The total variation distance between high-dimensional Gaussians

We prove a lower bound and an upper bound for the total variation distance between two high-dimensional Gaussians, which are within a constant factor of one another.Comment: 12 page

“Study Skills”: An Investigation of Teachers’ and Students’ Attitudes

The aim of this article is to examine the attitudes of teachers and semester-one students at Chouaib Doukkali University in El Jadida towards the “Study Skills” course. The study explores these teachers‟ and students‟ evaluation of the course with a particular focus on their understanding of the pedagogical reasons behind including it in the English Program and their views regarding the course goals and objectives, content and materials, teaching methodology, assessment as well as their attitudes towards one another. The study is based on a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative and qualitative research tools. Teacher and student questionnaires were administered to offer an account of the general patterns in their evaluation of the course, and then interviews were conducted to gain a more comprehensive account of their attitudes and evaluation. The results obtained indicate that the students had a reasonably good attitude towards the course, stressing the need for more practice and real-life situations for a better grasp of the course contents and materials. The results also suggested that teachers believed the course is highly useful and that a range of issues need to be tackled for a more successful attainment of the course objectives notably issues related to equipment, class size and improved student motivation. The implications of these results for course syllabus design, teaching methodology and the educational authorities are then discussed

The Vernacular Literacy Practices of a Newly Literate Moroccan Woman: An Ethnographic Perspective

This paper offers a discussion of the literacy practices of a newly literate Moroccan woman. I draw on the social practice theory of literacy and I use ethnographic methods to explore the participant’s life history and offer an account of her family-related literacy practices within the framework of gender studies. In-depth interviews, informal discussion, participant observation, visual ethnography, and documentary photography were employed to collect data over one year. Literacy events were used as the basic unit of analysis and patterns were identified through coding and theme analysis. The findings indicate that the family is a strong impetus for the participant’s literacy acquisition and a major context where she uses the literacy skills she has developed in an adult literacy class. Literacy for this participant is an empowering tool because she has become able to carry out many of the outdoor tasks that were formerly exclusive to men. However, literacy has extended rather than reversed Imane’s home-based roles within her family. These results corroborate the findings of previous research on the embedded nature of literacy practice and illustrate the numerous ways in which the vernacular literacy practices of a participant from Morocco is embedded in a strong gender-based division of labor

El uso de las TICs y medios audiovisuales en la enseñanza del inglés

Within the framework of the New Reform evaluation, this article addresses the issue of the use of Information Technologies and Audiovisual Media in English Language Teaching at the university level, with a particular emphasis on a set of language courses in the ‘DEUG’ cycle in the Department of English in El Jadida. A semi-structured interview was used to elicit the students’ and teachers’ attitudes towards these technologies, the ways they use these technologies to serve their teaching goals and learning needs, respectively, and the problems they face in their attempts to implement such technologies. The aim is to find out whether the attitudes teachers and students have and the discourse produced about the perceived effects of these technologies match with the actual practices. The results obtained indicate that both teachers and students have positive attitudes towards these technologies, but they neither frequently nor regularly use them due to factors related to students’ lack of motivation, the unavailability of these technologies and the related infrastructure. We conclude that, despite the little use of such technologies, the positive attitudes that both parties have are a factor that could lead to their frequent, regular and fruitful use.En el marco de la evaluación de la Nueva Reforma, este artículo versa sobre el uso de las nuevas tecnologías de la información y la comunicación en la Enseñanza de la Lengua Inglesa a nivel universitario, con un énfasis particular en un conjunto de cursos de idioma en el ciclo del ‘DEUG’ del departamento de inglés en EL Jadida. El objetivo es descubrir si las actitudes que los profesores y los estudiantes tienen y el discurso producido sobre los efectos percibidos de estas tecnologías son adecuadas con las prácticas reales. Una entrevista semi-estructurada fue utilizada para revelar las actitudes de los estudiantes y de los profesores hacia tales tecnologías, las maneras en las que utilizan estas tecnologías para responder a sus metas de enseñanza y necesidades de aprendizaje, respectivamente, y los problemas a los que hacen frente en sus intentos de llevar a cabo dichas tecnologías. Los resultados indican que los profesores y los estudiantes tienen actitudes positivas hacia estas tecnologías, pero ni las utilizan regularmente ni con frecuencia debido a los factores relacionados con una falta de de motivación de los estudiantes, la indisponibilidad de dichas tecnologías y las infraestructuras relacionadas. Concluimos que, pese al uso limitado de dichas tecnologías, las actitudes positivas que profesores y alumnos tienen es un factor que podría conducir a su uso frecuente, regular y fructífero

The Development of Moroccan EFL Learners’ Intercultural Awareness through Academic Reading: The Cognitive Dimension

With globalization and high social mobility across the world, the incorporation of the intercultural dimension in Moroccan universities has become an imperative to ensure the Moroccan cultural heritage and develop an awareness of the target cultures (Strategic vision 2015-2030; Morocco’s constitution, 2011). In view of this, the present study aims to explore the extent to which the teaching of “Reading Comprehension and Précis II” using intercultural topics (Moroccan and American cultures) along with intercultural tasks has an impact on the development of Moroccan EFL learners’ intercultural awareness in the area of knowledge/savoir. To this end, a quasi-experimental mixed-methods design was adopted. Three data collection tools were utilized prior to and after the experiment, namely a Likert scale questionnaire, an intercultural test and an interview. Based on convenience sampling, the study included 98 participants who were assigned to an experimental and a control group. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the sample groups’ knowledge about the Moroccan and the American culture. The results also showed that there was a statistically significant increase in students’ mean scores after the administration of the experiment. Based on the qualitative analysis, students in the experimental group demonstrated good knowledge about both cultures, indicating that they do possess an intercultural profile at the cognitive level. This suggested that students in the experimental group outperformed students in the control group with respect to different intercultural aspects. Implications are provided for quality assurance and better intercultural learning