MODEL ANSWERS 150 APPENDIX C A SAMPLE OF INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTION 151 10 APPENDIX D READING STRATEGIES QUESTIONNAIRE (RSQ) 155 APPENDIX E A SAMPLE OF PERMISSION REQUEST LETTER 161 APPENDIX F IRB APPROVAL 162 APPENDIX G SCREEPLOT 163 APPENDIX H: ROTATED COMPONENT MATRIX 164 APPENDIX I RESIDUAL STATISTICS (READING STRATEGIES TYPES) 166 APPENDIX J ITEMS DESCRIPTIVES 167 APPENDIX K SCATTER PLOT OF REGRESSION STANDARDIZED PREDICTED VALUES AGAINST REGRESSION STANDARDIZED RESIDUALS (SELFREGULATION FACETS) 170 APPENDIX L NORMAL P P PLOT (SELF REGULATION FACETS) 171 APPENDIX M RESIDUAL STATISTICS (SELF REULATION FACETS) 172 APPENDIX N TOLERANCE AND VIF FOR REGRESSION FACTORS (SELFREGULATION) 173
Hashem Ahmed Alsamadani
55570057
THE ATTITUDE AND THE IMPACT OF THE AMERICAN ENGLISH AS A GLOBAL LANGUAGE WITHIN THE SAUDI EDUCATION SYSTEM
This paper investigates the impact of 9/11 on the educational system in Saudi Arabia. In particular, it discusses how this phenomenon took its course to influence the English teaching system in Saudi Arabia, and the attitude and the impact of this new phenomenon in the Saudi society, in light of the current debate between Arab linguists on the issue of more English less Islam. It also presents a case study on a group of Saudi freshmen students studying English at King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. A 12 item questionnaire, related to this topic was distributed to 65 Saudi students studying English in their second semester of the New English Curricula. The findings provide valuable data on how the youth feel towards Western ideology, learning English and Western culture. Although the findings are context specific, they indicate that the Saudi students agree (for the most part) that both the study of the English language and its culture are necessary in order to develop their English comprehension.
Tariq Elyas
148205781
Perceptions of Saudi Students towards Electronic and Traditional Writing Groups
This paper reports the findings of an experiment that investigated the reactions of Saudi college students to collaborative learning techniques introduced in two modalities: face to face and web based learning. Quantitative data were collected with a questionnaire that examined the changes of three constructs: attitudes toward collaboration, social self efficacy, and perceived peer academic support. Students' responses to the questionnaire did not show any significant differences between the experimental group and control group with respect to the three variables. Three factors might have led to such results: inadequate questionnaire procedure implementation, the novelty factor, and technical obstacles experienced during the experiment. Such positive attitudes reflect the need to update composition teaching methods, foster group work strategies, and develop more computer resources and networking facilities.
Fahad Alqurashi
54714473
Revisiting the Relation Between Environmental Performance and Environmental Disclosure: An Empirical Analysis
Previous empirical evidence provides mixed results on the relationship between corporate environmental performance and the level of environmental disclosures. We revisit this relation by testing competing predictions from economics based and socio political theories of voluntary disclosure using a more rigorous research design. In particular, we improve on the prior literature by focusing on purely discretionary environmental disclosures and by developing a content analysis index based on the Global Reporting Initiative sustainability reporting guidelines to assess the extent of discretionary disclosures in environmental and social responsibility reports. This index better captures firm disclosures related to its commitment to protect the environment than the indices employed by prior studies. Using a sample of 191 firms from the five most polluting industries in the US, we find a positive association between environmental performance and the level of discretionary environmental disclosures. The result is consistent with the predictions of the economics disclosure theory but inconsistent with the negative association predicted by socio political theories. Nevertheless, we show that socio political theories explain patterns in the data "legitimization" that cannot be explained by economics disclosure theories.
Peter M Clarkson Yue Li Gordon Douglas Richardson Florin P Vasvari