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Investigating the Reading Difficulties of Algerian EST Students with Regard to their General English Knowledge

Authors: Djihed AZEROUAL.
Journal: AWEJ Volume.4 Number.1
ISSN/EISSN: 2229-9327 Year: 2013
Publisher: Arab World English Journal
Pages: 203-212

Abstract

This paper reports on a study which investigates the reading comprehension problems of master students of Physics while reading scientific texts in English as a foreign language. It aimed at testing a hypothesis of a causal relationship between two variables; students’ GE knowledge and reading comprehension. The results were obtained from a students’ questionnaire and a test. The analysis of the data proved that the students’ difficulties are due to their linguistic handicap mainly in grammar and vocabulary. Furthermore, it confirms that these students’ have a poor level in General English which compounds their reading comprehension difficulties. These results lead us to believe that the teaching/ learning situation of English at the Physics Department, at the University of Constantine 1 should be re-considered. In other words, the results proved that there exists a gap between GE and EST teaching. For that, we suggest to implement reading courses to reinforce the students’ General English knowledge and promote their reading comprehension of scientific texts

Keywords: linguistic knowledge, GE/ EST dilemma, reading skill, reading comprehension difficulties.





This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Comparative Genre Analysis of English Argumentative Essays Written by Chinese English and Non-English Major Students

Authors: Issra Pramoolsook & Li Qian
Journal: AWEJ Volume.4 Number.1, 2013
ISSN/EISSN: 2229-9327 Year: 2013
Publisher: Arab World English Journal
Pages: 213-223

Abstract

Argumentative writing has long been regarded as an essential mode of written discourse. Despite some studies on argumentative essays across ages, grade levels, cultures and languages, research has not yet been conducted on writers from different academic disciplines in the Chinese context. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the current situation of move-step structure of argumentative essays written by English learners in an EFL context. Two sets of corpus of English argumentative essays written by Tongren University students were built, 100 from English majors and the other 100 from non-English majors. A selected analytical framework was used to analyze the move-step structure of the essays and some linguistic features were also investigated. Results revealed that the majority of the argumentative essays were found to follow the three stages set in the model. Findings also showed some differences in terms of move-step structure between the essays written by these two groups of students. In the conclusion, pedagogical implications informed by these results and findings are offered to benefit teaching argumentative essay writing. 

Keywords: Argumentative essay, Genre analysis, Move-step structure, Linguistic features, English and non-English major students





This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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The Impact and Consequences of Tax Revenues’ Components on Economic Indicators: Evidence from Panel Group Data

Authors: Taufik Abdul Hakim & Imbarine Bujang
Journal: International Research Journal of Finance and Economics
ISSN/EISSN: 1450-2887 Year: 2011 Issue: 63
Publisher: EuroJournals Publishing
Pages: 14

Abstract

The change in components of tax revenue may result in the change in the economic growth and other economic indicators. Previous studies found significant effect on the change in tax revenue to the economic growth in a country. This study is to test if the components of tax revenue and inflation rate are related to the economic growth, gross saving, and inflow of FDI in the 120 countries based on the different level of income from 1960 to 2009. The impact of tax components such as total tax revenue, taxes on income, profit and capital gain, taxes on goods and services, taxes on international trade, total tax rate, and taxes on export are examined with the three economic indicators. These three indicators are highly significant to the tax structures in four groups of country. Change in the tax revenue or tax policy for every single tax will also change the growth of GDP, gross saving and FDI. The results indicate the different impacts and consequences of types of taxes for the four groups of country. The inflation rate is also significant in affecting the tax policy and economic indicators in a country.

Keywords: Tax; economic indicators; economic growth; GDP; Gross saving; Foreign direct investment; Tax components.
JEL Classification Codes: E2 and C58



This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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Progress Accuracy of CPO Price Prediction: Evidence from ARMA Family and Artificial Neural Network Approach

Authors: Abdul Aziz Karia & Imbarine Bujang
Journal: International Research Journal of Finance and Economics
ISSN/EISSN: 1450-2887 Year: 2011 Issue: 64
Publisher: EuroJournals Publishing
Pages: 14

Abstract
Oil palm can be considered as one major contributor of developing countries by not only bringing the capital investment but also technology, foreign workers, and management knowledge. On the other hand, some thinkers assume that oil palm can become future direction of the world economy. Therefore the race of oil palm industry has become increasing competitive. However, price of oil palm keeps fluctuating over time. Due to the instability price of oil palm, there is risk and uncertainties that would be faced by tree-corps farmers if they depend too much on this agriculture product. Indeed, oil palms are more volatile compare to other commodities like cocoa, soybean and rubber at the international market. Tree-corps farmers, shareholder, traders, government and producer should consider the uncertainty and high risk in palm oil business world. Therefore, we develop CPO price prediction by using ARMA family and artificial neural network (ANN) using data stretching from 3rd January 2006 to 30th December 2010. Besides, there is also a problem in determining the forecasting techniques. Every forecasting technique has its pros and cons. Such as ARIMA which is not compatible to be implemented in the nonlinear time series data. Whereas ANN, generates more forecasted error in linear time series data. If worst come to worst, there is difficulty in determining the linearity of time series data in order to implement Box-Jenkins and ANN. Therefore, it leads to the risk of unreliable and forecasting error. In this research paper, we forecasted the daily, weekly and monthly basis of the CPO price. Moreover, we selected power of forecasting technique based from the lower root mean squared (RMSE), and mean square error (MSE)

Keywords: Box-Jenkins (BJ); ANN; RMSE; MSE; Crude Palm Oil; NAR.
JEL Classification Codes: C18 and C45



This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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