<p>The present study aimed at investigating the motivational orientations of Jordanian gifted<br />school students in Ajloun governorate. For this purpose, 51 students from King Abdullah II in<br />Ajloun governorate participated in this study. Data was collected through a questionnaire<br />contained 20 items asking about the motivational level and orientation of learners. The<br />questionnaire was adapted from Gardner’s (1985) AMTB (Attitude, Motivation Test Battery)<br />questionnaire. The researchers used descriptive statistics for identifying the students’ level of<br />motivation towards learning English. Independent samples T-test was used to investigate the<br />differences in the level of motivation according to gender. The findings revealed that the<br />students were highly motivated towards learning English language with higher scores<br />reported for the sake of instrumental motivation. Female students reported higher level of<br />motivation than male students with no statistically significant differences recorded<br />concerning this. Based on the results, some of the implications were presented and discussed.</p>

Vocabulary knowledge is the building block of learning a second language and the degree of success for learning any language depends on the amount of vocabulary a learner possesses. Vocabulary knowledge contributes to mastering language skills (reading, listening, writing, and speaking). Therefore, the present study aims at determining the role of vocabulary size in reading comprehension among Saudi EFL learners. The participants of this study included 64 male students who studied at the first level in the academic year 2018/2019 at King Khalid University. Both the Vocabulary Size Test developed by (Schmitt et al.) and reading comprehension test taken from the TOEFL preparation manual were used to collect the necessary data for the study. The results of the study revealed that the overall vocabulary size of Saudi EFL learners was 2025 word families. This amount helps students to comprehend 90% of written texts as pointed out by many researchers in this field. The results also showed a significant relationship between vocabulary size and reading comprehension. Vocabulary knowledge is an important predictor for comprehending written texts. The study provides some implications for educational stakeholders such as putting more emphasis on teaching vocabulary and using different teaching strategies that assist in the acquisition of vocabulary in general and academic vocabulary in particular. Keywords: vocabulary knowledge; vocabulary depth; vocabulary breadth; reading comprehension; Saudi EFL learners.

The present study aims at identifying the level of metacognitive thinking among a group of students with learning disabilities (LDs) in Asir region, Saudi Arabia. The present study has taken into account certain variables when investigating this issue such as age, grade, and type of learning difficulties. The sample of this study consisted of 350 students with learning disabilities from schools belong to the Department of Education in Asir Area, Saudi Arabia. To achieve the goal of the study, a scale prepared by the authors was used to measure the level of metacognitive thinking among the students. The results of the study showed that the students had a low level of metacognitive knowledge. The results have also showed no statistically significant differences in the level of metacognitive thinking attributed to age, gender, and the type of learning disability. Based on the results obtained in the present study, some suggestions and recommendations have been provided for further research on this field.

People often use euphemistic utterances or expressions to avoid offensive or tabooed topics, to make them more implicit and considerate. This paper explores the euphemistic strategies used in Saudi Arabic and American English. The sample of this study includes 145 college students (78 Saudis and 67 Americans). A questionnaire adopted from Rabab’ah and Al-Qarni (2012) was used to collect the data of the present study. The results revealed various strategies used by the participants, such as deletion, synonyms, metaphor, understatement, part-for-whole, overstatement, and jargons. The most frequent strategies used by the Saudis were ‘part-for-whole’, ‘understatement’, and ‘general- for-specific’. The American participants tended to use ‘taboo words’, ‘general-for-specific’ and ‘synonyms’ more frequently than the other strategies. The findings also showed that there is no relationship between strategy choice and gender. The findings suggest that Saudi Arabic seems to use euphemistic strategies more than the Americans. These results could be referred to cultural and religious beliefs and values. The study recommends raising the awareness of euphemism strategies for more active communication.

There is an increasing interest of studies investigating the correlation between Test-Taking Strategies (TTSs) and reading comprehension achievement among EFL learners. The relationship between the aforementioned variables is still unclear and more studies are needed on this area. The major concern of this study is to examine the correlational relationship between the use of test-taking strategies and reading comprehension. The sample of this study included 64 undergraduate students majoring in English language in King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia. The present research employed three instruments for data collection process; English Language Placement Test was used to distribute students according to their proficiency level, two reading passages taken from TOEFL reading comprehension tests, and a questionnaire adapted from Cohen and Upton (2007) asking about TTSs. The results of the present study illustrated that Saudi EFL students used test-taking strategies at a moderate level. There was no statistically significant correlation between test-taking strategies use and students’ achievement in reading comprehension test. There was also no significant differences between test-taking strategies and students; achievement in reading comprehension attributed to language proficiency level. Some pedagogical implications for EFL teachers were presented and discussed.