26.5529, Review: Applied Ling; Socioling: Younes (2014)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-26-5529. Mon Dec 14 2015. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 26.5529, Review: Applied Ling; Socioling: Younes (2014)

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Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2015 09:54:54
From: Mahmoud Azaz [mazaz at email.arizona.edu]
Subject: The Integrated Approach to Arabic Instruction

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/25/25-4025.html

AUTHOR: Munther  Younes
TITLE: The Integrated Approach to Arabic Instruction
PUBLISHER: Routledge (Taylor and Francis)
YEAR: 2014

REVIEWER: Mahmoud Azaz, University of Arizona

Reviews Editor: Sara Couture

SUMMARY

In “The Integrated Approach to Arabic Instruction”, Younes offers his
groundbreaking approach to Arabic instruction that he has been developing
since 1990. He argues that the Integrated Approach (IA) is the most effective,
logical, and economical method of instruction that best teaches the
complexities of the Arabic sociolinguistic and diglossic situation (Ferguson,
1959) in Arabic classrooms. Before he offers the rationale and features of the
IA to teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL), Younes concisely overviews
the current Arabic sociolinguistic situation and the debates around it, as
well as the changing needs and goals of AFL learners. Younes concludes by
discussing and responding to the objections to his proposed approach. The
book, being pedagogical in nature, is intended for teachers of Arabic as well
as those researching AFL pedagogical theory. The book consists of an
introduction that presents the structure of the book, five chapters, and a
conclusion.         

Chapter I, entitled “The Arabic Sociolinguistic Situation”, offers a general
overview of the complexities of Arabic diglossic situation, which attracted a
number of controversies and arguments. Special focus is given to Ferguson’s
(1959) seminal diglossia paper (1959), which established a dichotomy between
two varieties of Arabic: the High variety (Standard or Fuṣḥā) and the Low
variety (dialect or ʕāmiyya). The chapter overviews six areas that Ferguson
outlined to discuss those two varieties: function, prestige, literary
heritage, acquisition, standardization, grammar, and stability. Also, Younes
surveys two types of models – multi-layered or three-level – that challenged
Ferguson’s dichotomy. The three multi-layered models surveyed are (i) Blanc’s
(1960) five-level model (plain colloquial, koineized colloquial,
semi-literary, modified classical, and standards classical); (ii) Badwa’s
(1973) five-level model (Fuṣḥā of the heritage, contemporary Fuṣḥā, ʕāmiyya of
the cultured/educated, vernacular of the enlightened, and vernacular of the
illiterate); and (iii) Meiseles’ (1980) four-level model (literary Arabic,
substandard Arabic, educated spoken Arabic, and plain vernacular). The five
three-level models overviewed are Cadora (1965), Bishai (1966), Haddad (1985),
Ibrahim (1986), and Ryding (1991). The author argues the latter group shares
the same premise: in between the High variety and the Low variety exists a
middle variety that shares features of both. The remainder of this chapter
summarizes other aspects of the Arabic language situation that include
inter-dialectal intelligibility, and the differences between Arabic and the
German diglossic setting; unlike Standard German, Standard Arabic is not
spoken.      

Chapter II, entitled “Changing Student Goals”, provides a historical
development of the changing needs of studying AFL. It has three main parts:
Part I surveys the early days of learning Arabic, starting with the sixteenth
century when the main motive for the study of Arabic was to learn about the
wisdom of the Arabs and to read about classic Arabic works written about
astronomy and mathematics. In the US, the early beginnings for learning Arabic
in the seventeenth century were at Harvard, Dartmouth and Andover, and
Princeton. These beginnings were motivated by an interest in Semitic languages
and the Bible. With World War II, the need for funding programs for the study
of Arabic was based on the need for Fuṣḥā and ʕāmiyya in US missions and aid
organizations in the region. Part II surveys the contributions of a series of
books for teaching Arabic, called the “Orange Books” by Abboud (1971), which
focused on teaching Modern Standard Arabic. In 1983, the leading Arabic summer
school at Middlebury College introduced MSA as the only variety of Arabic, and
it was the mode of instruction in all four skills. Part III overviews how the
needs of Arabic learners changed with the emergence of the proficiency
movement that focused on real communication. A number of survey studies (e.g.,
Belnap, 2006; Shiri, 2013), showed a significant change toward learning the
ʕāmiyya varieties as used by native speakers in oral communication.      

Chapter III, entitled “Responding to the Needs of the Modern AFL Learner”,
discusses the reasons for privileging Fuṣḥā in current pedagogical practices
and its consequences. The dominating pattern is introducingFuṣḥā in the
classroom first and the ʕāmiyya later. The chapter overviews the claims that
the call for studying ʕāmiyya was part of a colonial conspiracy theory that
aimed at marginalizing Fuṣḥā, which has always been viewed as the unifying
variety between the Arab countries. This pattern is still influential in
current Arabic pedagogy for a number of reasons. First, there is only one
Fuṣḥā, but many ʕāmiyya varieties, which makes it hard to choose which ʕāmiyya
variety to teach. Second, Fuṣḥā is still the language of education and
writing. Last, whereas Fuṣḥā is relatively stable, the ʕāmiyya varieties are
constantly changing. Younes argues that this pedagogical pattern does not
prepare learners to speak to Arabs or travel to the Arab world and concludes
that there is a missing component in their Arabic proficiency.  
   
Chapter IV, entitled “Integration”, provides the rationale and the key
features of Younes’s proposed pedagogical approach. It proposes integration as
an alternative to the dominant approach of teaching only Fuṣḥā. Stating
Al-Batal’s pioneering call (1992) for presenting Fuṣḥā and ʕāmiyya side by
side as two components of one integrated linguistic system, Younes claims that
the IA is the only model that reflects the way Arabic is used in real-life
situations by native speakers. In this approach, whereas Fuṣḥā is used mostly
for reading and writing, ʕāmiyya is used for conversation and for discussing
the instructional material. Younes goes on to provide a historical background
of this approach, which has been implemented at Cornell University since 1990,
and how it drove a three-volume textbook series, ‘Arabiyyat al-Naas’ (or
‘People’s Arabic’). In the second part of this chapter, the implementation of
the IA with a detailed example is addressed. Its basic foundations rest upon
teaching real proficiency in the selected variety, Educated Levantine Spoken
Arabic (ELSA), right from the beginning in its proper contexts. Reading and
writing are consistently presented in Fuṣḥā, whereas speaking and listening
take place in ʕāmiyya. The pedagogical sequence starts with the presentation
of the familiar, concrete, and informal topics in ELSA. As topics develop to
be more abstract, Fuṣḥā with its case and mood system starts to have a more
prominent role in the curriculum. The chapter concludes with the following
rationale why both should be taught in one class instead of two: (i) the
shared linguistic features between Fuṣḥā and ʕāmiyya in terms of vocabulary
and grammatical structures outweigh the differences; (ii) they are an
indivisible unit; and (iii) since both are used simultaneously and equally,
the IA allows for the reinforcement and consolidation of both, especially the
ʕāmiyya varieties.               

Chapter V, entitled “Objections to Integration”, discusses two main concerns
about the integration of Fuṣḥā with ʕāmiyya in the same course. The first is
the selection of which ʕāmiyya variety/ies to teach, and the second is the
confusion that learners may experience. According to Younes, the solution to
the first concern is to teach a standard ʕāmiyya variety that helps learners
to function in the Arabic speaking regions. In his proposed integrated
program, Younes has selected the ELSA because, being a major variety in the
Levantine area, it has been a popular choice for AFL learners. When mastered,
it enables Arabic learners to function and communicate properly in many areas
in the Levant and the Arab world. Further, for Younes there is no problem for
a teacher to teach a dialect that is not his/her own, especially at the high
levels of Arabic when the differences between both varieties diminish. With
regard to the confusion argument, Younes thinks that the carefully selected
materials in the IA minimize this confusion. Further, they help learners
develop a sense of the appropriate use of each variety at early stages of
language development.    

In the conclusion, Younes calls for changing the deeply entrenched attitude of
the privileged Fuṣḥā and the stigmatized ʕāmiyya in Arabic pedagogy. Recent
work (e.g., Abdallah & Al-Batal, 2011; Shiri, 2013) has recognized the
increasing importance of the ʕāmiyya varieties to cope with the expectations
of a new generation of AFL learners who are able to travel to the Arab world
and interact with native speakers. Changing this attitude will set Arabic on
par with the most commonly taught languages.                  

EVALUATION

The two-fold purpose of this book was to present the author’s rationale and
concise description of the IA to teaching Arabic as a foreign language. The
first goal was evidenced by a discussion of the complicated Arabic
sociolinguistic situation in Chapter I in which Fuṣḥā and the ʕāmiyya
varieties were presented as two poles of a complementary linguistic system. It
was also evidenced by the changing needs of learners of Arabic as shown in
Chapter II, especially after the emergence of the proficiency-based movement.
As demonstrated in Chapter III, the IA was argued to be the most adequate
approach that best responds to these needs. The second goal of the book was
achieved by offering a concise description of how to implement the IA in
Chapter IV, and by responding to the objections to it in Chapter V. In
accomplishing these two goals, the book represents an early attempt to bridge
the gap between sociolinguistics and Arabic pedagogy. Thus, it fits very well
into a growing body of literature that provides strong rationale for a new
trend of how to teach the ʕāmiyya varieties with Fuṣḥā as two complementary
sides of a single linguistic system of Arabic.   

Two issues remain that need to be further addressed in future work on the IA:
the core of this mode of integration, as outlined by Younes, is to present
Fuṣḥā and the ʕāmiyya variety in the same classroom session. One concern in
this regard is that Arabic learners may inappropriately code-mix the ʕāmiyya
varieties with Fuṣḥā. An alternative mode of integration may handle this
dichotomy differently; both Fuṣḥā and the ʕāmiyya varieties are introduced
within the same classroom session, but distinctly. In other words, instead of
presenting the Fuṣḥā components in reading and writing, and the ʕāmiyya
components in listening and speaking, the functions of the ʕāmiyya varieties
are taught in concurrent modules that consolidate the use of Arabic for real
communication. Further listening and speaking activities consolidate these
ʕāmiyya varieties and the Fuṣḥā components are consolidated in the four
skills. Although these two modes of integration adopt different pedagogical
procedures, they have the same end: to teach Fuṣḥā and the ʕāmiyya varieties
as two complementary sides of real proficiency in Arabic. Future work needs to
empirically test the effect of each mode of integration on the development of
(in)appropriate patterns of code-mixing. Also, further pedagogical techniques
need to carefully activate learner awareness of the appropriate co-existence
patterns of the ʕāmiyya varieties and Fuṣḥā. The second issue relates to the
use of educated spoken Arabic as a standard variety for the ʕāmiyya functions.
Since some of the service encounters in real life communication may not be
conducted in educated spoken ʕāmiyya varieties, but rather in plain dialects,
a need may arise to integrate the plain dialect to some degree.  

The book opens up potential future research that needs to test the
effectiveness of the IA empirically. It raises a number of interesting, yet
urgent questions for those researching Arabic second language acquisition
(SLA) theory as well as those researching effective Arabic pedagogy.
Specifically, data-driven research needs to be conducted to track the patterns
of co-existence of these two varieties and their concurrent development in
learner interlanguage. Special focus needs to be given to how L2 learners of
Arabic restructure the relationships between these two varieties over time.
Second, further research studies need to examine the patterns of interference
(lexical, semantic, phonological, and syntactic), and how they develop from
one proficiency level to another. More importantly, since it is very possible
that learners of Arabic may sequentially move from one dialect to another, the
trajectory of this shift needs to be systematically examined, especially
between the three main ʕāmiyya varieties in the field: Egyptian, Levantine,
and North African.       

Not only is the book an interesting read for teachers of Arabic as a foreign
language who look for an adequate and effective method for presenting the
complex Arabic sociolinguistic situation in Arabic classrooms, but it is also
very beneficial to those working in the development of Arabic SLA theory. The
ideas examined in this concise book provide teachers of Arabic with further
opportunities to reflect on their current pedagogical practices, and to better
present the Arabic sociolinguistic situation in an effective way. Finally,
sections of this book may be appropriate for an overview course on Arabic
sociolinguistics and for an opening section in a graduate seminar on Arabic
diglossia. In addition, other sections are appropriate for a course on methods
of teaching Arabic as a foreign language from a proficiency-based perspective.
  
  
REFERENCES 

Abboud, P. (1971). State of the art IX: Arabic language instruction. Middle
East Studies Association Bulletin, 5 (2), 1-23. 

Abdallah, M. & Al-Batal, M. (2011-2012). College-level teachers of Arabic in
the United States: A survey of their professional and institutional profiles
and attitudes. Al-‘Arabiyya, 44/45, 1-28. 

Al-Batal, M. (1992). Diglossia and proficiency: The need for an alternative
approach to teaching. In A. Rouchdy (Ed.), The Arabic language in America.
Detroit (pp. 284-304). Wayne State University Press. 

Badawi, E. (1973). Mustawayāt al-ʿArabiyya al-Muʿāṣira fī Miṣr. Cairo: Dār
al-Maʿārif. 

Belnap, K. (2006). A profile of students of Arabic in US universities. In K.
M. Wahba, Z. A. Taha, & L. England (Eds.), Handbook for Arabic language
teaching professionals in the 21st century (pp. 96-78). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence
Erlbaum. 

Bishai, W. (1966). Modern Inter-Arabic. Journal of the American Oriental
Society, 86(3), 319-23. 

Blanc, H. (1960). Stylistic variation in spoken Arabic: A sample
inter-dialectal educated conversation. In C. Ferguson (Ed.), Contributions to
Arabic linguistics. Harvard Middle Eastern Monograph, No.3 (pp. 79-161).
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 

Cadora,F.(1965). The teaching of spoken and written Arabic. Language Learning,
15, (3/4), 133-6. 

Ferguson, C. (1959). Diglossia. Word, 15, 325-40. 

Haddad, S. (1985). Tadrī al-maharāt al-shafawiyya: mawqif jadīd. Al-‘Arabiyya,
18(1/2), 15-21. 

Ibrahim, M.(1986). Standard and prestige language: A problem in Arabic
linguistics. Anthropological Linguistics, 28 (1), 115-26. 

Meiseles, G. (1980). Educated spoken Arabic and the Arabic language continuum.
Archivum Linguisticum, 11 (2), 118-48. 

Ryding, K. (1991). Proficiency despite diglossia: A new approach to Arabic.
The Modern Language Journal, 75 (2), 212-18. 

Shiri, S. (2013). Learners' attitudes toward regional dialects and destination
preferences in study abroad. Foreign language annals, 46(4), 565-587.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Mahmoud Azaz is Assistant Professor of Arabic Language, Linguistics, and Second Language Acquisition & Teaching at the University of Arizona. His research interests include linguistic approaches to second language acquisition of Arabic, Arabic linguistics, Arabic sociolinguistics, and Arabic pedagogy. His current work focuses on effects of the integrated approach to teaching Arabic from a linguistic perspective, and on the emergence of structural complexity, fluency, and accuracy in L2 Arabic.




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