Teaching and Learning Arabic as a Foreign Language

A Guide for Teachers

Karin C. Ryding

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781589016606
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Languages
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This guide clearly and succinctly presents the basic tenets of teaching foreign languages specifically for Arabic teachers. Consolidating findings from second language acquisition (SLA) research and applied linguistics, it covers designing curricula, theory and methods, goals, testing, and research, and intersperses practical information with background literature in order to help teachers improve their teaching of Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL).

Karin C. Ryding, a well-regarded scholar of Arabic linguistics and former president of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic, frames the discussion with SLA literature and suggests practical and effective ways of helping students learn. Ryding discusses issues at the core of Arabic teaching effectiveness and the achievement of communicative competence, such as the teaching of pronunciation, speaking, reading, listening, and writing; teaching mixed-level classes; creative classroom organization; corrective feedback; and use of activities and exercises, with plenty of examples from Arabic and tips for teachers. She also covers materials development and proficiency testing, providing study questions and recommended readings for each chapter.

This guide, which can be used as a textbook, is the first of its kind aimed specifically at TAFL, and should be of interest to Arabic instructors-in-training, academics, graduate students, linguists, department chairs, language coordinators, and teacher trainers. It also serves as a resource for teachers of other less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), who struggle with similar issues.

Part I
Fundamentals of Foreign Language Pedagogy

CHAPTER 1
Some Pedagogical Principles

The acquisition of another language is not an act of disembodied cognition, but is the situated, spatially and temporally anchored, co-construction of meaning between teachers and learners who each carry with them their own history of experience with language and communication.

Claire Kramsch

Language learning is developmental, requiring repeated exposure to target language data in multiple ways and from multiple angles, as well as deliberate practice. This chapter outlines some general principles that apply to language teaching and to Arabic teaching in particular. These principles are provided both for use as a springboard for discussing related topics and as fundamental concepts that one can return to over and over again in one’s teaching. That is, they apply widely to teaching situations, be they with beginners or advanced learners. They center on the relationships between teacher and learners, on what Kramsch calls the “co-construction of meaning between teachers and learners,” and how learning and teaching at every step co-determine each other and enrich our experience.

Making Pedagogical Decisions

At almost every turn, an Arabic teacher is faced with crucial professional and procedural choices. If you are a native speaker of Arabic, how do you understand the perspectives and problems of nonnative-speaking learners? Where do you start? How do you connect with everyone in the class? For a nonnative speaker, you have to assure your students that you know Arabic well and that you know what you are doing in the classroom. How can you do this effectively and build their trust from day one forward? Does one speak Arabic all the time in the classroom? If so, what kind of Arabic should be used—colloquial, literary, or something in between? How will meaning get across? Can English be used at all? If so, when, how, and what for? Is there a dependable formula for this? How can errors be corrected without discouraging learners? How much homework should be assigned? How, how often, and when should I test students?

Where Does One Start?

With so many choices, concerns, and limited selection of materials, where does one start? For this chapter, ten basic principles have been selected for examination as a way of beginning a professional discussion of Arabic language instruction. Most of them are what is termed “high-leverage practices,” in that they “increase the likelihood that teaching will be effective” (Teachingworks 2012). These are certainly not the only principles that exist for Arabic language teaching but they are based on research, learning theory, and my own practical experience as a teacher and trainer. These principles and topics often surface as issues in teacher evaluation, in methodology courses, and in Arabic teacher training.

Ten Basic Principles for Discussing How to Teach Arabic

1. Have high expectations of students and build their confidence.

2. The textbook is not the whole course.

3. Speak Arabic as much as possible in the classroom.

4. Keep it lively and interesting.

5. Provide learners with extensive deliberate practice, especially on “the hard parts.”

6. Front the familiar; use what students already know as a springboard.

7. Assign written homework regularly.

8. Prepare a range of specific learning activities before every class.

9. Keep a file of teaching resources.

10. Build in time for regular, consistent review.

1. Have High Expectations of Your Students and Build Their Confidence.

Most teachers hold the door to Arabic language wide open and help their students through it; some hold it only a little bit open and tell their students that it is going to be difficult or impossible for them to get through it. Students often fulfill the prophesies of their instructors. A teacher’s attitude is an essential factor in the success or failure of Arabic language acquisition, and bolstering student confidence is key to their progress. In fact, one of the central factors in good learning experiences is high expectations on the part of the teacher.

This seems like a very straightforward concept, but it is complicated by certain attitudes on the part of both instructors and learners. Here are some common negative attitudes or misconceptions that have been expressed by teachers of Arabic:

• American students will have major difficulties learning Arabic.

• Difficulties in pronunciation are too great for American students to master, so there is no point in requiring accurate pronunciation.

• The system of Arabic noun plurals is so complex that it should be delayed in presentation.

• Arabic grammar is extremely difficult and should not be directly taught or explained because it will discourage and confuse learners. And conversely, Arabic grammar is so difficult that it needs extensive and repeated explanation.

• Students do not need to write Arabic script accurately; it is too demanding to expect them to write fast and clearly. Handwriting must be taught very slowly, if at all.

All of these attitudes reflect profound underestimation of the capabilities of English-speaking students. Some of these misconceptions can severely undermine learner confidence and delay or discourage effective learning. Teachers are a guide and an inspiration as well as a source of information for the learners. Arabic is a complex language and yes, it demands a great deal of study and practice, but it is definitely possible for learners to make substantial and rapid progress as long as they believe they can, and as long as the teacher upholds that belief. As a general rule, it is better to overestimate students’ capabilities as long as one periodically checks with them to make sure they are not feeling overwhelmed.

Another aspect to developing student confidence is to show them that you are well prepared and qualified to bring them along to high levels of performance. On the first day of class, you should briefly introduce yourself and talk about your professional background, including where you have taught, how long you have taught, your experience abroad, and your professional credentials. This is not showing off, rather, it is informing your class that you have deep experience and you know what you are doing. It should not take more than five minutes, but it is a very important step in presenting yourself as a professional. This is especially true if you are a nonnative speaker, a new teacher, or a graduate student (or all three).

2. The Textbook Is Not the Whole Course.

The course consists of all the learning activities, assignments, events, and tests that are planned and practiced both inside the classroom and out. The textbook may provide a sequence of lessons to follow, but it is often the case that texts require supplementation with other, more specific exercises and tasks that are devised by you to fill gaps or to reinforce particular points.

Moreover, a course period should not consist solely of working on textbook material. At some point in every class the instructor should tell the students to close their books and lead them into new and different language work that is not textbook-based. It can be dictation, working with pictures, rapid oral quiz, small group work, a learning game, sending them to the chalkboard, work with realia, working with specific sets of items such as numbers or colors, or a special task. The point is to create a different pace, a different perspective, alertness, and greater interaction among the learners as they use the language for specific purposes. This means that for every class, the instructor should prepare one or two learning activities that do not require textbook use. These activities should be based on what the students have already been exposed to, extend and stretch their language abilities, and reinforce their knowledge base.

3. Speak Arabic as Much as Possible.

Communicative language teaching involves and requires oral performance on the part of learners, and this is built from the beginning by the use of spoken Arabic as much as possible in the classroom. Some teachers believe in speaking Arabic 100 percent of the time even from the very first day. Others use oral Arabic much less. I believe in being pragmatic about Arabic language use; the key point being to get one’s meaning across without using up too much class time and without mystifying the students. There are ways to communicate that use language plus gestures, pictures, drawing on the board, and even writing an English equivalent on the board if necessary. If a grammar point requires brief explanation in English, then use English, but limit it.

As a general rule, at least 75 percent of classroom language use, even from day one, can be in Arabic. This means that you must prepare students for the uses of classroom language by introducing them to predictable use items such as functional phrases, numbers, and normal classroom expressions so that most classroom communication can easily be done in Arabic and communicative skills are built up rapidly. Key factors in using the target language include calibrating classroom language to the level of the learners, stretching learners’ understanding but not frustrating it (in keeping with Krashen’s principle of i + 1), keeping language practical, and testing learners regularly to make sure they have grasped and understood the Arabic used in the classroom.

4. Keep It Lively and Interesting.

This principle goes along with principle number 2, “the textbook is not the whole course.” One of the most important factors in foreign language acquisition is learner attention. In any class, attention can wander or fade, but in a foreign language class it is particularly important for learners to be alert and attend to what is being said and done, especially since performance is required on the part of everyone. Activities that involve vivid or memorable language experiences are easier to recall; shifting of pace re-alerts students to new information and to new uses of language.

This element of pacing requires that you have planned out almost every minute of the class ahead of time and that you have at least one or two activities that are not textbook-based that will serve to enrich the learning situation. It is always better to be over prepared than to run into a block of time where there is little to do. The teacher thus choreographs the entire class session, whether it is 50 minutes, 60 minutes, 75 minutes, or longer. In order to do such careful choreography, it is essential that you keep a resource file of activity types and add consistently to that file. Some teachers keep track of successful and unsuccessful exercises by recording immediately after class notes about what worked and what didn’t, as well as any ideas that occurred to them during the activities. The notes can be placed in the textbook, in a file, or anywhere where they are easily accessible when needed. As your teaching experience increases and your resource file grows, you will be able to spend less time on activity development and more time thinking creatively about improving the learning experience in different ways.

5. Provide Learners with Extensive Deliberate Practice.

Speaking, writing, reading, and listening are the four core modalities of foreign language function that need to be attended to in communicative classrooms. For each of these modalities, practice is a key path to competence, and the concept of “deliberate practice” is one that works well for language learning.¹ Sustained engagement with a disciplined activity facilitates learning and performance, something well known to musicians and dancers, for example. Because language acquisition requires performance, the better prepared and rehearsed learners are, the more easily and fluently they can use language with attention to meaning. In addition to general practice and review, it can be useful to focus on what educator David Perkins calls “the hard parts” (2009, 79).² Structures, usage, pronunciation, and vocabulary words that students are unsure of or find difficult are sometimes glossed over, but in order to provide a chance for improvement, these structures need to be singled out and practiced on their own. Then they must be reintegrated into the learners’ interlanguage where they fit naturally and where they form part of a continuous whole.

Practice in this context does not consist of mindless repetitive drilling, but refers to a range of carefully thought-out language exercises that involve language use in many different ways.³ They may be exercises borrowed directly from another textbook or modified by the teacher, exercises designed by the teacher, or exercises that involve creative design by the students. I strongly advise Arabic teachers to consult textbooks other than the ones being used for a particular course in order to examine and evaluate a range of different activities that can elaborate and enrich the learning experience. For example, even if you are teaching MSA, textbooks on spoken Arabic vernaculars can provide models of speaking activities that can be adapted for use in the MSA classroom.⁴

6. Front the Familiar; Use What Learners Know.

Many learners confront Arabic with a sense of bewilderment at the vast vocabulary and grammar that they will be expected to assimilate, as well as an unfamiliar culture, and this challenge can block or undermine their progress, especially at the start of language study. Even the most common classroom items have names and plurals that are hard to remember (kitāb/kutub book/books; daftar/dafātir notebook/notebooks).

One successful and proven practice for launching language skills for new learners of Arabic is “fronting the familiar” (FTF), that is, using vocabulary and concepts that are already familiar to the students so that they have less of a “learning burden” at the start, can readily comprehend, and can more easily express themselves. FTF is a principle for accelerating familiarity with Arabic pronunciation, vocabulary, and structure, and for encouraging transparency in communication at the earliest points in the learning experience.⁵

For example, one way to focus student attention on correct pronunciation as well as to build their vocabulary at early stages of study is to introduce the Arabic names of countries, land forms, and persons that they may already know or have heard about, such as the Red Sea, Qatar, the Nile, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, Tunisia. Most of these Arabic names have closely related equivalents in English, so the mean...