A discourse-based approach for Arabic question answering

The treatment of complex questions with explanatory answers involves searching for arguments in texts. Because of the prominent role that discourse relations play in reflecting text-producers’ intentions, capturing the underlying structure of text constitutes a good instructor in this issue. From our extensive review, a system for automatic discourse analysis that creates full rhetorical structures in large scale Arabic texts is currently unavailable. This is due to the high computational complexity involved in processing a large number of hypothesized relations associated with large texts. Therefore, more practical approaches should be investigated. This paper presents a new Arabic Text Parser oriented for question answering systems dealing with لماذا “why” and كيف “how to” questions. The Text Parser presented here considers the sentence as the basic unit of text and incorporates a set of heuristics to avoid computational explosion. With this approach, the developed question answering system reached a significant improvement over the baseline with a Recall of 68% and MRR of 0.62

Exploring Arabic Emergent Literacy Instruction in Al Ain Private Schools: A Case Study of Two Teachers

The concept of emergent literacy reflects a view of children’s development and learning of language in which the emerging language skills gradually progress in alignment with the developmental aspects of children (Sandvik, van Daal, & Adèr, 2014). This case study aimed at delving into the nature of Arabic emergent literacy instruction by exploring the perceptions and practices of a case of two teachers in one private school in Al Ain city. The questions this study attempted to answer were: (a) what are the perceptions of private schools’ teachers’ in Al Ain regarding the Arabic emergent literacy instruction? (b) What are the practices of Arabic emergent literacy instruction these teachers apply in the classroom? (c)Are there any differences between the teachers’ perceptions and their actual practices of Arabic emergent literacy instruction? The qualitative methods of data collection included interviews and classroom observations and were followed by an analysis process of coding data into themes. The main findings described under each of the three research questions included the teachers’ perceptions about the emergent literacy skills’ learning and teaching with regards to the teachers’ roles, materials, activities and the use of technology. It also highlights the challenges these teachers face in teaching Arabic language to young children. In the description of the practices of Arabic emergent literacy instruction applied by the participant teachers in their lessons, the types of implemented activities, the targeted skills, the teaching strategies and the use of technology were thoroughly included. The differences found between the perceptions and practices were limited to two examples in a case of one teacher. This study presents recommendations to the Ministry of Education, teacher education programs and implications for future research

A text mining approach for Arabic question answering systems

As most of the electronic information available nowadays on the web is stored as text,developing Question Answering systems (QAS) has been the focus of many individualresearchers and organizations. Relatively, few studies have been produced for extractinganswers to “why” and “how to” questions. One reason for this negligence is that when goingbeyond sentence boundaries, deriving text structure is a very time-consuming and complexprocess. This thesis explores a new strategy for dealing with the exponentially large spaceissue associated with the text derivation task. To our knowledge, to date there are no systemsthat have attempted to addressing such type of questions for the Arabic language.We have proposed two analytical models; the first one is the Pattern Recognizer whichemploys a set of approximately 900 linguistic patterns targeting relationships that hold withinsentences. This model is enhanced with three independent algorithms to discover thecausal/explanatory role indicated by the justification particles. The second model is the TextParser which is approaching text from a discourse perspective in the framework of RhetoricalStructure Theory (RST). This model is meant to break away from the sentence limit. TheText Parser model is built on top of the output produced by the Pattern Recognizer andincorporates a set of heuristics scores to produce the most suitable structure representing thewhole text.The two models are combined together in a way to allow for the development of an ArabicQAS to deal with “why” and “how to” questions. The Pattern Recognizer model achieved anoverall recall of 81% and a precision of 78%. On the other hand, our question answeringsystem was able to find the correct answer for 68% of the test questions. Our results revealthat the justification particles play a key role in indicating intrasentential relations

Senegal Teacher\u27s Guide for Multigrade Classrooms

This guide includes the following training modules: 1) Module 1 : Purpose and Background of Multigrade Teaching ; Provides the context of MGCs throughout the world and Senegal and explains their relevance and efficiency. 2) Module 2 : MG Classroom Management Tools; Presents teachers with various tools, techniques and their application. 3) Module 3 : MG Classroom Management Techniques; Examines different techniques, their use, as well as their benefits to students and teachers. 4) Module 4 : Community as Resource; and Addresses the relationship between the school and the community, local materials that can be used as teaching tools, and ways that the school can support the community and community members can contribute to student learning. 5) Module 5 : Student Learning Monitoring and Assessment. Examines the meaning of concepts as well as the various implementation tools

How to design for persistence and retention in MOOCs?

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context

Formative interaction in online writing: making disciplinary expectations explicit

About the book: How to provide appropriate feedback to students on their writing has long been an area of central significance to teachers and educators. Feedback in Second Language Writing: Context and Issues provides scholarly articles on the topic by leading researchers, who explore topics such as the socio-cultural assumptions that participants bring to the writing class; feedback delivery and negotiation systems; and the role of student and teacher identity in negotiating feedback and expectations. This text provides empirical data and an up-to-date analysis of the complex issues involved in offering appropriate feedback during the writing process

Queer and Shear Moroccan Societal Norms Impact on Queer Women

This paper examines how Moroccan societal norms and values hinder the recognition of queer women. Within this paper, family dynamics, language, and perceptions of homosexuality are discussed in order to highlight the lack of recognition that queer women receive in Morocco. Social norms in Morocco draw upon the conservative and traditional values, therefore queer women face societal persecution because they stray from the heteronormative culture and exist in a resilient patriarchal system. I will draw upon six personal interviews from queer women as they share their experiences and how they operate within their Moroccan families and Moroccan social norms. Throughout this paper I evaluate queer women in Morocco and the embedding of the patriarchal system within a marginalized group

Spartan Daily, March 20, 1972

Volume 59, Issue 85https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/spartandaily/5598/thumbnail.jp