Soliman, R orcid.org/0000-0001-6056-0892 and Khalil, S (2022) The teaching of Arabic as a community language in the UK. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. ISSN 1367-0050
Abstract
This paper provides an overview of UK Arabic language teaching in supplementary and mainstream schools from available research papers and provides a synopsis of recent developments in supporting Arabic teaching at school level and pathways to Higher Education. The largest study cited is the 2016 research collaboration between the British Council, the Universities of Leeds, Edinburgh, Goldsmiths, and London, and Alcantara Communications [Snowden et al. (2016. Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language in the UK – Strand 1 Research: How Arabic is Being Taught in Schools. London: British Council)], exploring current teaching techniques, teachers’ perceptions of diglossia and variation in Arabic, and these are incorporated when designing teaching activities and materials. With surveys, interviews and lesson observations, Snowden et al. show teachers believe in the importance of communication as a learning aim and are familiar with the communicative approach but many base learning activities on traditional writing tasks and less on listening and speaking. It shows that Arabic diglossia remains a challenge with teachers stating that learning dialects is important, yet they struggle to find appropriate approaches and materials for it. This paper presents challenges faced by Arabic teachers including foundational teacher training, continuous professional development and material design, concluding with recent developments in supporting teaching Arabic as a community language and recommendations for addressing current challenges.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
Keywords: | Arabic; teaching Arabic as a foreign language; community language learning |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > Arabic & Middle Eastern Studies (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 05 Jul 2022 11:40 |
Last Modified: | 05 Jul 2022 11:40 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Routledge |
Identification Number: | 10.1080/13670050.2022.2063686 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:188357 |