Digital Commons Network^™

Using Games To Learn Vocabulary In Arabic As A Foreign Language Classroom: A Study Of Teacher And Student Beliefs, Haitham Salaheldin Mohamed

Theses and Dissertations

Vocabulary has been always neglected in most of foreign language classrooms. Many strategies, techniques and activities were suggested to make vocabulary acquisition easier and sustained. Games are one of these tools offered to help in learning and teaching vocabulary. Since beliefs are the core of every discipline that deals with learning and behavior. It is important to understand what teachers and students think of games, in other words what are their beliefs towards games. This study explored student and teacher beliefs about using games in learning vocabulary in the Arabic as a Foreign Language classroom. The study aimed to answer …

Consensus Building In Tunisia: A Study From 2011 - 2013, Amatelrauf Tawfik Ghanem

Theses and Dissertations

In the wake of the Arab Spring that swept North Africa and the Middle East in late 2010, different processes of political change have been underway in the region with different results in the nature of each political system. Some transitioned to democracy while others to new forms of authoritarianism or underwent cosmetic reforms without any real effect on the nature of the system. The interest of this research is to examine transition to democracy. It focuses on Tunisia as a case where a democratic transition was initiated after toppling the Former President of Tunisia, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Tunisia …

The Emergence Of L1 Innovations In Spanish-English Bilinguals: Evidence From Cross-Linguistic Structural Priming, Agustina Carando

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the hypothesis that structural priming is an internal mechanism motivating processes of convergence in bilinguals. The focus of the investigation is linguistic innovations in Spanish produced by Spanish-English bilinguals. Innovations involve both changes in the frequency of alternative constructions and existing patterns produced in new contexts modeled on English equivalents. From structural priming techniques that model convergence, the data assess the extent of English influence on Spanish, in a contact setting (New York, United States) and a non-contact setting (Córdoba, Argentina).

In the field of language contact, convergence may manifest itself as an increase in the use …

Held And Dropped: A Study Of Metaphor And Subjective Experience In A Psychoanalytic Treatment, Alison Michele Ferst

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study explores particular patterns of change that might unfold over the course of an intensive psychoanalytic treatment by mapping the forms of change that might take place in terms of a patient's subjective experience and the meaning that the patient attributes to it as reflected in the effort to express that experience in figurative language (i.e., metaphors). The data set was treatment session transcripts provided by P. A. Dewald over a period of 2 years and is partitioned by Dewald into three sequential phases.

Figurative language in general and metaphor in particular consists of essential forms of representation of …

The Effects Of Morpho-Phonemic And Whole Word Instruction On The Literacy Skills Of Adult Struggling Readers, Susan Gray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigated the effects of two kinds of word study on the literacy skills of 34 adult struggling readers. Young adults seeking high school equivalency diplomas were randomly assigned to intensive individual tutoring, two hours once a week for four weeks, in either morpho-phonemic or whole word study to learn academic vocabulary from a civics curriculum. Participants were African American and Latino adults in secondary education who had learned English either as their native language or as their second language in early childhood. Those given morpho-phonemic instruction analyzed Latin and Greek word origins, parsed morpheme and syllable structures, and …

Ni Francaise, Ni Juive, Ni Arabe: The Influence Of Nineteenth Century French Judaism On The Emergence Of Franco- Jewish- Arab Literature, Deborah Rosalind Gruber

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study proposes that the influence of nineteenth century French Judaism on the Jewish communities of the Middle East from approximately 1910­‐1956 has had an indelible influence on the evolution of Franco- Jewish‐Arab literature today. From the late nineteenth century, the education of the Jews of the Ottoman Empire was provided by the Paris based Alliance Israélite Universelle, an organization established by French Jews with the purpose of emancipating disadvantaged Jewish communities outside of France. The result was the establishment of Franco­‐Jewish-Arab communities that regarded French education as a means of both social and economic advancement. Although the curriculum of …

Dark Matter: Susan Howe, Muriel Rukeyser, And The Scholar's Art, Stefania Heim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Instead of describing poetry as a set of constraints or history of practices, Muriel Rukeyser calls it "one kind of knowledge." Dark Matter heeds Rukeyser's call, theorizing a poetics of the "scholar's art," in which documentary investigation, autobiographical exploration, and formal innovation are mutual, interwoven concerns. The dissertation pairs American poets Susan Howe (b. 1937) and Muriel Rukeyser (1913-1980), reading their hybrid works not through the received categories of American poetry, or through common generic and disciplinary divisions, but using an inductive methodology that takes its lead from the poets. Understanding Howe and Rukeyser's literary experiments as serious interventions in …

Syntactic Constraints And Social Uses Of Greek-English Intrasentential Codeswitching, Despina Stefanou Malliaroudakis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

There are many multilingual speakers who codeswitch in daily conversation. By learning the specific points where this codeswitching occurs, the reasons why the speaker codeswitches are revealed. In obtaining both, one can see how a speaker utilizes two or more languages to convey their point in a conversation. The list of features may also hold useful linguistic information regarding codeswitching boundaries that can be further applied to other areas within linguistics.

This study will use the recorded speech of six bilingual speakers who codeswitch between Greek and English to determine specific codeswitching boundaries. Once obtained, the reason behind the codeswitch …

The Effect Of Orthographic Mapping, Context, And Word Class On Sight Word Learning For Native And Nonnative English-Speakers, Katharine Pace Miles

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study investigated three questions: 1.) Does training in orthographic mapping better support flashcard reading over a control group, 2.) Does providing meaning clarifications during flashcard reading better support learning over not providing meanings, 3.) Does grammatical word class affect word learning, and 4.) Do these manipulations affect word learning differently in native and nonnative speakers? Additionally, this study investigated whether literacy and language skills predict the reading of words presented in isolation. Native (n = 40) and nonnative (n = 41) English-speaking kindergarten students' were randomly assigned to either the orthographic mapping or control condition prior to flashcard word …

What The Tortoise Said To Kripke: The Adoption Problem And The Epistemology Of Logic, Romina Padro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In chapter 1 I introduce the main topics to be addressed and provide a summary of the dissertation. In chapter 2 I summarize Lewis Carroll's famous note "What the Tortoise Said to Achilles" and briefly review some of its most influential interpretations. The rest of the chapter is devoted to Kripke's unpublished interpretation of Carroll's note and the moral he draws from it: in section 2.2 I present and discuss what I call the "adoption problem" and in section 2.3 I clarify certain aspects of it. In chapter 3 I consider a modification of the original set up of the …

Enhancing Emotion Elicitation Using The Contextual, Multimodal Features Of A Social Network, Ahmed Rizk

Theses and Dissertations

In our research we addressed the problem of emotion elicitation of social networks. People tend to use social networks as a mean to express their emotions. Some people for example use a social network like Facebook as an outlet to express their negative emotions like frustration or anger and expect their network of friends to interact with them in a way that might help them deal with such emotions. Through friends' comments and likes people get feedback and support that could help neutralize their negative emotions. In the same manner, people use such networks to express their positive emotions like …

Our Stories, Our Lives: Performed Storytelling In Cairo, Dana Alawneh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the work of two storytelling groups in Cairo through different conceptual frameworks. Affect, class politics, marginalization, art and the political are the main lenses through which I delve into the work of the groups in an attempt to understand a condition in which such groups exist and what it means to be part of a storytelling community in Cairo. Moreover, through my analysis I try to question the approaches of each group towards the issues they address, why and how they choose to tell certain stories. Moreover I question the method how the stories are told and …

Barriers Towards Employees' Structural And Psychological Empowerment: A Study Of Non-Managerial Employees In Governmental Service Organizations In Cairo, Passant Bassem

Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to pave the way for non-managerial employees’ empowerment in governmental service organizations in Egypt. Based on a review of previous studies that discussed the Egyptian bureaucracy, this study hypothesized that all the structural and psychological empowerment barriers - namely the organizational cultures and work context factors, managerial employees’ leadership style, and non-managerial employees’ readiness level and personalities - do exist within the governmental service organizations. Questionnaires were distributed to 223 non-managerial employees in Real Estate offices, Social Insurance and Pension offices, Traffic Services offices, Civil Registry offices, Health offices (Ministry of Health), Tax offices, …

Teacher Politeness: A Cross-Cultural Comparison In Esl Classrooms, Yasmine Mostafa Soheim

Theses and Dissertations

There have been a plethora of studies investigating politeness in different segments of the society. Research on classroom politeness has addressed many different themes, given its tactical role in the teacher-student relationship. For instance, a teacher could intentionally or unintentionally define her/his social distance with the students by means of politeness strategies employed in the classroom. In Egypt, with the growing number of private educational institutions, where the English language is overtly foregrounded, many native speakers are hired as ESL teachers. On one hand, these teachers, who just arrived from their home countries where the teaching and learning attitudes might …

A Morettian Literary Atlas Of Naguib Mahfouz's Cairo In Three Early Realist Novels: Cairo Modern, Khan Al-Khalili, And Midaq Alley, Paul A. Sundberg

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis includes a variey of “literary map experiements” on a dataset of mappable, non-generic, places found in three early realist “Cairo novels” by Naguib Mahfouz: Cairo Modern (1945), Khan al-Khalili (1946) and Midaq Alley (1947) and analyses of the mapped results. Experiments in the “atlas” are conducted on each novel separately and – in a more ‘distant” reading – on combinations of the three novels. The methodology is one originated by Stanford literary historian Franco Moretti in his Atlas of the European Novel 1800-1900 and Graphs, Maps, Trees: Abstract Models for a Lierary History. To the researcher’s knowledge, this …

The Effectiveness Of Electronic Discussions On Foreign Language Anxiety Levels Of Adult Egyptian Efl Learners, Dina Amr Abul Magd

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the effect of electronic discussions on adult Egyptian EFL learners’ Foreign Language Anxiety (FLA) levels. It also aims at investigating learners’ perceptions of FLA and the effectiveness of e-discussions with regards to reducing their FLA. Finally, the current study attempts to look into the effect of gender on FLA. For this purpose, a total of 45 learners participated in a pre- and post-online discussion intervention. Students completed the Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale (FLCAS) before and after involvement in the online discussion. Observations also took place before and after the online intervention. Finally, eight participants were interviewed …

The Interface Of Politeness Strategies And Power Relations In Disagreements Among Egyptian Students, Hend Tarek Bakry

Theses and Dissertations

Disagreement is generally done in opposition to a speaker's claim, in an educational context it can be defined as a student's verbal or non-verbal opposition to classmates' or the teacher's stance that emerge through different instructional and non-instructional situations. The purpose of the study is to qualitatively examine Egyptian undergraduates' disagreements with participants of different power relations in EFL classrooms from a politeness theory perspective. The study introduces Egyptian EFL classrooms as a new context for studying the interface of power and politeness in disagreements in general and for exploring the impact of other variables such as context, social distance …

Managing Multi-Cultural Engineering Teams In Egypt, Rania Joseph Busada

Theses and Dissertations

The exercise of project management altered drastically over the past two decades and is currently driven by the growing demand of standardizing the industry’s practice and the emerging globalization of the industry. According to the literature review, one of the obstacles facing the development of the engineering teams in both developed and developing countries is the poor performances of multi-located and multi-cultural teams. The literature review reflects on the influences of the culture complexity and social diversity on the multi-cultural team’s performances. There have been a number of empirical studies that focus on the performances of the effectiveness of these …

Foster Care In Egypt: A Study Of Policies, Laws, And Practice., Samar Mohamed Ali

Theses and Dissertations

Foster care in Egypt is regulated by Ministry of Social Solidarity according to detailed procedures of the child law no 126 for the year 1996 and its amendments of the year 2008. The system combines features of western foster care as well as adoption with the guidelines of Islamic Kafalah system. Children who are deprived from parental care for any reason are eligible to enter the foster care system. This qualitative study analyses the child law against the UN guidelines on alternative care to identify legislative and procedural gaps. It also analyses the current field practices of how placement of …

Individualism And Sensitivity Of Investment To Stock Prices: Evidence From Emerging Markets, Ayatallah Mohamed Amin

Theses and Dissertations

Chui et al. (2010) argue that cultures with high levels of individualism are defined by overconfidence and self-attribution bias. Markus and Kitayama (1991) and Heine et al. (1999) note that these biases lead to less efficient stock prices with excess volatility. Foucault and Frésard (2012) show that sensitivity of investment to stock prices is an increasing function of informativeness of stock prices. They argue that sensitivity of investment to stock prices increase because value-maximizing managers are forced to use all available information to forecast the cash flows of their capital allocation decisions. They argue that information revealed via informative stock …

The Visualization And Representation Of Gender In Egyptian Comics, What Is The Fuss All About?, Sara Hany Shaker Rizkallah

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates gender visualization in Egyptian comics published in 2011 and afterwards, focusing on three main themes: the veil, violence against women, and the role played by women during post-revolutionary Egypt. The three main comics utilized in this study are: TokTok magazine, Al-Shakmgia, and Qahera. The main purpose of the study is to examine whether these three comics re-inscribe or challenge the stereotyped gender representation of women in the previously mentioned themes. By examining these three comics, this thesis argues that the binary conception of gender is no longer based on stereotypes of men and women, of masculinity and …

Rhetoric: Spoken Discourse, A Systematic Appeal For Reasoning "Pathos", Marwa M. Adel Farid

Theses and Dissertations

The tekhnē of spoken discourse is a critical tool for particular communications and is a substantial means to transform good knowledge . It is an objective tekhnē with an ergon, which is man-made. As such, it may be implemented for political, religious, social or educational purposes. Thus, understanding the implications of spoken discourse and establishing a shared understanding between the rhētōr and his listeners is not just an option in this context. On the contrary, both elements are the mind/soul/heart of the discourse. For what is the value of a discourse if its implications and representations are not well perceived …

Abuse Among School Going Adolescents In Three Major Cities Of Pakistan: Is It Associated With School Performances And Mood Disorders?, Saleem Khawaja, Adeel Khoja, Komal Motwani

Department of Medicine

Objective: To assess the proportion of various types of abuses and their association with school performances and psychological stress among adolescents from three major cities of Pakistan.

Methods: The cross-sectional school survey was conducted from March to September 2009, comprising adolescent students at six schools in Karachi, Lahore and Quetta. Data was collected using a self-administered and pre-tested questionnaire by trained medical students. SPSS 16 was used for statistical analysis..

Results: Of the 414 subjects in the study, there were 223(54%) boys and 191(46%) girls with an overall mean age of 14.36 ±1.08 years. In all, 140(33.7%) participants were physically …

Academic Performance And Therapeutic Breathing, Abha Gupta, Seema Maira, Smita Sinha

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

This paper explores using breathing techniques to boost the academic performance of students and describes how teachers can foster the technique in their classrooms. The innovative study examines the differential impact of therapeutic breathing exercises, called pranayama, on students’ academic performance. The paper introduces approaches to therapeutic breathing exercises as an alternative to improve school performance, as well as the self-regulatory behavior, which is known to correlate with academic performance. The study was conducted in a school-wide pranayama program with positive outcomes. The intervention consisted of two breathing exercises, (1) deep breathing, and (2) alternate nostril breathing. It is a …

A Phenomenological Study Of Highly Achieving Elementary School Students Despite Lack Of Parental Involvement, John Ralph Mckinley

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to discover how certain students achieved academic success despite the lack of parental involvement. Eight students in grades 4-6 at Riverton Elementary School were selected for the study. The name Riverton Elementary School is a pseudonym. Pseudonyms were used in this study for the name and location of the school and also used for the names of students, teachers, and parents. This study asked what is it about highly achieving students' culture which makes them achieve at high levels despite the lack of parental involvement? What habits do these highly achieving students possess? …

Salazar V. Buono And The Future Of The Establishment Clause, Christopher C. Lund

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intersex Employment Discrimination: Title Vii And Anatomical Sex Nonconformity, Mark E. Berghausen

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Levels Of Abstraction Problem In Patent Law, Tun-Jen Chiang

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Foucauldian Call For The Archaeological Excavation Of Discourse In The Post-Boumediene Habeas Litigation, Jonathan David Shaub

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mcdonald V. Chicago: Which Standard Of Scrutiny Should Apply To Gun Control Laws?, Lawrence Rosenthal, Joyce Lee Malcolm

Northwestern University Law Review

No abstract provided.