Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century, Volume II

Kassem M. Wahba, Liz England, Zeinab A. Taha, Kassem M. Wahba, Liz England, Zeinab A. Taha

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138934764
• eBook ISBN: 9781317384199
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Drawing on the collective expertise of language scholars and educators in a variety of subdisciplines, the Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century, Volume II, provides a comprehensive treatment of teaching and research in Arabic as a second and foreign language worldwide. Keeping a balance among theory, research and practice, the content is organized around

12 themes:

• Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic
• Social, Political and Educational Contexts of Arabic Language Teaching and Learning
• Identifying Core Issues in Practice
• Language Variation, Communicative Competence and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning
• Arabic Programs: Goals, Design and Curriculum
• Teaching and Learning Approaches: Content-Based Instruction and Curriculum
• Arabic Teaching and Learning: Classroom Language Materials and Language Corpora
• Assessment, Testing and Evaluation
• Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components
• Teacher Education and Professional Development
• Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning
• Future Directions

The field faces new challenges since the publication of Volume I, including increasing and diverse demands, motives and needs for learning Arabic across various contexts of use; a need for accountability and academic research given the growing recognition of the complexity and diverse contexts of teaching Arabic; and an increasing shortage of and need for quality of instruction. Volume II addresses these challenges. It is designed to generate a dialogue—continued from Volume I—among professionals in the field leading to improved practice, and to facilitate interactions, not only among individuals but also among educational institutions within a single country and across different countries.

Theme 1

Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic

1

Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic

Kassem M. Wahba, Liz England and Zeinab A. Taha

Introduction

Welcome to the second volume of Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century. Following the publication of the first volume (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2006), the second volume provides readers with a volume reflecting the extraordinary and wide range of work completed in the intervening ten years. Few academic and scholarly disciplines have seen the rapid development or the large number of publications (books, chapters in other volumes and refereed journal articles) as has the field of teaching Arabic to speakers of other languages.

With those publications have also come doctoral dissertations, innovative use of technology and a new and intensified level of energy and interest in teaching Arabic (Abedalla, 2015; Al-Mohsen, 2016; El Omari, 2014; Hammami and Ismail, 2014; Tamimi, 2014, Zouhir, 2010).

This volume offers readers a clearly focused description of current thinking on the topic of learning and teaching of Arabic—not only in programs in Arabic-speaking countries and in the United States—but worldwide. Though the work on which we report in the current volume reflects current research, theory and practice, the future is open for more work, confirmatory research and a longer list of innovations in Arabic language teaching and learning as we move forward.

Selection of Trends in the Current Volume

Multiple trends are currently in place and have been identified by scholars in the teaching and learning of Arabic; see for example Ryding, 2013, and Zahirul haque, 2016. This book addresses many of those and sets the stage for addressing those (and others) in the future. Although some trends are addressed elsewhere, those addressed in this volume have been identified by both established scholars and graduate students in the field of Arabic language and literature, applied linguistics and education.

In both editions, it has been the intention of the editors to create a collection of scholarly work to inform excellence in Arabic language teaching and learning. Drawing on the words of Roger Allen (Foreword), the current, and second, volume of Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Profession in the 21st Century is evidence for “an environment for research on multiple aspects of both language teaching and learning.” Indeed, this “environment” has expanded and has changed in the past ten years since the publication of the first volume; and the results are significant. Those significant results are reported in the current volume.

As in the teaching and learning of any language, there are trends that identify and separate Arabic language teaching from other languages. “Trends” are defined as “general directions in which Arabic language teaching is developing or changing.”

We believe that there are two qualities that describe trends in Arabic language teaching: a) higher levels of professionalism and b) a wider range of research, better practice and more innovation in the field.

Higher Levels of Professionalism

What separates a profession from a hobby or a job? Arabic language teaching has evolved (and will continue to do so) as a profession requiring academic course work and degrees, experience and habits. Professionals engage in teaching, research and service (service to the profession as well as to the community: local, regional, national and international).

All of the editors and authors of chapters in the current volume are professionals. The days are gone when a teacher might expect to be hired on the strength of his/her native language competence or experience. Professional Arabic teachers join colleagues in other languages to deliver instruction on the basis of skills, knowledge and habits that have been recognized by their students, colleagues and superiors. A cursory look at job postings shows increasing demands for highly qualified teachers of Arabic.

Written standards of curriculum and instruction are required for Arabic program recognition and national and/or international accreditation. These high standards are applied not only in universities and postgraduate programs, but also in schools where children and young adults are taught Arabic language skills. And finally, teacher education programs continue to evolve in the strength of their requirements for completion and graduation (see Theme 10 in this volume: Teacher Education and Professional Development).

A main issue that requires attention in Arabic language instruction is accountability. With the growing interest in learning Arabic in recent years and the establishment of many Arabic programs, there is an urgent need for accountability. All stakeholders have interest in the way we use their time and their money to help them to build communicative competence in Arabic. Those stakeholders include, but are not limited to, these groups: students, parents, institutions, programs and sponsors. In the teaching of languages, Michael Long puts it this way: are we engaged in “an optimal use of time and money?” (2009: 3).

Claiming effectiveness of language instruction requires proof on the part of language programs at all levels: schools, colleges, universities and language centers (both public and private). Today, stakeholders no longer accept whatever is offered in Arabic language teaching. Parents and students alike demand more choices now. Effectiveness in instruction includes programs in and outside the Arabic-speaking world. These issues are addressed throughout the current volume and in the section on assessment, in particular Theme 8.

In summary, excellent Arabic programs are no longer the “turf” of the United States and established programs in Arabic-speaking countries. The trend is toward the development of more high-quality programs in more countries (both native Arabic-speaking and nonnative Arabic-speaking countries) worldwide (see Theme 5 in this volume: Arabic Programs: Goals, Design and Curriculum).

A Wide Range of Research

Perhaps the most significant trend in Arabic language teaching and learning is the expansion of published research in peer-reviewed journals on the intricacies of Arabic language teaching and learning. In the intervening years since the publication of the first volume of the Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century, doctoral dissertations have increased in number. And master’s theses, long required for the acquisition of the Master’s in Teaching Arabic, have improved dramatically in their quality, diversity of topics and revision for publication in refereed journals. There is no doubt that the range of research on Arabic language teaching and learning is an established trend and will continue into the next decades.

Topics addressed in research will include many, among which are the following critical issues for Arabic language teaching professionals: curriculum (language focus, scope and sequence of skills, level issues); materials—books, digital materials (audio and video); assessment; and teacher education.

Better Practice

At the end of the day, the goal for all Arabic language teaching professionals and researchers is to improve instruction for learners, regardless of those learners’ age, proficiency level, context of learning or native language (see Theme 2: Social, Political and Educational Contexts of Arabic Language Teaching and Learning for more discussion). How do we create classrooms where students a) are engaged and motivated—“self-efficacy” is a growing area of interest in this regard and addresses the critical intersection of teaching and learning (see Theme III: Identifying Core Issues in Practice)—b) are progressing toward their language goals; and c) enjoy their experience learning Arabic. For teachers, the trends will continue to be focused squarely on addressing the delivery of effective teaching—in the classroom instructional context, creating lesson plans and activities that lead students toward success and managing classroom learning for measurable results. Research will continue on Arabic language learning: how do learners best acquire the skills and knowledge they need to be able to use Arabic for their purposes? (See Theme 9: Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components in this volume.)

Innovation

Innovation in Arabic language teaching includes the effective use of technology in instruction. In addition, Arabic language teaching professionals will continue to develop judgment in their application of technology and teaching skills in using technology (see Theme 11: Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning in this volume). However, innovation is not only about technology use in Arabic language teaching. Innovation trends for the future will also include ways of using learning spaces (classrooms and other spaces—even virtual spaces), ways of engaging learners in materials adaptation and use, and efforts to expand testing to allow for better and more accurate and authentic “samples of linguistic behavior” in Arabic language tests (see Theme 8: Assessment, Testing and Evaluation in this volume).

Curriculum innovation is another trend for the future of Arabic language teaching. Gone are the administrative-centric days of dividing students into groups based upon arbitrary levels of proficiency and language skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing; and what about “grammaring” and “vocabularying”?) (see Theme 9: Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components for more discussion).

Drawing on research in other languages, it has become clear that integration of language skills can be an innovative way to provide learners with instruction drawing more directly on research on second language acquisition (see Theme III: Identifying Core Issues in Practice): students are taught not in a way that may be logistically easier for administration but rather, they are taught in a way that draws on their natural and learned skills at acquiring that language. Drawing on actual research can provide teachers with better ways of delivering instruction and managing learning than those that might be more expeditious for administrators (see Theme 11: Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning). Other innovative approaches to curriculum might include: Arabic for specific purposes and needs-based instruction, or online instruction and use of digital (audio and/or video) and student-prepared materials (see Theme 6: Teaching and Learning Approaches: Content-Based Instruction and Curriculum).

What is intercultural competence? How do we teach it? How do we test this component of communicative competence? We have done a better job at teaching and testing grammatical skills and a fairly good job with sociolinguistic competence as well as pragmatic and discourse level skills. Intercultural competence is a complex issue and one requiring innovation in curriculum and research design, materials, testing and teacher education (see Theme 4: Communicative Competence, Language Variation and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning).

Finally, and perhaps most relevant of all to the publication of this volume: innovation in teacher education will continue to be an area of concern. How do we prepare teachers—in teacher education programs today—for the world of Arabic language teaching in the future—when teachers in these preparation programs will actually be entering the world of Arabic language programs? A crystal ball is not an innovation; but a sound graduate teacher education program offers teachers skills they can use, adapt and apply to programs where they seek employment in the future.

There are dozens of trends at play in the teaching and learning of Arabic today; those will continue in the future. And others will come along. In this volume, we strive to set the stage and provide information and perspective on a variety of what we (editors) consider significant trends. We do not claim to address all trends in teaching and learning Arabic language. We do, however, intend to open the way for future research in areas that we see to be very likely topics for ongoing, confirmatory and other future research.

The Arabic language is characterized by stability and variability: written versus spoken. The written language is always perceived as a stable connector that links the Arab world together at present and with the past. The spoken variety is perceived as variable not only from one regional variety to another, but also across each regional area. The issue of variability and stability of Arabic is researched through examining the modern written standard Arabic and its impacts on Arabic language instruction (see Theme 4: Communicative Competence, Language Variation and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning for more discussion).

Bridging the gap between second language acquisition research and classroom practice in Arabic language instruction is fertile land for examination and research. It is time for many ideas acquired through experience in Arabic language instruction to be reconsidered and operationalized for research.

In this chapter, we have addressed what we consider trends that may be of value to our readers. Beginning with the rationale we used to select the trends we see to be significant now (and likely for many decades to come), we then identify four trends: higher levels of professionalism, a wide range of research, better practice and innovation in Arabic language teaching and learning. We look forward to witnessing how the future continues to unfold for Arabic language teaching.

A Brief Overview of the Current Volume

This book is organized into twelve themes dealing with various aspects of Arabic language instruction in terms of learning and teaching: Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic; Social, Political and Educational Contexts of Arabic Language Teaching and Learning; Identifying Core Issues in Practice; Communicative Competence, Language Variation and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning; Arabic Programs: Goals, Design and Curriculum; Teaching and Learning Approaches: Content-Based Instruction and Curriculum; Arabic Teaching and Learning: Classroom, Language Materials and Language Corpora; Assessment, Testing and Evaluation; Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components; Teacher Education and Professional Development; Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning; and Future Directions. Each theme is composed of a chapter or chapters focusing on specific topics.

Kassem Wahba, Liz England and Zeinab Taha

July 20, 2016

Bibliography

Abedalla, R. W. (2015). Students’ perceptions of the use of mobile applications technology in learning Arabic as a second language. Robert Morris University, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 3701933.

Al-Mohsen, A. (2016). Arabic teachers’ perception of an integrated approach for teaching Arabic as a foreign language in colleges and universities in the United States. University of San Francisco, ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 10137888.

El Omari, S. (2014). The impact of computer assisted language learning adhering to the national standards for foreign language learning: A focus on modern standard Arabic at the university level. University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Pr...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Theme 1 Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic
• Theme 2 Social, Political and Educational Contexts of Arabic Language Teaching and Learning
• Theme 3 Identifying Core Issues in Practice
• Theme 4 Language Variation, Communicative Competence and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning
• Theme 5 Arabic Programs: Goals, Design and Curriculum
• Theme 6 Teaching and Learning Approaches: Content-Based Instruction and Curriculum
• Theme 7 Arabic Teaching and Learning: Classroom Language Materials and Language Corpora
• Theme 8 Assessment, Testing and Evaluation
• Theme 9 Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components
• Theme 10 Teacher Education and Professional Development
• Theme 11 Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning
• Theme 12 Future Directions
• List of Contributors
• Index