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Türkiye with its multifaceted soft power, it aspires to strengthen its influence throughout the surrounding countries of the Arabian Gulf. Türkiye is applying the maximum prominent cultural and educational diplomatic strategies for boosting knowledge and cooperation to preserve its impact inside the Gulf location. By establishing the Yunus Emre Institutes (YEE), the implementation of cultural and educational activities, the ties between Türkiye and the member states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has been reinforced. As a result of the world's rapid change soft power has become essential in the international arena. This article significantly assesses Türkiye's soft power tasks in the GCC area and its implication on the Arabian Gulf regional dynamics. It examines Türkiye's public diplomacy initiatives in the GCC through cultural and educational diplomacies on domestic and regional attitudes.

This study explores the role of higher education professional development in the integration of visual literacy instruction at the university level. Visual literacy is a crucial skill that empowers students to comprehend and generate visual content across diverse domains. However, many instructors lack necessary training and support to effectively incorporate visual literacy into their teaching practices. The research survey investigates the significance of teacher professional development in visual literacy implementation, encompassing the status of training, effective professional development programs for teachers, suitable teaching methods, education technologies, attitudes of higher education instructors towards visual literacy, and the influence of student engagement with visual materials on visual literacy advancement in Kuwait. The questionnaire was administered to a sample of higher education teachers. That data was analyzed employing descriptive and inferential statistical techniques, with SPSS v.26 software. Regression analysis and other multivariate analyses were conducted to test the research hypothesis and model. The outcomes should provide insights into the effectiveness of collaborative, experiential, and technology-enhanced teacher professional development programs in fostering visual literacy development within higher education, the significance of student engagement with visual materials, and the necessity for further research on effective teaching methods and educational technologies for promoting visual literacy. The findings can inform policy and practice by highlighting the importance of equipping higher education instructors with necessary skills and resources to effectively incorporate visual literacy into their teaching approaches, enhancing the quality of higher education by fostering competencies among students and facilitating their engagement with visual materials across various disciplines.

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected all sectors, including education--schools were affected by widespread lockdowns, which necessitated the adoption of online learning platforms. Using a mixed-methods research methodology incorporating questionnaires and interviews, researchers in the current study examined the impact of e-learning on high school students' English language learning, particularly their spoken skills, in Kuwait. The researchers studied a sample of 60 participants for the quantitative analysis and 18 students for the qualitative analysis. All were high school students in Kuwait enrolled in English classes. The study's results revealed significant challenges associated with e-learning, including low acceptance rates among students. Most students disagreed that online learning is a perfect learning tool, suggesting that e-learning fails to promote critical thinking skills and facilitate learning. E-learning also affects learners' capabilities to express their feelings and ideas. The interviews showed that e-learning failed to improve the students' English language mastery. Some of the challenges we noted include technical hitches and the inability to deploy teaching strategies used successfully in physical classes. Overall, the results indicate that students disliked online learning in Kuwait. In conclusion, e-learning is a significant opportunity for students to improve their learning, but it must be effectively used to encourage students' uptake. It is necessary to assess schools' preparedness to implement it as well as to design complementary programs and strategies to ensure students gain mastery of the English language.

Metacognitive thinking has the potential to impact high school student's personality, his cognitive abilities, and psychological state when activating its components through modern educational methods. Through four hypotheses, this study aimed to examine the psychological and educational variables of metacognitive thinking, systemic thinking, and mindfulness that can impact and predict the metacognitive thinking process of secondary school students within the Hawalli Educational Zone of Kuwait. A descriptive and quantitative research design guided this research study with the focus on psychological and cognitive phenomena. The study involved a sample size of 348 participants (169 male and 179 female), aged between 16 and 18 years, randomly drawn from the government secondary schools in the Hawalli Governorate in the State of Kuwait. Data was collected through three distinct scales Metacognitive Thinking Scale, Systems Thinking Scale and Mindfulness Scale. The study found out that there existed a positive and statistically significant relationship between metacognitive thinking and both variables of systemic thinking and mindfulness. Additionally, there were also statistical differences between gender in metacognitive and mindfulness in favor of males. This suggests that systemic thinking and mindfulness can be a predictor of metacognitive thinking. The research implications show that metacognition holds great importance and capability in the educational process. It helps control and guide thinking processes, enhances reading and memorization skills, predicts main ideas, and contributes to the development of critical and creative thinking.

Although the issue of learning transfer has been given much attention in English-for-academic-purposes (EAP) research, the factor of transfer climate could be investigated further. The current study examines what the instructors of EAP perceive can be done to prepare students for the transfer climate. The transfer climate refers to the nature of the target context of instruction and the support for learning transfer perceived by a learner in that target context (Burke & Baldwin, 1999). The target context in EAP education is the discipline courses that students take alongside or after EAP courses. The transfer climate may be supportive or unsupportive depending on whether such discipline courses accommodate for students' transfer of EAP skills. Data was gathered through semi-structured interviews with 22 EAP instructors and, subsequently, three of them were observed to see what actually happens in their EAP courses (Borg, 2015). The findings outline eight steps that can be taken to prepare students for the transfer climate, seven within EAP courses, and one within discipline courses. From what was observed, few of the steps that participants mentioned in the interviews were actually implemented in the classes. Both practical implications and implications for future research are outlined.

Biology as an integral part of science learning continues to be maximized by integrating technology into its learning design. The definite manifestation of this integration process is to achieve meaningfulness, activeness, and effectiveness of the learning carried out. The flipped classroom (FC) is gaining popularity as a pedagogical model that uses the important benefits of technology in its learning environment. FC is proven to be an effective teaching mode that empowers students' 21st-century skills, stimulates students' self-learning, and improves academic performance. The potential of the FC is interesting to explore to what extent biology welcomes the FC. The aimed of this systematic literature review is to review and analyze articles published by Scopus indexed journals. We used the keywords "Flipped classroom and biology" in the search menu in the Scopus database and succeeded in finding 72 articles. There were 21 articles that met the criteria for further analysis. The inclusion and exclusion model used is PRISMA. The findings obtained are the trend of FC publications in biology learning over the last ten years. The approaches used in this research include quantitative, mixed method, case study and qualitative. Key words that are often used by writers are student, human, biology. The biology keyword has a branch, namely active learning. There are 9 countries of origin of authors who publish articles. The United States is a country that is active in publishing. Articles published on each continent are not evenly distributed. The dominant articles are published in collaboration with one country and rarely are articles published by one author. We have succeeded in formulating a picture of the existence of the FC in biology learning over the last ten years. These findings can be a consideration or reference for researchers to explore and study more deeply research related to the FC in biology learning based on their respective urgency.

The current study focuses on the effect of the target language on learner emotions and attitudes/motivation. More specifically, it investigates whether the status and prestige of English results in more positive learner emotions and attitudes/motivation compared to less prestigious languages other than English (LOTE). Statistical analyses of a database of 360 students in an English-speaking university in Kuwait enrolled in English, German, Spanish and French as foreign language classes revealed that the LOTE learners (who also knew English) reported significantly more foreign language enjoyment (FLE), equal levels of foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and--surprisingly--lower levels of attitudes/motivation than their peers studying English. Due to confounding variables, it is impossible to establish the cause of the difference with certainty, but this outcome does show that a stronger motivation to study English does not necessarily translate into more enjoyment in class. In other words, while FLE and attitudes/motivation typically correlate, they are independent concepts.

Purpose: Private supplementary tutoring - widely known as shadow education because of the ways in which it mimics regular schooling - is increasingly visible across the globe. The Middle East is no exception, though the phenomenon has received relatively little attention in the English-language literature. This article maps some key features of shadow education, identifying ways in which contextual forces have shaped it. Design/Approach/Methods: The article focuses on patterns across and within the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. It draws on literature in both Arabic and English and shows the value of multiple units of comparison. Findings: Private tutoring has a long history as a significant phenomenon in some GCC countries, but in others developed more recently. Some governments have had active policies to dampen the phenomenon, but with little success. Factors in the complex dynamics include social, economic and cultural forces. Originality/Value: The article assembles literature from around the region, noting both commonalities and diversities among GCC members. It contributes to the global literature by providing the regional mapping from this specific part of the world and by showing comparisons with other world regions.

The educational technology designer should know about the learning theories to analyze the needs and design the contents in terms of the target that aimed to reach from learning operations. Educational technology is known as a process that includes many factors, which will provide a good simulation for the students. This research study used a basic qualitative study because it interprets an educational field experience. This is the type of research most commonly used in the fields of education, health, and social work because it is interpretative research. The participants in this study were two college instructors and 10 college students who volunteered to participate in this study. All participants have teaching experience and work in the same school. This study concludes that mixing instructional technology with behavioral theory provides an opportunity to stimulate students through psychological conditions by direct experiences and activities inside the classroom. Mixing instructional technology with constructivist theory allows educators to focus on how students can explore and discover class content and new experiences by explaining their mistakes, ideas, and experiences and the basics of the content.

An overview of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in the Middle East was published by Kelly and colleagues in 2016. The focus of the review was to explore clinical services, educational opportunities, and published research in the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, namely the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, the Sultanate of Oman, the State of Qatar, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The objective of the current paper was to provide an update on the current status of ABA and ASD in the Gulf region, with a focus on successes, challenges, and recommendations for future directions.

The integration of online learning tools abruptly became necessary during the COVID-19 pandemic from early 2020 onward. This study surveyed a public-school sample of teachers (N = 297) and parents (N = 403) of Kuwaiti kindergartners. The results indicated that both teachers and parents agreed that kindergarten children learned e-learning and time-management skills to some extent or a large extent. However, both groups expressed little to moderate agreement regarding the adequate implementation of online learning (such as teacher training or the translation of course content into an online format). The two groups expressed stronger agreement that children received e-homework and that parents were provided with channels for guidance and follow-up. These latter two variables and the perceived implementation of e-learning all correlated positively with perceptions of children's outcomes. Teachers were more likely to report the provision of a guide to the e-platform, the implementation of online learning, and the provision of homework than parents were, with a stronger correlation of the implementation of online learning and children's acquisition of e-learning skills among teachers than parents.

This study aims at exploring communication practices between students and supervisors in thesis projects. The study conducted a comparison between face-to-face and mediated communication through the use of emails. The researcher used the autobiographical reflection to document examples of information communicated during the two interactions. Furthermore, it utilized semi-structured interviews with three students who were conducting their thesis in the Information Studies Department at Kuwait University. Then, the researcher conducted interviews with four students' from other masters' programs. The study used a qualitative method to analyze the results. The findings showed that students used face-to-face meetings and mediated communication to seek different types of information. The topics discussed varied between the face-to-face and mediated interaction. Face-to-face communication was perceived as more effective and productive, while mediated communication was easier and faster. Students used e-mails to set appointments with their supervisors, ask questions and get feedback on assignments. Students faced some communication barriers such as difficulty of sense-making and experiencing the "black-hole" phenomenon. The study suggested applying an electronic supervision system to facilitate students' communication with their supervisors. This study has practical significance as it helps students and supervisors interact successfully during different thesis writing stages.

The Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has wreaked havoc on societies around the world and continues to do so and produced cataclysmic socio-economic challenges. This virus compelled countries to enact restrictive policies in order to combat, defend, and prevent against the spread of infection. In most nations, including Kuwait, a complete lockdown was imposed, with necessary measures taken to limit social gatherings, wear protective masks, and encourage social distancing. Businesses, organizations, and institutions have been forced to discover new avenues to survive and thrive by converting to remote operation using digital technology. Similarly, the epidemic has forced educational institutions to abandon conventional face-to-face instruction in favor of online digital learning. The goal of this study is to assess the online learning process in Kuwait from the perspective of students. In this regard, a survey questionnaire was designed and distributed to students throughout Kuwait; 830 students responded, with just 500 students with complete answers. In light of the dangerous and widespread of the harmful virus, analysis found that students consent to online learning. However, most prefer face-to-face instruction in a classroom setting.

Supervision is an integral part of the language teacher education process which plays a significant role in improving teachers' teaching practice. This study explores Kuwaiti English as a foreign language (EFL) female student teachers' perspective on the performance of their supervisors during the practicum course. It sought to explore the general perspectives associated with supervisors' supervision competencies with the view to informing improvements to their instructional supervisory skills. 50 EFL female student teachers from CBE participated in the study. Using a case study approach, a combination of a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews was used to generate answers to the research questions. The questionnaire findings suggested that student teachers generally have positive attitudes towards their supervisors' competencies; however, interviews with participants have shed light on various issues that need to be considered. For example, supervisors' feedback often focuses on participants' Content Knowledge (CK) rarely addressing their Pedagogical Content knowledge (PCK). In addition, student-teachers stated that their relationships with their supervisors tended to be formal and authoritative, which prevented them from asking questions freely. This article discusses these findings in detail and highlights some practical implications that are likely to help EFL supervisors to enhance their supervisory practices.

This research studied the impact of integrating virtual laboratories in chemistry lessons among 22 pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a Bachelor of Education program, focusing on middle and high school science. These participants were systematically divided into an experimental group (EG) and a control group. Both groups engaged in the same organic chemistry lesson and subsequent lab session, the only difference being that EG received additional training via a virtual laboratory prior to the hands-on lab session. A survey, conducted both before and after the experiment, was utilized to measure participants' attitudes towards the use of virtual laboratories. The quantitative data analysis revealed a significant positive shift in EG's attitudes post-intervention, suggesting that virtual laboratory experiences enhance their learning and engagement. Specifically, participants exhibited improved understanding of the educational methodologies and heightened engagement during the physical lab work. However, no significant differences were observed between the two groups concerning the technical aspects of the experiments, implying that the virtual labs' impact on perspectives about the technical components of a chemistry lab was consistent across both groups. These findings support the view of virtual laboratories as a viable supporting tool for science education, promoting technology integration into teaching practices to meet the demands of 21st century learning outcomes. This research concludes with recommendations for future studies to explore further the implications of virtual labs on various aspects of science education.

The current study provides the first investigation on the attitudes of Middle Eastern individuals on the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Most prior studies on individuals' attitudes towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict were conducted on social media data (mostly Twitter, Facebook now known as X). Importantly, most of these studies often using sentimental analyses. One limitation of the use of publicly available data is the lack of testing specific hypotheses. Accordingly, in the current study, a novel survey was developed and used to study which includes questions probed individuals' attitudes including cognitive (awareness and knowledge), emotional (feelings and empathy), and social-behavioural (behaviors and actions) aspects of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Further, demographical data was also collected from all participants (n = 370) including age, gender, country of residence, country of citizenship, academic qualifications, academic specialization, job, and income. In the current study, an extensive number of statistical analyses was conducted, including group comparisons, correlational analyses, factor analyses, and regression analysis. Our results are as follows: factor analyses suggest that the survey includes two different constructs: questions about the war in general and questions supporting Russia. Further, results show that cognitive and socio-behavioural aspects of the scale (but not emotional aspects) are related to many demographical variables, suggesting that the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict on Arabic people is more cognitive than emotional, possibly due to geographical distance and cultural differences between the Middle East and Russia/Ukraine. Importantly, our factor analysis shows that there was stronger support for Ukraine than Russia among Arabic people. Our findings have implications for understanding the public opinions of individuals in the Middle East towards the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Educational intervention is known to enhance learners in general, including deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) learners in particular. This study is a systematic review to identify educational interventions in Arab experimental studies published from 2008 to 2019 concerning deaf and hard-of-hearing children in preschool. The study used Google Scholar and Academic Research Library to identify 30 studies that were examined in terms of their objectives, characteristics of the participants, types of interventions, findings and the country in which they were conducted. A positive effect of the educational interventions was observed in all targeted studies. However, there was an absence of interventions in the first 4 years of the period (2008-2011). Subsequently, in the last 4 years of the study period, there was a considerable increase in interventions. Fifty-seven percent of these studies were conducted in Egypt, followed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (23%), Kuwait (10%) and finally Sudan (3%). This review indicates that the use of educational interventions for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in the preschool period is promising. Educators and professionals should carefully consider these children's preferences, characteristics and actual abilities when making decisions about the design of appropriate educational interventions.

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) providing online education have been facing challenges in an increasingly competitive market. Consequently, brand equity has gained importance. This study takes a holistic approach and identifies the antecedents of brand equity and the impact these have on building brand equity of online universities. Data was collected from 242 E-learners studying in online universities in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The research model was empirically tested using structural equation modeling. The findings support four of the six hypotheses. Learning environment, reputation, career prospects and corporate social responsibility influence brand equity. This study contributes to the literature by offering a deductively generated model to guide future research on brand equity related to online universities. The findings of this study offer practical insights and managerial implications for university administrators engaged in building a brand equity. Detailed discussion of the theoretical and practical implications concludes the paper.

This paper investigates the lived experiences of three Kuwaiti women as they construct and negotiate their professional identities as Muslim English language teachers in Kuwait. Building on the paucity of research surrounding religious identity and English language teaching contexts, positioning analysis and tactics of intersubjectivity were used to examine the teachers' oral narrative accounts, highlighting the ways in which they navigate their professional teaching contexts within the underlying local religious ideologies. Findings show that while the three English language teachers share a common nationality, faith, and gender, they each engaged in different ways with their religious identities within their professional practice. The study concludes with implications for professional development and future research directions.

Purpose: This study aims to explore the impact of hybrid learning on the satisfaction, effectiveness and academic performance of faculty and students in private universities in Kuwait. The study specifically addresses the challenges and experiences confronted by students and faculty members in utilising hybrid learning, assesses whether hybrid learning leads to improvements in academic performance and proposes measures for providing quality hybrid learning models in post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) situations. Design/methodology/approach: This study employed a quantitative method by collecting data via a questionnaire targeting private university students and faculty members in Kuwait. A total of 311 participants completed the survey. Findings: The results show that students were in favour of the hybrid learning method and viewed this as being efficient when coming to satisfaction, academic performance and overall effectiveness; whilst faculty members have voiced the members' disfavour of the hybrid model of teaching as the members believe that the system is unjust, especially when coming to student's academic performance. Originality/value: Although research related to hybrid learning in different parts of the world has existed for many years, the research only recently gained prominence in Kuwait due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper will likely be of interest to academics, policymakers, the government and universities as the pandemic continues to make hybrid learning more popular and, therefore, would increase awareness with regards to students' and faculty members' opinions about the system and proposed ways to resolve any issues.

This study determines the critical success factors for students and academic staff when applying and evaluating online delivery methods in colleges and universities in Kuwait. The recently implemented eLearning systems and methods in the country, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, are evaluated and the perception of the eLearning system is gauged. Targeted surveys are distributed to a representative sample of undergraduate engineering students and academic staff. The following critical success factors are considered: benefits of the eLearning system, educational system quality, information quality, instructor quality, learner quality, service quality and technical system quality. Results show that there is a correlation between the perceptions of students and academic staff, particularly regarding instructor quality, information quality and benefits of the eLearning system. Both groups of respondents agreed on the high importance of instructor quality and the low importance of benefits.

With sustainability becoming a familiar concept in society, higher education institutions have also started playing a more active role in this field, showing an increasing interest in students' comprehension of sustainability. This interest has led to the need for developing methods of assessing students' sustainability knowledge, as observed in many scholars' and institutions' research efforts. To this end, this study aims to evaluate the sustainability literacy levels of students enrolled in a first-year composition course using a mixed-method sequential explanatory design. The quantitative phase involved 221 students who completed a questionnaire assessing their knowledge, skills, attitudes, and familiarity with sustainability concepts and topics. Following this, 60 students were asked to write an essay identifying Kuwait's significant sustainability challenges and proposing solutions. The results showed that gender, high school type, grade point average (GPA) value, and whether they heard about the term sustainability before caused significant differences in students' knowledge, skills, and attitudes about sustainability. Also, the students primarily associate sustainability challenges with environmental problems; social and economic challenges are rarely mentioned in essays.

The use of college entrance exams for facilitating admission decisions become controversial, and the central argument is around the fairness of test scores. The Kuwait University English Aptitude Test (KUEAT) is a high-stakes test, but very few studies have examined the psychometric quality of the scores for this national-level assessment. This study illustrates how measurement approaches can be used to examine the fairness issues in educational testing. Through a modern view of fairness, we assess the internal and external bias of KUEAT scores using differential item functioning analysis and differential prediction analysis, respectively, and provide a comprehensive fairness argument for KUEAT scores. The analysis for examining the internal evidence of bias was based on 1790 examinees' KUEAT scores in November 2018. KUEAT scores and first-year college GPAs of 4033 students enrolled in KU were used for assessing the external evidence of bias. Results revealed many items showing differential item functioning across student subpopulation groups (i.e., nationality, gender, high school majors, and high school types). Meanwhile, KUEAT scores also predicted college performance differentially by different student subgroups (i.e., nationality, high school majors, and high school types). Discussion and implications on the fairness issues of college entrance tests in Kuwait are provided.

Given the entrenched movement toward internal and external accreditation in Middle Eastern universities, it is important to gain insights into departments heads' performance, which contributes to the quality of the university's work and its reputation. Results from related research can be used in the development of leadership performance criteria. This study focused on faculty members' evaluation of their department head along six dimensions: decision-making and sharing with others, human relations, planning, academic program development, member development and skills development, and community partnerships and scientific research. Men and women at different stages of their academic careers need different things from departmental leadership. Therefore, of interest was the influence of gender (sex), years of university experience, and their interaction. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses (two-way ANOVA) of survey data (Cronbach's Alpha 0.984) from 450 XXX faculty members (71% female) revealed no significant differences for gender or the interaction between gender and years of experience (ranging from 1 to 11+). Statistical differences were found for years of experience with less experienced faculty members tendering more positive evaluations than seasoned instructors. Recommendations for future research within and beyond the university are tendered, including more focus on the influence of the interaction between gender and years of university experience on department heads' performance evaluation.

Purpose: This paper aims to develop precise statements (standards) to describe the knowledge and skills that should be possessed by Islamic education (IE) teacher candidates who receive their initial preparation in various international higher-education institutions. These statements must be compatible with the requirements and guidelines for building specialized standards set by the Council for Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP), so that they can be used for accreditation and improving quality. Design/methodology/approach: Two panels of IE experts participated in developing and validating the standards, using a combination of Delphi and content validity methods. Alongside this research activity, management activity ensured that the process ran smoothly, as the researcher coordinated panels, allocated resources and tracked progress during standard development. Findings: Twenty-six components divided into five standards were developed into a final list based on the panels. Originality/value: This study provides standards for the preparation of IE teachers in higher-education institutions that can be applied in different countries and geographical regions. Furthermore, it aims to make the subject of IE more comparable with other academic disciplines, and appropriate for CAEP accreditation.

The current study replicates the research conducted in Dewaele and Li ([2014a]. "Intra- and Inter-Individual Variation in Self-Reported Code-Switching Patterns of Adult Multilinguals." "International Journal of Multilingualism" 11 (2): 225-246; [2014b]. "Attitudes Towards Code-Switching among Adult Mono- and Multilingual Language Users." "Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development" 35 (3): 235-251) and explores variation in attitudes towards codeswitching and the frequency of its usage among 391 multilinguals from different sociocultural contexts. The findings indicate that multilingual respondents who have lived abroad or grew up in an ethnically and linguistically diverse environment tend to code-switch more frequently. On the other side, the number of spoken languages and gender as well as personality traits, such as tolerance of ambiguity, cognitive empathy, social skills and emotional reactivity are significantly linked with more positive attitudes towards codeswitching. Further in-depth analysis has shown that the respondents generally code-switch more frequently with friends and colleagues than with family members. However, some inter-speaker variation exists in this respect too and females and high-school respondents tend to code-switch more frequently with friends than males and more highly-educated respondents, while males and respondents with a higher educational level code-switch more frequently with work colleagues and family members.

This study explores challenges facing teachers in distance education programmes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants in this study are teachers from 8 intermediate schools in Kuwait. A convergent parallel mixed methods research design was used to collect survey and interview data. The study generates survey data from 215 teachers and interview data from 8 teachers to determine teachers' perceptions of the challenges they face. The findings of the study suggest that teachers are willing to use technology but lacked technological and pedagogical knowledge and were not prepared for making the sudden shift to distance education. The study highlights the importance of teachers' professional development in distance education. This study has implications for schools and policy makers who are forced to suddenly revert to distance learning during a pandemic.

The COVID-19 crisis has made the years 2020 and 2021 an unpolitical and spiritual crisis. It has affected virtually everybody in the world and introduced a new normal. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, people have been hooked on consuming news media to follow the development of this unprecedented disease. Subsequently, a new language with vocabulary, expressions, and metaphors has appeared in various languages, including English and Arabic. Dictionaries have added new words in English and revised others; they are now fully integrated into our everyday vocabularies. COVID-19 has changed the English language in many ways: it has brought previously obscure medical words to the forefront of everyday speech, made terms related to social isolation more common, and witnessed a shift in meaning in other terms. As linguists, researchers, and teachers gradually return to their classrooms next term (Spring, 2022) we undertook this study to identify 57 English terms, expressions, and metaphors that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, either in English-speaking countries or Arabic-speaking countries where English is a first or second language. We deemed the new terminologies necessary for EFL learners in the Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) countries. It can serve the purpose of making a list of these words and expressions to be taught to our EFL students at colleges of nursing and health science in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia or any other equivalent colleges in the Arab World. The terms and expressions came from articles, magazines, and English and Arabic dictionaries published during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The rapid development of the COVID-19 pandemic during the spring 2020 academic semester resulted in many international undergraduate students evacuating the United States to return to their home countries. Some faced government-mandated quarantine in a designated quarantine hotel upon their entry into the country which overlapped with the end of the spring semester or start of summer term. Interviewers conducted qualitative interviews on Zoom with international students enrolled at American universities regarding their experiences with online learning while in isolation. This extreme environment had negative implications for their psychological well-being as well as their ability to self-motivate. Researchers formulated best practices based on the data to assist instructors and institutions in making better decisions regarding the academic experience of students who may be forced into quarantine in an unfamiliar environment in the future.

In this article, we examine our own doctoral supervisory dialogue as it has been institutionally interrupted due to Ahmad's application for asylum in the UK. As we find ourselves lacking the conditions of recognisability required for our actions to be institutionally understood (or made intelligible) as part of a doctoral supervisory relationship, we are left with a sense of futility of how scholarly work preoccupied with social justice may confront, let alone transform, the larger sociopolitical realities with which we aim to engage. In the light of calls to turn precarity into a productive pedagogical space for ethical action--often regarded as a 'pedagogy for precarity', we draw from Blommaert's (2005) sociolinguistic theory of voice to account for how we attempted to become recognisable to each other throughout the course of our supervisory meetings. In so doing, we reflect on the implications of our analysis for politically engaged academic research, while linking with wider language scholarship on the possibility for, and imaginability of, social transformation in higher education spaces.

Textbooks are considered an essential component of classroom materials. Teachers usually examine a wide range of textbooks offered in the book market to determine an appropriate one that fits the pedagogical demands. Textbooks' evaluation is, therefore, important to determine and improve their suitability for students' needs. Specifically, in teaching English for Specific Purposes (ESP), textbooks play a significant role in enhancing students' learning of specialized English skills and using such skills to address occupational needs. This study was undertaken to evaluate the quality of the "Business Result Second Edition" (2017) textbook and its suitability for the needs of students majoring in Business Administration (BA) at the College of Business Studies (CBS) in Kuwait. An evaluation checklist was utilized to examine five factors (subject matter, linguistic issues, exercises and activities, course objectives, and layout of materials and visuals). Participants included 10 English language teachers who taught the ESP course at CBS. Results indicated that despite having some disadvantages, the textbook was relatively suitable for the course. The findings of this study can be adopted by the curricula designers at CBS to improve or modify the textbook in question.

Paragraph structure has been identified as consisting of three distinct parts, which are the topic sentence, supporting sentences, and a paragraph ending sentence. Although topic sentences have been widely researched, similar consideration for paragraph endings has been less forthcoming. This discrepancy may be problematic as research suggests that instruction on textual endings can positively impact students' writing. With this issue in mind, the current study establishes a model for paragraph endings and discusses pedagogical and computational implications. The model stems from the categorization of the varieties of paragraph endings observed in a corpus of papers written by advanced ESL college-students in the Arabian Peninsula. We identified the varieties of paragraph endings to form a multi-dimensional model featuring the categories of 'goal,' 'type,' and 'cue.' 'Goal' refers to the function of the sentence (e.g., summarizing). 'Type' refers to whether the sentence is a claim or a support statement. 'Cue' refers to explicit language indicating the goal. The model was assessed quantitatively through interrater-reliability of expert-judge evaluations. Qualitative analysis was also incorporated to assess possible subjective differences. Quantitative analysis provided validation of the model. Specifically, even with the most conservative analysis, the findings show that 67.5% of the total assessments agreed, with 75% agreement for goal and 70% agreement for type. The subsequent qualitative analysis also broadly supported the quantitative findings. The study concludes that the validated model has viable implications for pedagogical practices and software development. Thus, the study provides a pathway that may benefit students in the writing of more effective paragraphs.

This paper presents a case study of a competitive debate program designed for teachers-in-training at the Basic Education College in Kuwait. Stakeholders at different levels have expressed an interest in introducing more constructivist-based pedagogies into the Kuwaiti national education system, but institutional and ideological challenges have hindered implementation. Teachers at the college designed and implemented a debate program based on constructivist principles of authenticity, student meaning-making, collaboration, and high performance expectations. Survey data suggest that participants experienced debate as a transformative experience, changing their perception of themselves, of the world, and of their ability to effect change in it. Participants came to imagine themselves as future system leaders preparing future generations with higher-order skills involving complex solving, which an increasingly complex social reality demanded. From 2015 to 2018, a group of professors formed debate teams at the Kuwait University National English Debate League. This endeavour formed the empirical research presented here as evidence to support a move from instructivist teaching to constructivist learning for future teachers in Kuwait.

The purpose of this study is to explore the use of social media by students in the Faculty of Education, University of Kuwait. The study was conducted within the context of the socio-cultural characteristics of Kuwait, and was underpinned by Alsaied's (2017) Social Media -- Learning Performance model, designed for female Arab students. A volunteer sample of 35 Kuwaiti undergraduate students (88.6% female) was interviewed. Students reported frequently using social media informally for socialization and entertainment, but less frequently as a formal educational tool. Most of the students perceived that social media facilitated interaction with peers, interaction with faculty, engagement, and collaborative learning. However, technical difficulties, and certain negative attitudes towards women using social media, were identified. We recommend that Kuwait University needs to harness the full benefits of social media for teaching and learning and to formulate official guidelines to control the use of social media by all faculty members and students.

Early exposure to innovative teaching strategies is vital for preservice teachers' preparation for their subsequent teaching careers. This paper aimed to challenge preservice Islamic studies teachers at Kuwait University to enhance their autonomous learning by assigning them the task of designing a reverse learning project. The participants completed various phases to finalize the project. This exposition and exploration aimed to develop their sense of autonomy, self-regulation, responsibility, technology and design skills, and ability to incorporate the task into their specialized subject matter. The mechanism and practices that participants acquired through designing and executing the reverse learning project were examined qualitatively and quantitively to unveil the effect of this experience on their autonomous learning skills. The results revealed that exposing the participants to the reverse learning project promoted their sense of and beliefs toward self-regulation, responsibility, technology integration, and design for subsequent Islamic studies teaching. The positive learning experiences increased the participants' emotional, cognitive, and manageability levels; however, the findings demonstrate the need for further research on preservice teachers in other specializations and designing reverse learning projects.

The research and data aim to (a) examine instructors' evaluation of Microsoft Teams as reflected in their teaching at the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET) and (b) identify significant correlation between three determinants of the Technology Acceptance Model: perceived usefulness (PU), perceived ease of use (PEOU), and attitudes towards use (ATU). The researchers used a self-report survey answered by 230 instructors from multiple departments at the College of Basic Education. Several statistical tools examined mean differences. The research found that the instructors at PAAET highly rate Microsoft Teams. Perceived usefulness directly affected attitudes towards use while perceived ease of use (PEOU) indirectly affected attitudes towards use.

The aim of this study was to determine factors that influence Kuwaiti pre-service teachers' choice of Practical Electrical Subjects by profiling and analysing their motivations. Unlike previous studies that focused on the traditional conceptualisations of intrinsic, altruistic, and extrinsic motivations, this study uses the interpretive lens of Expectancy Value Theory which forms the foundation for the Factors Influencing Teacher Choice model to analyse and describe factors that influence the pre-service teachers' career choice decisions. One hundred fifty-six pre-service teachers enrolled in a teacher education programme completed the Factors Influencing Teacher Choice survey on which they rated 25 motivational factors. T-tests and One-way ANOVA were used to examine differences based on gender and year of study. Self-efficacy beliefs, social utility value, time for family, job security and prior teaching and learning experiences were important career choice determinants. Fall back career was the least important motivational factor. Gender was found to significantly influence their career choice while year of study did not significantly influence their decision. In general, female pre-service teachers appeared to be more motivated to choose teaching electricity as a practical subject than males. The pre-service teachers' year of the study showed significant variations only regarding social utility values and fallback career. The results of this study would contribute to existing literature on factors influencing pre-service teachers to choose a teaching career that involves vocational or practical subjects' teachers. Some theoretical and practical implications are drawn for pre-service teacher education.

Metacognitive reading strategies play an essential role in improving reading comprehension. This study explores the effects of English metacognitive reading strategies and reading comprehension in Kuwaiti primary school students as foreign language learners; this experimental study tries to find a relationship between students' metacognitive strategies, metacognitive strategies, and students' reading performance. Participants were fifth grade EFL students in Kuwait primary education government public schools. The students' reading comprehension was evaluated. Comprehension tracking strategies were measured using Metacognitive strategies (K-W-L Plus). While the experimental groups (B) received instructions according to (K-W-L Plus) techniques, the control (A) group was trained with the traditional teaching approach based on the Kuwait national curriculum school textbooks. A questionnaire investigating the use of English and perceived English proficiency was also conducted. The results revealed that Perceived proficiency in English was not determined by the early or late pre-school age of second language acquisition. Also, bilingual students with perceived proficiency in English had better meta-cognitive reading skills than low perceived proficiency in English. Comprehension monitoring and (K-W-L) strategy was adequate and the most important predictor of reading comprehension among all students in the research sample.

COVID-19 pandemic made a sudden shift of all ages to online learning and distance learning instructions. However, there is a paucity of research to address the possible impacts of the pedagogical shift integrated into new online platforms on learning, interaction, and assessment, especially in higher education settings from the vantage point of EFL students. Framed in a descriptive quantitative study, the main objective of this study includes two folds: a) to identify the possible effects of online learning via Microsoft TEAMS platform during the COVID-19 pandemic on assessment, interaction, and learning English as a foreign language from EFL students' perception and b) to reveal the possible significant correlation between learning, interaction and online assessment via Microsoft TEAMs. Data were collected using a developed questionnaire consisting of 30 items focusing on three dimensions: interaction, learning, and assessment among 440 EFL students whose major was English at the College of Basic Education in Kuwait. At the significance level of 0.01, the results revealed the effect of online learning via Microsoft TEAMS during the COVID-19 pandemic on learning of English skills, students' interaction and achievement assessment as perceived by the EFL students in the English Language Department in the CBE was rather high, moderate and moderate and moderate respectively. There is a strong/high statistically significant correlation between Interaction and Assessing (r = 0.538), interaction and Learning (r = 0.747). There is a statistically significant moderate correlation between Assessing and Learning (r = 0.467). This study is of some pedagogical and assessment ramifications for EFL contexts in the pandemic era.

Digital learning has become one of the constituent elements of higher education in many countries. E-learning platforms provides remarkable opportunities to creatively overcome many problems of traditional learning approaches. Nevertheless, E-learning is not flawless, where there are many educational and technical difficulties of implementing online learning in higher education, especially when higher education stands on applied learning. The current study aims to explore undergraduates' attitudes towards E-learning in applied colleges. It also seeks to expose the most central educational and technical challenges of e-learning. Moreover, it drives to define the educational and technical requirements for ensuring quality e-learning. The research sample consisted of 1650 undergraduates and 37 interviewees who are drawn from five applied colleges in Kuwait (the College of Basic Education, the College of Technological Studies, the College of Business Studies, the College of Health Science, and the College of Nursing). The research design is based on mixed methods (questionnaire and focus groups). The findings revealed that students held neutral attitudes towards e-learning, while the educational and technical challenges are high concerns. Educational challenges and requirements highlighted several themes including instructional support, progress valuation, self-study skills, attention span, interactivity, and class size. Meanwhile, the technical challenges include poor internet connectivity, IT support, LMS interface, training courses. Then, the findings are discussed to draw recommendations and implications.

Conceptualizing branding as ongoing strategic efforts formulated by transnational English medium instruction EMI)-oriented universities in today's competitive Higher Education (HE) market in order to create uniqueness for their academic programs as branded commodities, this paper (a) examines the forms of branding crafted by universities in the Arabian Gulf Cooperation Council countries (Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and United Arab Emirates) in order to claim uniqueness for their academic programs, and (b) inquires into whose interests (i.e., students, teachers, universities, investors or governments) are thus best served. Data were collected from policy documents, promotional materials (e.g., slogans) and official speeches on recent major branding initiatives undertaken by universities across the region. These data were treated as a research site which has its own history, players and nuances. The findings reveal that because of the different branding efforts intertwined with neoliberal language policy agendas undertaken by universities, with generous logistic, legal, and financial supports from their governments, a collision of conflicting interests and objectives among different players has arisen. This undesirable outcome leads governments and universities to represent and imagine each other as rivals instead of as collaborators aiming to secure various regional interests, including joint educational work. The implication of this phenomenon is that transnational English medium instruction-oriented policies have brought about apparent educational inequalities and social class in HE sectors of the region. This paper closes with recommendations to align the branding efforts with the regional interests stipulated in the Arab Bureau of Education for the Arabian Gulf countries.

This study aimed to identify the attitudes of public school teachers in the State of Kuwait at various educational stages towards the experience of distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic. The descriptive approach was applied; a questionnaire consisting of four dimensions was developed to measure teachers' attitudes towards distance education. The study sample consisted of 1028 teachers of various disciplines at all levels of education in public schools in the State of Kuwait. The results indicated that teachers had a higher degree of positive attitudes towards the distance education experience. The results also showed that there were statistically significant differences between the study sample members due to each of the following variables: the educational district and the educational stage. The results did not show statistically significant differences due to the gender variable. Additionally, the results did not show the existence of statistically significant differences due to the variable years of experience on the total degree and dimensions of scale, except for the dimension "student assessment through distance learning using the TEAMS Program" attributed to the experience category (1-5 years).

The purpose of this study was to determine the challenges faced by teachers from the Arabian Gulf countries of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait while teaching virtual online courses. Because online learning in higher education in these countries had not occurred before the current pandemic, the teachers and students faced new challenges for the first time, including online communication, inadequate training, insufficient practice, and incompetence in online assessment. Seventy-six teachers of higher education in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia participated in this study, which was a survey created by the first author to determine the effectiveness of communication, training, practicing and assessing students' performance during the pandemic. Results indicated that no differences were found between the two countries; while participants felt that training was adequate for the task of converting to remote teaching, they were concerned about nonverbal aspects of communication and assessing online work. Suggestions included obtaining participants from other Gulf countries, refining the survey, and involving different types of institutions such as private colleges. The results of this study imply that for many teachers, improvements in communication and assessment are necessary to improve online teaching, which is likely to continue in these countries after the pandemic is over.

The study aimed to reveal the reality of using modern teaching methods in teaching the English language by teachers and the differences according to the variables of gender, years of experience, and academic qualification. In this descriptive study, the study sample consisted of (239) male and female teachers selected from Mubarak Al-Kabeer region in the State of Kuwait. A questionnaire was used for data collection. The results showed that the reality of using modern teaching methods in teaching the English language among teachers came moderately. The direct, communicative, and audio-linguistic methods obtained the highest means in their use by teachers. It was also showed that there were statistically significant differences in the reality of using modern teaching methods in teaching the English language among teachers due to the variables of years of experience and in favor of the category of more than 10 years and academic qualification in favor of the postgraduate category. In addition, there were no statistically significant differences due to the gender variable. The study recommended the necessity of training and qualifying teachers on how to use modern teaching methods in teaching the English language in Kuwait.

This study identifies language specific errors made with transcoding tasks to inform possible future pedagogic decisions regarding the language used when teaching early number. We compared children aged 5-7 years from Kuwait and England. The spoken Arabic language of Kuwait gave the opportunity to compare not only languages where the tens and units digits are said in a different order, but also where the direction of writing is different. We asked 396 children from Kuwait and 256 children from England to write down 2-, and 3-digit numbers which were spoken to them. We found that the direction of the language did not affect the nature of errors made, but that other aspects of the two languages could account for some of the differences we found. As well as supporting previous studies regarding the significance of the order in which the tens and units are said, we found significance in the role the word and can play in marking the number of digits involved. We also noted that the way the numbers 20, 100 and 200 are said in Arabic can set up particular symbolic associations which could account for other differences we found. Having identified language-specific errors, we discuss possible pedagogic decisions to temporarily use more regular language for the number names in each of the languages and propose the order in which number names are taught might be different to their mathematical order of magnitude.

Research has revealed that appropriate school leadership practices can positively support and promote teacher learning. This study examines the influences of Learning-Centered Leadership upon Teacher Agency, Trust and professional learning in a Kuwaiti context. Following results from recent empirical research, this study tested a model of principal leadership effects upon teacher learning via the mediators of Teacher Trust and Agency. The researchers collected data from 1060 teachers working at 64 Kuwaiti public schools and analyzed this data using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results validated this model, showing that Learning-Centered Leadership affects teacher professional development via Teacher Trust and Agency. This improves our understanding of the relationship between school leadership and teacher professional learning both in Kuwait and internationally; relevant recommendations are listed.