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<P>Here is a query for all you teachers of foreign language:</P>
<P>My Arabic tutor is a graduate student in the American University in Cairo
Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language program.</P>
<P>She wants to do her MA thesis on the relationship of language ideology to
pedagogical style. That is, she is assuming that people’s understandings
about Arabic affect (or at least may predict) the speed and quality of their
learning of Arabic.</P>
<P>Her thesis advisor is apparently not sure that this is a legitimate project,
nor that it will reveal anything worthwhile. Nonetheless, her own experiences
teaching Arabic to foreigners in England, the US and Egypt, and to members of
the Arab diaspora in England and the US for whom Arabic is a second language,
have convinced her that language ideology frames practices of pedagogy.</P>
<P>I may end up as outside reader on her thesis committee, even though this is a
bit outside my expertise, if only to try to convince other members that the
concept is plausible. At any rate, I am looking for two things:</P>
<OL>
<LI>literature on this subject, that is, the relation of language ideology
to pedagogy; and</LI>
<LI>teachers of Arabic anywhere in the world who would be willing to
administer a short survey of attitudes to their students as part of such a
project.</LI></OL>
<P>Any suggestions or recommendations as to how to measure language ideology in
an appropriate way toward this end or other advice appreciated. My expertise
(such as it is) is in semiotics and the ethnography of communication and
although I’ve done a bit of work with language ideology (in India)
I’m feeling a bit out of my depth here.</P>
<P> </P></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>Mark Allen Peterson<BR>Asst. Professor of
Anthropology<BR>The American University in Cairo<BR>PO Box 2511, Cairo 11511
EGYPT<BR><A
href="mailto:peterson@aucegypt.edu">peterson@aucegypt.edu</A></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT color=#000000 size=2>"Laughter overcomes fear, for it knows no
inhibitions, no limitations. Its idiom is never used by violence and
authority."<BR> --
Mikhail Bakhtin</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>