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In this contribution, we analyse how students perceive and comment on potential instances of intercultural clashes in the writing component of the International English Language Testing System. Following student accounts, we argue that intercultural bias is indeed perceived, preventing test takers from fully positioning themselves regarding cultural practices in general, and religious beliefs more particularly, as well as from expressing their sociocultural identities. Analysing a corpus of interviews in Amman (Jordan) with Jordanian students who took the test, we uncover how student perceptions of elements that reflect the culture of the test creator negatively influenced their performance, or at least their perception of what constitutes a good performance, which they implicitly identify with like-mindedness and alignment with the test creator's cultural expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the effectiveness of using an overhead projector to display guessing games and that of printed dictionaries in teaching collocations to Arabic-speaking English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The study focused particularly on the acquisition of English grammatical collocations or, more precisely, colligations. A pre-test and delayed post-test approach was employed for assessing students' knowledge of collocations before and after the experiment. Forty EFL tenth grade students studying at a school in Amman, Jordan, took part in this study. The learners were divided equally into two groups: Group A (the treatment group) and Group B (the control group). The treatment group was taught collocations using a prediction activity involving an overhead projector that displayed guessing games illustrating the collocations; the control group was taught the collocations using the traditional technique of printed dictionaries. The findings revealed that teaching through an overhead projector and guessing games results in a better learning of collocations than using dictionaries, as demonstrated by the results of the paired sample t-test. The findings also showed that the type of grammatical collocation that students found most challenging was the noun + preposition type owing to poor vocabulary knowledge and negative transfer from L1. The study concluded with some pedagogical implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article aims at investigating the challenges of teaching English oral skills using online learning by secondary school teachers and students in Amman/Jordan. It also aims at proposing the most effective solutions that can be used to overcome the challenges encountered and to promote teaching/learning oral skills online in Jordan. To this end, a qualitative data elicitation tool was employed, that is, semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty teachers and twenty students to obtain their opinions and experiences pertaining to online learning. Based on the interviews, several reasons that might hinder the process of teaching English oral skills using online learning were identified. The results reveal that some of the challenges reported by the teachers are similar to those reported by the students, such as time management, teaching methods, lack of encouragement and motivation, and lack of knowledge regarding online teaching tools. Furthermore, this study proposes some solutions to help both teachers and students overcome these obstacles and to enhance students' English oral skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]