The main purpose of this study was to explore the perceived social distance among a small Arab community residing in a college town in the Midwest of the USA. The study examines its possible impact on the process of learning/acquiring English as a second language (ESL). It draws on the findings and contentions of the acculturation model as outlined by Schumann (1978). Three data collection procedures were employed: personal interviews, field observations, and a questionnaire. Five members of the aforementioned community were interviewed: three Saudi Arabians, and two other Arabs. The interviews were mapped against the social factors of the model as summarized by Brown (2000). Then a sum of 17 Saudi Arabian informants (graduate students) responded to a questionnaire. The findings suggest that different Arabs acculturate differently in accordance to their future plans. The persons who intend to reside in the target language (TL) culture acculturate (perceive smaller distance from the TL group) much more than those transient residents who intend to live there for a specific purpose and leave after finishing their business. The permanent residents' self-perception of their English proficiency is higher than the temporary ones.
This paper investigates the preferred order of reading strategies at three ability levels by L1 Arabic learners of English in an EFL setting. Then it explores whether there was a relationship between ability level and strategy use. Ninety-two EFL college students enrolled in a reading comprehension class participated in this study. They took a TOEFL reading section to determine their reading abilities/levels, and then they completed a biographical and the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) questionnaires. Then, statistical analyses were conducted. The results showed that each ability level reported strategy use differently in terms of order and intensity. There was also a statistical significance in strategy use between the high ability and the low ability levels. The low ability level participants reported higher use of the global reading strategies than the high ability group. However, no statistical significance of association was found between reading ability and strategy use
The purpose of the present study is to explore the dominant reading model employed by Saudi Arabian readers of English, in response to claims by some researchers, which second language-reading model employed by ESL/EFL learners could be explained from their early literacy practices in their own cultures. Perry (1996), for example, asserted that culture affects learners' reading strategies. She provided empirical findings, which stipulated that cultures affect the kind of reading strategies that learners use. Thus, this paper presents counterevidence that the main reason for strategy choice is not necessarily conditioned by early literacy practices of a given society. Three Saudi informants were asked to describe their reading activities using a retrospection technique. The results show that those informants have employed a reading model that does not comply with Perry's conclusions. They mainly used a top-down approach to reading rather than employing the bottom up model as their early literacy practices implied.
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