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Cohesion has long been regarded as one of the main components of successful writing. The basic assumption of this concept is that the interpretation of one element in a text is based on the interpretation of another in the same text. It has been noticed that Saudi EFL students seem to lack some basics in writing a cohesive paragraph. Certain conjunctions were overused, underused, or misused. The present empirical study, therefore, attempted to investigate the impact of explicit teaching of conjunctions as cohesive devices on the development of paragraph writing. The subjects of this study were 43 EFL students at a Saudi University studying in the first year. Data were collected from pre and post tests and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively. Results showed significant differences between the experimental and control groups in the post test. Pedagogical implications are presented.

The paper aims to provide insights onto the relationship between ethics and semantic change and how ethics could change the semantic values through tracing the historical development in meaning of selected lexical items in Saudi colloquial speech. The study starts from the hypothesis that there is a reciprocal connection between ethics and semantic change. It seeks to examine whether the common ethical values could result into changing the peripheral meaning of lexical items. In order to obtain more accurate and precise results about the effect of the ethics on the semantic shift in Saudi Arabic, the study applies a qualitative methodology through which it conducts an interview with more than thirty Saudi male and female belonging to different ages and different cultural backgrounds in order to get their feedback and response about their understanding of a set of chosen lexical items. The study has reached the finding that the common ethical values dominating a society can reshape the meaning of the lexical items into the minds of speakers.

Reading is not synonymous to comprehension; rather it is a prerequisite that doesn't, by itself, guarantee comprehension. This is to say that being efficient in decoding letters, syllables and whole words and recognizing vocabulary does not ensure natural r automatic comprehension. Fluency seems to be the bridge between the mastery of the mechanics of reading and the dynamics of comprehension. Abundant research exists that explores how to improve reading skills of EFL learners at Saudi universities. However little, if any, of this array of research sought to discern the potential effects of educational technology on the fluency of struggling readers in continuous learning programs. To fill this gap, this study seeks to probe the multi dimensions of the problem and suggest ways to solve it. For this purpose, 24 EFL lecturers from three Saudi universities were selected and interviewed. A suggested computer-assisted collaborative reading model was put forth to be applied in the three universities. Students were diagnosed by their instructors as gaining relatively enough grasp of decoding skills at the multilevels of orthographic knowledge, mono and polysyllabic words, but exhibit slow and inaccurate reading indicating reprehensive symptoms for a fluency problem. The lecturers explained that the disappointment resulting from learners' inability to reach comprehension despite mastering decoding skills influences their attitudes towards reading and language learning, bringing about reading apathy and low self-esteem. The proposed model is designed to enhance reading fluency which is perceived as the underlying problem that makes the reader struggle. It is to be delivered partly individually and partly collaboratively online. Collaboration also is operated via face to face instruction especially in teaching the reading strategy. In doing so, the procedures followed are in line with the blended learning. The findings indicate clearly that the proposed model was successfully used to improve reading fluency through accelerating the different reading subskills for decoding and create positive attitudes toward reading. The results highlight the importance of establishing a level of automaticity that gives rise to the higher skills of comprehension.

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