Grasiella Harb - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Grasiella Harb
The Paris Conference on Education 2022, 2022
Globalization has removed all constrained borders and distances among countries, governments, and... more Globalization has removed all constrained borders and distances among countries,
governments, and business corporations. With this fundamental change, there has been an
increasing demand for intercultural competent communicators to secure success in the 21st
century marketplace. However, some universities in Lebanon, if not all, seem not to have IC
as a part of their curricula, or if they do, it is not emphasized. As such, students may not
become aware of the importance of developing intercultural communication skills. That’s
why the researchers aimed to (1) investigate the extent to which students in private Lebanese
universities are aware of the importance of IC, (2) whether they consider themselves as
culturally competent speakers, and (3) the strategies they follow to develop their intercultural
communicative competence (ICC). Using a mixed-methods design, the researchers surveyed
190 participants conveniently sampled from different private Lebanese universities and
conducted two focus groups of 5 participants each. The collected data was analyzed
quantitatively and qualitatively. The derived conclusions from both analyses were
triangulated. The findings revealed that the majority of the participants were aware of the
importance of ICC, more than half of the participants considered themselves intercultural
speakers, and the strategies that helped them the most in developing their ICC were
interactions with people from other cultures, different types of media, and international
friends among others. The researchers recommend more attention be given to IC in higher
education institutions and further research be conducted in the area of IC using an
intercultural communicative competence tool.
International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, 2021
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in com... more The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in communicating fear and enlisting members to the organization. Unfortunately, counter-media campaigns failed to have a lasting defeat for the organization’s social and cognitive impact on the public. Accordingly, the present qualitative study aims to explore how the use of the multiple communication modes in ISIS videos makes the organization’s ideology appealing and intimidating. The study employs Kress and van Leeuwen’s social semiotic framework as well as Fairclough’s and van Dijk’s model of critical discourse analysis for analyzing one of ISIS videos that resulted in a global outrage. The findings are significant for understanding how the terrorists’ communication strategies are embedded in their professional media techniques. A deep understanding of the ISIS technique has an impact on creating successful counter-media campaigns that persuade the public to resist any new wave of terrorism.
Many EFL undergraduates use simple and common vocabulary words in their writing as a result of th... more Many EFL undergraduates use simple and common vocabulary words in their writing as a result of their limited vocabulary repertoire and uncertainty of the use of more sophisticated word choice. Consequently, their writing is affected. [1] Hence, for the purpose of refining the EFL writing quality, an experimental study was done on 200 Lebanese undergraduates. Through the use of the online Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the experimental group produced more medium frequency vocabulary (MFV), which are words produced by adult native speakers or fluent secondary students. [2] Consequently, the group's vocabulary and writing performance scores simultaneously increased. The results are significant in their indication for EFL teachers of a predicative lexical feature that helps in improving students' writing. Another significance is in implementing COCA corpus in the writing syllabus as a reliable lexical tool that helps expand students' sophisticated word choice and at the same time their lexical accuracy. All these features make the writing process a less challenging task.
The following paper introduces an exploratory research study conducted in a private school in Bei... more The following paper introduces an exploratory research study conducted in a private school in Beirut. The importance of this study resides in its contribution to the literature on school management and leadership. It introduces a new research problem through which the researcher discusses her speculation about the performance of private school owners in Lebanon, who are running their own school with limited education background. Out of a teaching experience in one of these schools, the researcher decided to find answers for her speculations and in the same school she used to teach. More specifically, she explored the school owner’s role and style in running his school, and the type of culture he established, through both qualitative and quantitative instruments (interview, observation, and questionnaire). Findings were triangulated and results indicated: (1)the ineffective role the school owner played except for maintaining discipline and order, (2)the ineffective autocratic style h...
International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, 2021
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in com... more The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in communicating fear and enlisting members to the organization. Unfortunately, counter-media campaigns failed to have a lasting defeat for the organization's social and cognitive impact on the public. Accordingly, the present qualitative study aims to explore how the use of the multiple communication modes in ISIS videos makes the organization's ideology appealing and intimidating. The study employs Kress and van Leeuwen's social semiotic framework as well as Fairclough's and van Dijk's model of critical discourse analysis for analyzing one of ISIS videos that resulted in a global outrage. The findings are significant for understanding how the terrorists' communication strategies are embedded in their professional media techniques. A deep understanding of the ISIS technique has an impact on creating successful counter-media campaigns that persuade the public to resist any new wave of terrorism.
International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, 2021
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in com... more The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in communicating fear and enlisting members to the organization. Unfortunately, counter-media campaigns failed to have a lasting defeat for the organization's social and cognitive impact on the public. Accordingly, the present qualitative study aims to explore how the use of the multiple communication modes in ISIS videos makes the organization's ideology appealing and intimidating. The study employs Kress and van Leeuwen's social semiotic framework as well as Fairclough's and van Dijk's model of critical discourse analysis for analyzing one of ISIS videos that resulted in a global outrage. The findings are significant for understanding how the terrorists' communication strategies are embedded in their professional media techniques. A deep understanding of the ISIS technique has an impact on creating successful counter-media campaigns that persuade the public to resist any new wave of terrorism.
International Journal of Business and Applied Social Science, 2021
The shift to an online learning environment during the Covid-19 outbreak has not been conducive e... more The shift to an online learning environment during the Covid-19 outbreak has not been conducive enough for either active learning or fair assessment procedures that yield valid results. Accordingly, this research paper aims to investigate the extent to which Authentic Project-Based Learning engages students and hence provides a valid assessment of students' genuine performance and proficiency during online learning in EFL communication and Intensive English courses. Using a mixedmethods design, the researchers employed the self-completion questionnaires and focus group interviews to collect their data from their 100-purposively-selected participants. The findings showed promising results in terms of engaging students in the learning process, curbing online cheating, and ensuring reliable and valid assessments of students' performance. These results are significant in providing a pedagogical approach to be adopted by EFL educators during and after the pandemic.
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies
With the rise in the spate of deaths in America and the failure of Trump in containing coronaviru... more With the rise in the spate of deaths in America and the failure of Trump in containing coronavirus pandemic, the president is losing his hopes of winning the coming presidential election. Amidst Trump’s confusion, Covid-19 becomes a pre-text in his political rhetoric in an attempt to blame China for the pandemic, raise tension between U.S. and Beijing, and regain credibility from the public. Accordingly, the research paper aims to explore how Trump’s outrageous language unveils his ideological hegemony and contributes to the spread of xenophobia towards China. A multidisciplinary qualitative analysis was adopted to analyze one of Trump’s blunt political discourse. The analysis was based on Fairclough and Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model, along with Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Model. The findings of the study are significant in raising the public’s awareness of the manipulative social function of language in enhancing racism and inequality of po...
International Journal of Advanced Research, 2019
Research skills have been identified as one of the essential 21 st century skills which undergrad... more Research skills have been identified as one of the essential 21 st century skills which undergraduates should develop due to their direct relation to the development and prosperity of an individual and of the nation as a whole. However, undergraduates tend to have a negative experience towards the scientific process of conducting a research. They perceive research tasks as boring, difficult to understand and apply as well as irrelevant to their daily life. Thus, they reach their final major year with limited experience in research writing as a result of lack of sufficient workshops or motivating activities on research writing. One way that helps in motivating undergraduates towards the research process and in developing their research skills is in creating a kinesthetic learning environment based on Station Rotation Blended Learning Model (SRLM). Hence, the following research paper aims to investigate the impact of SRLM on the attitude and research writing proficiency of 55 EFL part...
The Paris Conference on Education 2022, 2022
Globalization has removed all constrained borders and distances among countries, governments, and... more Globalization has removed all constrained borders and distances among countries,
governments, and business corporations. With this fundamental change, there has been an
increasing demand for intercultural competent communicators to secure success in the 21st
century marketplace. However, some universities in Lebanon, if not all, seem not to have IC
as a part of their curricula, or if they do, it is not emphasized. As such, students may not
become aware of the importance of developing intercultural communication skills. That’s
why the researchers aimed to (1) investigate the extent to which students in private Lebanese
universities are aware of the importance of IC, (2) whether they consider themselves as
culturally competent speakers, and (3) the strategies they follow to develop their intercultural
communicative competence (ICC). Using a mixed-methods design, the researchers surveyed
190 participants conveniently sampled from different private Lebanese universities and
conducted two focus groups of 5 participants each. The collected data was analyzed
quantitatively and qualitatively. The derived conclusions from both analyses were
triangulated. The findings revealed that the majority of the participants were aware of the
importance of ICC, more than half of the participants considered themselves intercultural
speakers, and the strategies that helped them the most in developing their ICC were
interactions with people from other cultures, different types of media, and international
friends among others. The researchers recommend more attention be given to IC in higher
education institutions and further research be conducted in the area of IC using an
intercultural communicative competence tool.
International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, 2021
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in com... more The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in communicating fear and enlisting members to the organization. Unfortunately, counter-media campaigns failed to have a lasting defeat for the organization’s social and cognitive impact on the public. Accordingly, the present qualitative study aims to explore how the use of the multiple communication modes in ISIS videos makes the organization’s ideology appealing and intimidating. The study employs Kress and van Leeuwen’s social semiotic framework as well as Fairclough’s and van Dijk’s model of critical discourse analysis for analyzing one of ISIS videos that resulted in a global outrage. The findings are significant for understanding how the terrorists’ communication strategies are embedded in their professional media techniques. A deep understanding of the ISIS technique has an impact on creating successful counter-media campaigns that persuade the public to resist any new wave of terrorism.
Many EFL undergraduates use simple and common vocabulary words in their writing as a result of th... more Many EFL undergraduates use simple and common vocabulary words in their writing as a result of their limited vocabulary repertoire and uncertainty of the use of more sophisticated word choice. Consequently, their writing is affected. [1] Hence, for the purpose of refining the EFL writing quality, an experimental study was done on 200 Lebanese undergraduates. Through the use of the online Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), the experimental group produced more medium frequency vocabulary (MFV), which are words produced by adult native speakers or fluent secondary students. [2] Consequently, the group's vocabulary and writing performance scores simultaneously increased. The results are significant in their indication for EFL teachers of a predicative lexical feature that helps in improving students' writing. Another significance is in implementing COCA corpus in the writing syllabus as a reliable lexical tool that helps expand students' sophisticated word choice and at the same time their lexical accuracy. All these features make the writing process a less challenging task.
The following paper introduces an exploratory research study conducted in a private school in Bei... more The following paper introduces an exploratory research study conducted in a private school in Beirut. The importance of this study resides in its contribution to the literature on school management and leadership. It introduces a new research problem through which the researcher discusses her speculation about the performance of private school owners in Lebanon, who are running their own school with limited education background. Out of a teaching experience in one of these schools, the researcher decided to find answers for her speculations and in the same school she used to teach. More specifically, she explored the school owner’s role and style in running his school, and the type of culture he established, through both qualitative and quantitative instruments (interview, observation, and questionnaire). Findings were triangulated and results indicated: (1)the ineffective role the school owner played except for maintaining discipline and order, (2)the ineffective autocratic style h...
International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, 2021
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in com... more The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in communicating fear and enlisting members to the organization. Unfortunately, counter-media campaigns failed to have a lasting defeat for the organization's social and cognitive impact on the public. Accordingly, the present qualitative study aims to explore how the use of the multiple communication modes in ISIS videos makes the organization's ideology appealing and intimidating. The study employs Kress and van Leeuwen's social semiotic framework as well as Fairclough's and van Dijk's model of critical discourse analysis for analyzing one of ISIS videos that resulted in a global outrage. The findings are significant for understanding how the terrorists' communication strategies are embedded in their professional media techniques. A deep understanding of the ISIS technique has an impact on creating successful counter-media campaigns that persuade the public to resist any new wave of terrorism.
International Journal of Humanities and Applied Social Science, 2021
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in com... more The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) videos have shown unprecedented professionalism in communicating fear and enlisting members to the organization. Unfortunately, counter-media campaigns failed to have a lasting defeat for the organization's social and cognitive impact on the public. Accordingly, the present qualitative study aims to explore how the use of the multiple communication modes in ISIS videos makes the organization's ideology appealing and intimidating. The study employs Kress and van Leeuwen's social semiotic framework as well as Fairclough's and van Dijk's model of critical discourse analysis for analyzing one of ISIS videos that resulted in a global outrage. The findings are significant for understanding how the terrorists' communication strategies are embedded in their professional media techniques. A deep understanding of the ISIS technique has an impact on creating successful counter-media campaigns that persuade the public to resist any new wave of terrorism.
International Journal of Business and Applied Social Science, 2021
The shift to an online learning environment during the Covid-19 outbreak has not been conducive e... more The shift to an online learning environment during the Covid-19 outbreak has not been conducive enough for either active learning or fair assessment procedures that yield valid results. Accordingly, this research paper aims to investigate the extent to which Authentic Project-Based Learning engages students and hence provides a valid assessment of students' genuine performance and proficiency during online learning in EFL communication and Intensive English courses. Using a mixedmethods design, the researchers employed the self-completion questionnaires and focus group interviews to collect their data from their 100-purposively-selected participants. The findings showed promising results in terms of engaging students in the learning process, curbing online cheating, and ensuring reliable and valid assessments of students' performance. These results are significant in providing a pedagogical approach to be adopted by EFL educators during and after the pandemic.
Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences Studies
With the rise in the spate of deaths in America and the failure of Trump in containing coronaviru... more With the rise in the spate of deaths in America and the failure of Trump in containing coronavirus pandemic, the president is losing his hopes of winning the coming presidential election. Amidst Trump’s confusion, Covid-19 becomes a pre-text in his political rhetoric in an attempt to blame China for the pandemic, raise tension between U.S. and Beijing, and regain credibility from the public. Accordingly, the research paper aims to explore how Trump’s outrageous language unveils his ideological hegemony and contributes to the spread of xenophobia towards China. A multidisciplinary qualitative analysis was adopted to analyze one of Trump’s blunt political discourse. The analysis was based on Fairclough and Van Dijk’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) model, along with Halliday’s Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) Model. The findings of the study are significant in raising the public’s awareness of the manipulative social function of language in enhancing racism and inequality of po...
International Journal of Advanced Research, 2019
Research skills have been identified as one of the essential 21 st century skills which undergrad... more Research skills have been identified as one of the essential 21 st century skills which undergraduates should develop due to their direct relation to the development and prosperity of an individual and of the nation as a whole. However, undergraduates tend to have a negative experience towards the scientific process of conducting a research. They perceive research tasks as boring, difficult to understand and apply as well as irrelevant to their daily life. Thus, they reach their final major year with limited experience in research writing as a result of lack of sufficient workshops or motivating activities on research writing. One way that helps in motivating undergraduates towards the research process and in developing their research skills is in creating a kinesthetic learning environment based on Station Rotation Blended Learning Model (SRLM). Hence, the following research paper aims to investigate the impact of SRLM on the attitude and research writing proficiency of 55 EFL part...