Arabic as One Language

Integrating Dialect in the Arabic Language Curriculum

Mahmoud Al-Batal, Mahmoud Al-Batal

• Publisher: Georgetown University Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781626165052
• Topic: Sprachen & Linguistik
• Subtopic: Sprachen

For decades, students learning the Arabic language have begun with Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and then transitioned to learning spoken Arabic. While the MSA-first approach neither reflects the sociolinguistic reality of the language nor gives students the communicative skills required to fully function in Arabic, the field continues to debate the widespread adoption of this approach. Little research or evidence has been presented about the effectiveness of integrating dialect in the curriculum. With the recent publication of textbooks that integrate dialect in the Arabic curriculum, however, a more systematic analysis of such integration is clearly becoming necessary.

In this seminal volume, Mahmoud Al-Batal gathers key scholars who have implemented integration to present data and research on the method's success. The studies address curricular models, students' outcomes, and attitudes of students and teachers using integration in their curricula. This volume is an essential resource for all teachers of Arabic language and those working in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL).

PART 1

Dialect Integration

A New Frontier for Arabic

1

Dialect Integration in the Arabic Foreign Language Curriculum

Vision, Rationale, and Models

MAHMOUD AL-BATAL

The American University of Beirut

THE QUESTION of how to approach the sociolinguistic situation in Arabic pedagogically and how to handle the complex reality of Standard Arabic and the dialects in teaching Arabic as a foreign/second language poses an existential question that has occupied Arabic teachers and curriculum developers for a long time. This question was one pondered by Cornelius Van Dyck, an American missionary and translator of the Bible into Arabic who lived in Lebanon and wrote in an essay in 1892:¹ “Beginners often ask, ‘shall I learn the classic or the vulgar Arabic first?’ The proper reply to this question is, ‘learn both together.’ Get your phrases in the common dialect so as to be able to use them without appearing pedantic, but learn the correct, classical expression at the same time, if there be a difference” (Van Dyck 1892, 3).

Van Dyck’s words resonate today as the field of Arabic continues to face the complex and constantly evolving sociolinguistic realities of Arabic in the curriculum and the classroom. Over the past thirty years, teachers of Arabic in the United States have offered a variety of models for the “Arabic” they want to present to their students and the relationship they want to project between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the multiple dialects spoken throughout the Arab countries (see Al-Batal 1992; Alosh 1991, 1997; Nicola 1990; Palmer 2007; Parkinson 1985; Ryding 1991; Wilmsen 2006; Younes 2015). While some Arabic programs have decided to incorporate the teaching of the dialect with MSA within the same course, most programs have opted for an approach that focuses on MSA primarily or exclusively. In such programs, exposure to an Arabic dialect takes place outside these MSA courses either in separate courses offered at the higher levels of instruction or at overseas programs.

However, while exclusive privileging of MSA continues to dominate the Arabic teaching profession in the United States, integration of a dialect alongside MSA in the Arabic curriculum has gained significant momentum in the past twenty years as more programs are making a concerted effort to create a niche for dialect in the Arabic curriculum. A multitude of factors have brought about this change (which we discuss later in this chapter), which is contributing to new curricular approaches and practices that are reflected throughout the various chapters of the present volume. Integration is a complex issue because of the ideological and cultural issues underlying it and because of the questions about authenticity of communication that would be raised if it were left out. Despite these challenges, however, debate in the field seems to be shifting from whether dialect integration should at all be carried out within the Arabic curriculum to how it can best be implemented in a manner consistent with communicative demands and learners’ needs.

The present volume situates itself within this new debate, offering a range of perspectives on how to integrate. This chapter frames the various perspectives on integration presented throughout this volume in three parts. The first part discusses the MSA–dialect separation vision that has dominated the field and proposes an alternate vision of “Arabic as One,” on which the concept of integration is based. The second part presents arguments in support of this vision, and the third part provides a description of six models of integration that are currently applied within educational institutions in the United States and that are consistent with the “Arabic as one” vision.

A Tale of Two Visions

The teaching of Arabic in the United States has evolved in tandem with many developments, among them foreign policy concerns, developments in foreign language education, methods of teaching Arabic in the Arab world, and challenges of teaching languages with widely varying dialects. These forces have shaped the visions that drive many of the curricular decisions made within Arabic programs across the United States. The predominant vision in the twentieth century has been one of a “firewall of separation.” Only recently has an alternative vision—that of “Arabic as One”—emerged.

The Firewall of Separation Vision

In most K–12 and college-level programs in the United States, “Arabic” refers solely to MSA, as reflected in course titles (e.g., Elementary MSA, Intermediate MSA). Whether or not it is the intention of the program administrators, such titles serve to signal a rigid separation between MSA and the dialects in these programs. This separation is based on a polarized, bidimensional model that draws its rationale from the diglossia theory (articulated by Ferguson 1959) and its portrayal of formal Arabic (MSA in this case) as a “high” variety of Arabic compared to the “low” variety represented by the dialects. This model also draws its rationale from the widely held view in the Arab world that al-fuṣḥā (MSA) is the superior form of Arabic and that it alone should be an object of study. This view is anchored in the belief among many native speakers of Arabic that the dialect is the vulgar language of the street and that it has no connection to literary or cultured expression (Maktabī 1991). It is also shaped by the belief that calls to promote the dialects in education have emanated from imperialist and orientalist schemes aimed at distancing Arabs from each other and from their heritage (Sa

īd 1963; Al-Ḍāmin 1986). The past few years have seen a rise in the number of conferences, programs, and articles across the Arabic-speaking world whose stated goal is to defend Arabic (meaning al-fuṣḥā) and protect it from two prominent dangers it faces: foreign languages and the dialects (Muḥammad 2007; Al-Banna 2011; Ḥiwār al-

Arab 2013). The separation view is also shaped by the perception that the Arabic dialects are, to a greater or lesser degree, mutually incomprehensible (Maktabī 1991). Al-fuṣḥā, according to this view, is what unites the Arabs politically and culturally and makes it possible for them to communicate. Thus, it should be the sole focus of any teaching and learning of Arabic within the Arab world or without.

This vision of Arabic has long dominated both the philosophy and practices of the vast majority of Arabic programs worldwide and created a pedagogical “firewall” whose aim is to keep al-fuṣḥā and the dialects separated, as illustrated in figure 1.1.

According to this vision and the practices connected to it, the dialect is entirely kept out of the classroom, and teachers speak always in MSA and use materials that are exclusively in MSA. Munther Younes (2015) provides a detailed discussion of the reasons why programs opt to focus exclusively on MSA and refuse to integrate any dialect elements in the Arabic classroom. Such reasons include the fear of causing confusion among students and the lack of consensus in the field on which Arabic dialect to teach alongside MSA. A common argument that is made by teachers who hold such views is that instruction should focus on MSA while the students are in the United States. If students travel to an Arabic-speaking country, then they can learn the dialect of that country. In this view, teachers avoid causing their students confusion and at the same time avoid making a choice for which dialect to teach. Most importantly, they keep their students’ Arabic “free and clear” of any possible dialect influence.

Figure 1.1 Firewall separation vision of Arabic

This firewall vision of Arabic is problematic on many fronts. The separation it creates is artificial and stands in sharp contrast with the linguistic reality across the Arab world, where MSA and the dialects coexist harmoniously and interact and intersect constantly in a wide variety of spheres. To deprive students of the knowledge of Arabic dialect is to deprive them of the chance to learn how to communicate naturally with the majority of Arabic speakers who do not feel comfortable interacting in al-fuṣḥā. Moreover, it limits students’ ability to learn about many social aspects of Arab cultures. In addition, the proficiency model it claims to represent for the speaking skill is faulty, as explained by Peter Heath (1990). The way in which Arabic dialects are currently isolated from MSA in the Arabic curriculum serves to reinforce the perception that they are different languages and grossly distorts the reality in which the dialects are integrated with MSA in the lives of Arabic speakers everywhere.

The “Arabic as One” Vision

In contrast to the firewall separation vision of Arabic, we propose here an alternative vision based on the belief that varieties of Arabic do not re...