Mobile phones have become so ubiquitous that they turned into an important part of our life. According to Parsons, mobile subscriptions exceed 6 billion subscriptions globally. Similarly, Ipsos and Verizon (as cited in Tan & El-Bendary) found out that adopting mobile phones with smart technologies has increased fast which also coincided with a more utilization of their Internet capabilities. With the abundance of knowledge the Internet provides, mobile phones become an invaluable pathway for that knowledge. The fact that these gadgets are well-liked by students make them one of the best tools to be adopted by educational institutions. This study will investigate the actual academic use of mobile phones among students and teachers, their attitudes toward using them as learning or teaching tools, and if there is a significant difference in attitudes of the participants toward using mobile as learning or teaching tools based on the job criteria (Student vs. Faculty Member).

Relying on Error Analysis, this article presents an empirical study that scrutinizes comprehensively the types and frequencies of errors in paragraph compositions made by 80 EFL students, Preparatory Year Deanship, at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University. In addition, it aims at exploring the differences between male and female students in regards to these errors as well as investigating whether or not native and non-native English teachers affect significantly the types and frequencies of errors committed in writing. After analyzing 80 paragraphs at the sentence-level and the paragraph-level based on a particular rubric, the results reveal that the 80 students committed 1580 errors in total. At the sentence level, the subjects made 1316 errors in grammar (42.15%), Punctuation (16.14%), spelling (14.81%) and capitalization (10.19%). At the paragraph -level, the participants produced 264 errors illustrated in the following order: Errors in paragraph development (5.13%), Errors in paragraph coherence (4.87%), Errors in paragraph unity (3.80%) and Errors in inconsistency of point of view (2.91%). The results found that except for errors of grammar, there are no statistically significant differences between male and female students at the preparatory Year in Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University in the types of errors in paragraph writing. Moreover, the statistical analysis showed that there are statistically significant differences between university students taught by English native-speaker instructors and university students taught by non-native English instructors in some types of errors in paragraph writing i.e. errors in grammar, spelling and punctuation.

No abstract

This study reports the outcomes of research investigating the relationship between two variables; percentage of word knowledge in an academic English text and reading comprehension scores the participants got for the same text. The study was conducted at Prince Sattam Bin Abdulaziz University, Preparatory Year Deanship, during the first semester of 2017-2018. Seventy-one Saudi male students participated in the study. They came from four groups of students selected from the Preparatory Year population to represent four various levels of English (Groups one, seven, fourteen and seventeen) based on their achievement in the placement test. Data was collected using two instruments: two word-meaning association test-lists and a reading comprehension test. The results showed that there is a statistically significant correlation (r=.702) between percentage of known words and reading comprehension in general i.e., for all the participants. The effect of word knowledge on reading comprehension was very high R square =.49. However, results for the groups separately showed that correlation was positive but not statistically significant for the higher levels i.e., groups one and seven. Also, there was a low effect of word knowledge on comprehension. For the lower levels i.e., groups 14 and 17, the correlation was positive and statistically significant. Results also showed a very high effect of vocabulary knowledge on reading comprehension.Based on the results and analysis of the study, the researchers provided recommendations that will help improve reading curriculum selection and English teaching practices, and suggestions for deeper research into the topic that will include female students and other related concepts.Keywords: word knowledge, vocabulary size, vocabulary breadth, reading comprehension IntroductionReading as a complex, dynamic and multidimensional process (Anderson, 2000) has taken superiority as a language skill in an academic context (Grabe, 1991). In the instructional process, reading affects language learning remarkably. According to Mikulecky (2008), effect goes to different language learning aspects such as the use of textbooks in general, writing, developing vocabulary, dealing with grammar and structure etc. Scholarly efforts confirmed that there is a strong relationship between reading and comprehension. Even though reading has many purposes, scholars such as Linan- Thompson & Vaughn (2007) and Grabe & Stoller (2002) viewed 'comprehension' as the most important purpose of reading that also aids the other purposes. Reading in its nature is not only the process of mouthing words but seeks to get what is beyond the written symbols. Thus, the reader interacts with the text using his linguistic knowledge i.e. vocabulary and non-linguistic knowledge for comprehension.Reading comprehension is inextricably connected to vocabulary knowledge. The relationship between both is, in fact, reciprocal (Güngör & Yayli, 2016). Readers require vocabulary to get meanings from any reading text and by reading they...