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Purpose: This study aims to discuss the impact of the physical environment on the quality of distance education from the viewpoint of a number of teaching staff in Jordanian universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 308 lecturers were selected using a snowball sampling method from different social media websites. The researcher used a descriptive analysis method by conducting social surveys. Findings: The results reveal that there is a negative impact of the physical environment on the quality of distance education from the perspective of the teaching staff in Jordanian universities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results also show that there are statistically significant differences between males and females in terms of the quality of distance education in favor of males. In addition, there are no statistically significant differences in the quality of distance education based on the place from which the lecture is given and the faculty type. Practical implications: The study recommends improving teaching staff's performance in the teaching process, boosting their comfort level and reducing stress and anxiety which may be caused by the surrounding physical environment during distance education. Originality/value: The topic of the study is of great significance to quality assurance in education, i.e. online learning and teaching.

Numerous studies suggest that children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) encounter language problems related to syntax. In particular, these children face difficulties in comprehending and answering complex language structures in Arabic. This paper examines whether a prototype Arabic assistive application can have an impact on the ability of children with ASD to comprehend and answer content questions and on their communicative skills. Via two questionnaires targeting 57 caregivers and ASD specialists in Jordan and a focus-group discussion with three teachers working in three autism centers in Jordan, a prototype assistive application named Aseel was created. To test the effect of using this app on enhancing ASD children's ability to comprehend and answer Arabic questions, a sample consisting of two groups of children: 20 verbal and 5 nonverbal children with ASD enrolled in three autism centers in Amman, Jordan was recruited. A pre-test containing 55 content questions was designed and tested on the two groups. Then, a treatment for three weeks took place in which the teachers trained the children on answering these questions using the app. A post-test was conducted after a three-day break to test whether the app affected the ability of verbal and nonverbal children with ASD to comprehend and answer the questions accurately. The data analysis revealed that the differences between the answers of the two groups in the pre- and post-tests were statistically significant. This suggests that this technology has the potential to aid both verbal and nonverbal children with ASD in effectively learning complex Arabic content questions. This assistive application enhances collaboration between teacher and children with ASD, visual-spatial thinking and communication with others. Another advantage of this app is increasing ASD children's vocabulary repertoire. Preliminary results involving nonverbal children showed that the icons which visually and auditorily represent the most basic needs for a person are proving effective in helping this group communicate with their caregivers and teachers.

This study aims to investigate the attitudes of non-Arabic students towards reading short stories in Arabic at universities in Malaysia, with a focus on three variables: the students' university, gender, and mother tongue. A mixed-methods approach was employed, using a questionnaire and semi-structured focus group discussion with 58 participants. The study found that the students had positive attitudes toward reading short stories. There were no statistically significant differences between the participants' attitudes based on type of university, gender, and mother tongue. With respect to the types of short stories students prefer, comic stories were read most frequently by students. Finally, students also found it very encouraging and supporting to use short stories to enhance their Arabic language skills. The study concludes with some recommendations for further research.

This study analyses "Al-?i?laal" phenomenon which takes place in Modern Standard Arabic (henceforth, MSA) derivational processes. Based on the description of Arab traditionalists such as Al-Raagihi (1984: 155) and AlGalaayiini (1991), "Al-?i?laal" is defined as "a change that occurs with vowel letters where they can be deleted or substituted by another letter in certain cases". For example, the letter "w" in "da?aw" "prayed to God" is substituted by the letter "a" in "da?aa" (Al-Raagihi 1984). Clearly, the previous example analysed by Arab traditionalists demonstrates that the changes that take place are heavily reliant on the orthography of MSA, rather than the phonological system. For instance, /y/ and /w/ are regarded as vowels, rather than glides or semi vowels. Therefore, this study analyses examples of words in which "Al-?i?laal" takes place based on autosegmental or non-linear phonology; an approach in which phonological representations consist of several levels or tiers (Goldsmith 1979). The analysis of the words reveals that there is actually no substitution of sounds and the change that occurs in these words is phonologically motivated. Finally, the study recommends the reconsideration of the concept of "Al-?i?laal" in Arabic morphological literature to account for the phonological changes that occur in these words.

This study reviews three university ranking methodologies: Quacquarelli Sysmonds University Rankings, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities. It also aims to suggest two new methodologies, one for World University Ranking and one for Arab University Ranking, and to propose data collecting tools for the new indicators if any. An online survey which elicited quantitative data and two focus-group discussions which produced qualitative data were used. The results of the survey show that the importance of some indicators as ranked by the respondents was similar to those found in the three international ranking systems, while others were not. The focus-groups suggested new weights for the indicators, since ranking systems overlook the differences between the institutions, resulting in unfair assessment of universities in the Arab region. Thus, new sub-indicators were proposed for both ranking systems.

This study examined the incidental acquisition of English prepositions by Arabic-speaking English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. Employing reading comprehension exercises as a treatment, we adopted the experimental design of a pre- and post-test to determine the effectiveness of the treatment on the participants' incidental acquisition of English prepositions. For the purpose of the study, we divided the participants into a treatment group, who engaged in reading comprehension exercises for one academic term, and a control group, who did not. We used a multiple-choice test and a fill-in-the-blank test to measure the participants' receptive and productive knowledge of English prepositions, respectively. We also conducted an introspective session with the treatment group following the administration of the post-tests to determine the areas of difficulty. The results of the study mainly indicated that reading accompanied by exercises resulted in better incidental gains in the acquisition of English prepositions, especially on the multiple-choice test. The study concludes with recommendations for further research.

This study investigates the effect of blended learning on the development of clause combining as an aspect of the acquisition of written discourse by Jordanians who are learning English as a foreign language. Sixty participants majoring in English language at the University of Jordan took part in this study. The participants were divided into treatment and control groups, and the experimental design of a pretest and posttest was employed to test the effectiveness of blended learning on the ability of these participants to combine clauses in English using parataxis or subordination through a writing task. The results reveal that the treatment group outperformed their control group counterpart on the posttest in terms of verb morphology, distinguishing between nucleus and subordinate clauses, use of parataxis, use of subordinate clauses for temporal reference and to structure information, among others. The results also show that the use of technological devices improved students' attitudes to learning clause combining and made the learning process easier and more enjoyable. We suggest that blended learning develops the techniques of clause combining by learners of English as a foreign language, which in turn enhances their discourse knowledge in the target language and positively affects their ability to package information.