Thread: A "Revolution" in Arabic Studies

I stole this link from Zafirah's facebook wall: Across the Middle East, a 'Revolution' in Arabic Studies - International - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Thanks, Zafirah, for sharing it!

thanks for sharing!
I wish my courses were more a mix of colloquial and Fusha classical. I also totally agree that after 9/11 universities rushed to implement and expand their arabic programs- and alot of the teachers are not trained in the American ways of teaching- or even teaching at all! Especially foreign language teaching. Alot of our frusterations as students is due to the cultural clash that occurs b/c we're so used to one method of learning/studying/ and teaching and our teachers a totally different way. I find it very stressful. And I know in my university the Arabic program is very new and very much just getting started and wanting to grow rapidly...
Al Kitaab is definetley *the* source of teaching in most American universities- they never use anything else. My classes in the basic level always started as mainly military and politically inclined individuals, but now that I'm in the upper level it's actually mainly people who love the MidEast, or want an international relations kinda job. I'm the only belly dancer hehe.

We are using Al Kitaab but our teacher is doing a mix - fusha and colloquial so we are incredibly lucky. Al K is the oddest book but I guess you have to have some base/starting point. Any subject can be a slow hard graft but teachers that can adapt to the learning abilities of their students are truley to be treasured.

Originally Posted by *Shira*

I stole this link from Zafirah's facebook wall: Across the Middle East, a 'Revolution' in Arabic Studies - International - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Thanks, Zafirah, for sharing it!

Well, you can't "steal" knowledge when you yourself share the bulk of it with all of us, so Thank You for shira.net! ..g.:

Yes, a really fascinating article! :)

I'm not sure what "revolution" they are talking about. Arabic language instruction is not unique in the fact that they have changed their pedagogy. Every language has--and so have math and science. The average student is not interested in rote drilling and tedious assignments that require a lot of attention to detail and memorization any more. Every subject has seen a shift in the desire to be more "everyday relevant" and "fun," and less "busywork-y" in order to appeal to enrollment, particularly at the university level, where students express their interest in a field with their tuition dollars.

I do see two changes in the field of Arabic instruction:

(1) Arabic has grown from a niche language to an in-demand one. Niche languages attract basically three types of students: motivated ones with dedicated interest in the major, isolated oddballs who study it for sport, and drifters who thought they'd try it and promptly drop it after a term or two because it wasn't what they expected. It happened to Russian in the Cold War, Japanese in the 1980s, and it's happening to Chinese and Arabic now. However, unlike the more popular language majors that have large, established departments, lots of good textbooks to choose from, and an assortment of linguistic specialists for their faculties, these smaller language departments have big growing pains, and they are fighting for scraps in terms of teachers. They may not have access to native speakers who are capable of teaching the material at the university level, and there are other places (the government, private think tanks, etc.) competing for their graduate students, so the best and brightest often don't stay in academia.

(2) The overseas market for study-abroad programs is scrambling to keep up with the demand. Any language is hard to learn to fluency without immersion experience, and particularly if you are not getting the education you want during your regular term (or perhaps your college doesn't even offer Arabic), this is the way to go. However, American students who are serious enough to want to achieve fluency by studying abroad may not care to pay big bucks to have a native speaker pull the old "Insha'Allah..." routine on them when they were hoping to get a treatise on the idiomatic subtleties of verbs of motion. This is just plain old capitalism and realizing that you make more money selling what your customers want to buy. Would you call the concept of capitalism a "revolution" in the ME? I don't think it's any different than guides in Egypt fighting for tourist business. Westerners who travel abroad usually have money, and you want some of it, so you cater to their market.

I agree. I wish the teachers were more qualified- atleast that's the case in my university- and it always stinks to be the 'guinea pigs' who have to deal w/ the growing pains. As for study abroad we have offered one at my University and when the professor wanted a break, (its so much work you couldn't imagine) they basically force him to keep doing it every year. It's great that interest in Arabic language is growing, but I too notice the large 105 level courses w/ those taking it for military, political, and economic purposes- and the upper levels that have diminished to those of us that really love it for one reason or another.
I love learning Arabic! :)