Gender and Other Socio-Cultural Factors in Mobile-Based Language Learning (Published)
In East Asia, particularly China, under the deep-rooted influence of Confucianism, many women have been living in a subordinate manner, either consciously or unconsciously. Even when the proportion of girl students at college is almost as half as the total population in higher education, researches show a different narrative in their mindset. As for this study, the focus is on gender and other socio-cultural issues in mobile-based language learning through a learning management system (Blackboard) in a MBA program at Shenzhen University, China. The participants are 138 students (68 male, 70 female) who were enrolled in Fall 2018. In line with Hofstede’s cultural dimensions, this study explored the gender and other socio-cultural factors in mobile-based language learning and tried to set up a mechanism for an effective learning mode, where tasks/projects are designed in such a way that woman students may become aware of their conscious/unconscious mentality of being subordinate, and hopefully enhance their self-esteem to be aspiring in their future career.
Keywords: Dimensions, Language, learning socio-cultural, mobile-based
Innovative Approach to Teaching Arabic Writing by Using a Handwriting Recognition System (Published)
This article presents the development of an Arabic online handwriting recognition system based on neural networks approach. It offers solutions for most of the difficulties linked to Arabic writing recognition. Secondly, our proposed system will be integrated in a computer assisted languagelearning tool to create educational activities and to generate adequate feedback. This environment uses tools from natural language processing, mainly our handwriting recognition system, to create various educational activities. The developed system will be used as a tool for learning and teaching Arabic as a foreign language
Keywords: Activities, Handwriting, Language, Learning, Neural, Recognition
CHASING INTERNATIONAL LANGUAGE: GENESIS OF LANGUAGE OF CURRICULUM IN KENYA (Published)
This paper draws attention to the cross-linguistic problems that have made minority languages lose their prominence and allow stronger languages to dominate in international linguistic space and in education. Schools and universities crave stronger languages for medium of instruction in the classroom in developing countries again dictates of science and technology have influenced the use of a stronger language for global use. The paper therefore investigates the states of early use of language (English) in Kenyan schools and its relationship with other vernacular languages in the country. It also identifies reasons why English became so prominent than other languages spoken in Kenya.
Keywords: Bootstrapping, Curriculum, Global Worlds, Language, Society, Syntactic-semantic Interface.