Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Studies, 2020
Arab American theater refers to theater performances by Arab American playwrights and artists fro... more Arab American theater refers to theater performances by Arab American playwrights and artists from the early decades of 20 th century onward. It dramatizes contemporary issues that challenge the Arab American community in the United States. Arab American theater discusses mainstream American culture and the minority culture of Arab Americans in different theater performances, reflecting the relationship between the two cultures and how each one looks at and negotiates itself with the other. It provides a bifocal vision of the two cultures as it delineates understanding, acceptance, repudiation, or negotiation between both cultures. This paper, thus, sheds light on American discourses, as well as Arab American theater performances as counter discourses which provide space to depict fairly images of their communities and cultures. The paper critically analyzes some plays, written and performed by Arab American playwrights with the intention of expounding their attempts to resist, recast, restage, and redefine negative depictions. The main contention of this paper is to expose how Arab American theater plays an important role in the lives of Arab Americas in the early 21 st century, as it gives the Arab American playwrights space to articulate their identity and voice the challenges they face in American society. It explicates how the position of Arab Americans has changed from invisible to hypervisible, from passive to dynamic, from silent to vibrant and from an unknown to a well-known community.
The downfall of the European colonialism in the African and Asian colonies was not the end of the... more The downfall of the European colonialism in the African and Asian colonies was not the end of the colonial hegemony, but the beginning of indirect imperial policies. In a unique narrative style, Ngugi has creatively fictionalized his anti-colonial stand through creating characters with Kenyan names to voice his resistance to colonization. The methodology of this study is descriptive analysis. The paper analyzes critically Ngugi's novel Weep Not, Child and shows how he implemented different narrative techniques (e.g. free indirect narration, freewheeling narrative technique, and author surrogate) to depict the atrocities and aftermath of colonization. It explicates how Ngugi uses narration to liberate gradually the minds of his people and their land from the settlers through the decolonial styles of peaceful struggle and focus on education. Specifically, the paper elaborates how Ngugi, like many other post-colonial writers, resisted and challenged the neo-imperial forms over the previous colonies in the neo-colonial era. Ngugi's novel sheds light on the impacts of colonialism which affected negatively not only Kenya, but also all the colonized nations.
Speaking skills help students to articulate and express their knowledge, feelings, thoughts, and ... more Speaking skills help students to articulate and express their knowledge, feelings, thoughts, and ideas. In many situations, language proficiency is socially judged through productive skills, especially speaking. This paper examines the factors that hinder English speaking competencies of students at Nakhon si Thammarat Rajabhat University (NSTRU) Thailand. A convenience sample of thirty participants consisted of eighteen students from a Demonstration School and twelve from a Business English program in the same university. Data were collected through a questionnaire and participant observation. The results indicate that educational stakeholders, including administrators, curriculum designers, policymakers, teachers, and parents, should raise their awareness of these obstacles, help the students to overcome these factors in English language learning, and seek countermeasures to develop students' speaking skills. Resumen Las habilidades de expresión oral ayudan a los estudiantes a articular y expresar sus conocimientos, sentimientos, pensamientos e ideas. En muchas situaciones, el dominio del idioma se juzga socialmente a través de habilidades productivas, especialmente al hablar. Este documento examina los factores que obstaculizan las competencias de habla inglesa de los estudiantes de la Universidad Nakhon si Thammarat Rajabhat (NSTRU) de Tailandia. Una muestra de conveniencia de treinta participantes consistió en dieciocho estudiantes de una escuela de demostración y doce de un programa de inglés comercial en la misma universidad. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de un cuestionario y observación participante. Luego, fueron analizados mediante análisis de contenido cualitativo. Los resultados revelaron que el desarrollo de las habilidades para hablar de los estudiantes se vio afectado negativamente por factores particulares que incluyen 1) métodos de enseñanza 2) un entorno infantil con falta de exposición al inglés, 3) miedo a cometer errores gramaticales y falta de vocabulario, y 4) una preferencia por los profesores de inglés nativos sobre los no nativos. Los resultados indican que las partes interesadas de la educación, incluidos los administradores, los diseñadores de planes de estudios, los encargados de formular políticas, los maestros y los padres, deben concienciar a los estudiantes sobre estos obstáculos, ayudar a los estudiantes a superar estos factores en el aprendizaje del idioma inglés y buscar contramedidas para desarrollar las habilidades de habla de los estudiantes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attibution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences Studies, 2020
Arab American theater refers to theater performances by Arab American playwrights and artists fro... more Arab American theater refers to theater performances by Arab American playwrights and artists from the early decades of 20 th century onward. It dramatizes contemporary issues that challenge the Arab American community in the United States. Arab American theater discusses mainstream American culture and the minority culture of Arab Americans in different theater performances, reflecting the relationship between the two cultures and how each one looks at and negotiates itself with the other. It provides a bifocal vision of the two cultures as it delineates understanding, acceptance, repudiation, or negotiation between both cultures. This paper, thus, sheds light on American discourses, as well as Arab American theater performances as counter discourses which provide space to depict fairly images of their communities and cultures. The paper critically analyzes some plays, written and performed by Arab American playwrights with the intention of expounding their attempts to resist, recast, restage, and redefine negative depictions. The main contention of this paper is to expose how Arab American theater plays an important role in the lives of Arab Americas in the early 21 st century, as it gives the Arab American playwrights space to articulate their identity and voice the challenges they face in American society. It explicates how the position of Arab Americans has changed from invisible to hypervisible, from passive to dynamic, from silent to vibrant and from an unknown to a well-known community.
The downfall of the European colonialism in the African and Asian colonies was not the end of the... more The downfall of the European colonialism in the African and Asian colonies was not the end of the colonial hegemony, but the beginning of indirect imperial policies. In a unique narrative style, Ngugi has creatively fictionalized his anti-colonial stand through creating characters with Kenyan names to voice his resistance to colonization. The methodology of this study is descriptive analysis. The paper analyzes critically Ngugi's novel Weep Not, Child and shows how he implemented different narrative techniques (e.g. free indirect narration, freewheeling narrative technique, and author surrogate) to depict the atrocities and aftermath of colonization. It explicates how Ngugi uses narration to liberate gradually the minds of his people and their land from the settlers through the decolonial styles of peaceful struggle and focus on education. Specifically, the paper elaborates how Ngugi, like many other post-colonial writers, resisted and challenged the neo-imperial forms over the previous colonies in the neo-colonial era. Ngugi's novel sheds light on the impacts of colonialism which affected negatively not only Kenya, but also all the colonized nations.
Speaking skills help students to articulate and express their knowledge, feelings, thoughts, and ... more Speaking skills help students to articulate and express their knowledge, feelings, thoughts, and ideas. In many situations, language proficiency is socially judged through productive skills, especially speaking. This paper examines the factors that hinder English speaking competencies of students at Nakhon si Thammarat Rajabhat University (NSTRU) Thailand. A convenience sample of thirty participants consisted of eighteen students from a Demonstration School and twelve from a Business English program in the same university. Data were collected through a questionnaire and participant observation. The results indicate that educational stakeholders, including administrators, curriculum designers, policymakers, teachers, and parents, should raise their awareness of these obstacles, help the students to overcome these factors in English language learning, and seek countermeasures to develop students' speaking skills. Resumen Las habilidades de expresión oral ayudan a los estudiantes a articular y expresar sus conocimientos, sentimientos, pensamientos e ideas. En muchas situaciones, el dominio del idioma se juzga socialmente a través de habilidades productivas, especialmente al hablar. Este documento examina los factores que obstaculizan las competencias de habla inglesa de los estudiantes de la Universidad Nakhon si Thammarat Rajabhat (NSTRU) de Tailandia. Una muestra de conveniencia de treinta participantes consistió en dieciocho estudiantes de una escuela de demostración y doce de un programa de inglés comercial en la misma universidad. Los datos fueron recolectados a través de un cuestionario y observación participante. Luego, fueron analizados mediante análisis de contenido cualitativo. Los resultados revelaron que el desarrollo de las habilidades para hablar de los estudiantes se vio afectado negativamente por factores particulares que incluyen 1) métodos de enseñanza 2) un entorno infantil con falta de exposición al inglés, 3) miedo a cometer errores gramaticales y falta de vocabulario, y 4) una preferencia por los profesores de inglés nativos sobre los no nativos. Los resultados indican que las partes interesadas de la educación, incluidos los administradores, los diseñadores de planes de estudios, los encargados de formular políticas, los maestros y los padres, deben concienciar a los estudiantes sobre estos obstáculos, ayudar a los estudiantes a superar estos factores en el aprendizaje del idioma inglés y buscar contramedidas para desarrollar las habilidades de habla de los estudiantes. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attibution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license.
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