Arabic-L:PEDA:Colloquial in the Curriculum
Dilworth Parkinson
dilworth_parkinson at BYU.EDU
Tue Jul 24 14:40:43 UTC 2007
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Arabic-L: Tue 24 Jul 2007
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-------------------------Directory------------------------------------
1) Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
2) Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
3) Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
4) Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
5) Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
6) Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
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1)
Date: 24 Jul 2007
From:Karin Ryding <rydingk at georgetown.edu>
Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
First of all, thanks to all for the wide-ranging discussion on
colloquial Arabic in the curriculum. It has been very interesting
and timely, and I would just like to add my two cents.
As we all know, written and spoken Arabic are closely interwoven
components of any Arabic speech community. In order to progress to
teaching advanced communicative competence in Arabic, Arabic teachers
and scholars need to come to terms with authentic forms of Arabic
primary discourse and acknowledge that for teaching non-native
speakers of Arabic, we need the training and the scholarly resources
to help students learn everyday spoken Arabic as well as academic/
written Arabic. There is a vital need to develop a range of testable
curricular models (formulas, templates, paradigms, schemata) to
evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each, to provide data and
feedback for analysis, and to judge effectiveness in all four
skills. Right now there are only a few curriculum models that
incorporate significant amounts of spoken Arabic (such as the
programs at BYU, Cornell, and Western Michigan), but these provide
significant options to the MSA-only curriculum. Programs such as
those that use Educated Spoken Arabic/Formal Spoken Arabic for
teaching communicative skills are also important experiments whose
materials, methods, and results need to be much more visible to the
field in general.
There is not one single answer to the issue of effective language
programs, methods, and materials. The Arabic field is enriched by
those who undertake careful, closely-monitored, and documented
experimentation with the nature, amount, and calibration of authentic
spoken and written Arabic in both educational and government training
institutions. The most important thing for non-native Arabic
learners is to introduce interactive spoken skills early on in any
curriculum, and not to ignore them. Leaving crucial everyday
communicative skills outside the curriculum unnecessarily handicaps
and discourages our younger students who are learning Arabic in order
live, study, and work in the Arab world and to be able to hold and
understand sensible and creative conversations with Arab friends,
acquaintances and everyday contacts in a wide range of situations.
From what I have seen in the discussion on Arabic-L, there is some
sense that spoken Arabic vernaculars are “simpler” or “less complex”
than fusha. And I know that some individuals believe that teaching
spoken Arabic is neither a challenging nor stimulating intellectual
task because its structure and vocabulary are more elementary. But I
think the opposite. Although it may be true that the colloquials have
fewer inflectional categories than fusha, they are by no means
simple. Think of the complexities of the Egyptian negation system,
for example. Also, and most importantly, when viewed from a
sociolinguistic perspective, the interactional dynamics and the range
of discourse norms, functions, formulas, options, strategies, and
taboos is highly sophisticated and complex, even within a single
speech community.
I therefore think the earlier the exposure to spoken Arabic, the
better. There is a great deal to learn, not so much in terms of
traditional grammatical categories perhaps, but in terms of
interactive strategies, creation of meaning, conversation protocols,
and narrative skills. Our students are certainly up to the
challenge, but are we prepared to venture into this discourse world?
Thanks, Karin Ryding
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2)
Date: 24 Jul 2007
From:Klaus Lagally <lagally at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de>
Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
Hello all,
I have been following this discussion for some time, and as I have to
admit, with no little consternation. Let me add some personal
experience.
In Germany, generally the 'higher classes' speak and write High German,
the official language, which has a strict formal grammar and is taught
at all schools, even in classes for foreigners, exclusively. They will
also understand, and to some extent, also speak, the local dialect.
There are several dialects, some of them rather different from High
German and from each other, and they generally cannot be written except
phonetically; that usually looks awkward and ridiculous. Contrary to
common belief the dialects also have a strict grammar each, but it is
generally only known to linguists. People from the rural areas, and
also members of the 'lower classes' (there is no strict separation!)
will generally use the local dialect, even at school, except in formal
language classes, or whenever something has to be written down. The
teachers are supposed to use High German only, but will tolerate the
students using colloquial language whenever sufficient for the purpose.
I was born and brought up in Munich, the capital of Bavaria, in the
south of Germany. My parents spoke High German exclusively, and so as
I got into Primary school, in a rural area, I had some problems at the
outset as nearly all the other students spoke only colloquial which
additionally was somewhat different from the dialect used in Munich.
I could not understand everything, and my language was considered funny,
but the problem went away after a few weeks when I found out a few
simple empirical rules how to translate a term in High German into
colloquial, and vice versa. At that stage, when just entering school,
the differences in grammar just did not matter. Later on my command
of High German and of the dialect improved in parallel, and it was
easy to use both, even after switching to other schools in different
regions of Germany where the local dialect was quite different. There
never was a problem of confusing the language levels, and I only mix
them up sometimes for fun, or when conversing privately with my wife :-)
As to Arabic: when I went to an evening class on Arabic (this was the
only possibility at that time within reach, except travelling weekly to
the next available university, one hour away), the class was designed
for tourists who wanted to go to Egypt, and thus concentrated only on
Colloquial. However, myself and a few other participants were also
interested in Fusha, and the teacher gladly complied, and taught both
language levels in parallel; it seems that he liked that, and it was
definitely fun!
As to the informal translation rules: these are not taught formally
anywhere as far as I know, but I found them easy to find and easy to
use, if you will tolerate occasional errors. As a surprising example:
I studied Latin rather thoroughly at school, and this payed off: I am
usually able, using some educated guesses and wild hypotheses, to read
newspapers in Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese (I never tried Roumanian)
without ever studying these languages in detail. They are all derived
from (colloquial) Latin; and whereas some pronunciation has drastically
changed, and the grammar has been changed and simplified, they are still
fairly easy to manage, if you are content with getting the general idea.
Of course the vocabulary has expanded greatly so you sometimes will need
a dictionary if you insist on an exact translation; but most of the
time you will guess the idea correctly. Of course, trying to speak the
language in this experimental way might lead to surprises, and laughter.
I am not quite sure if these observations are relevant to your problem;
but judging from my own experience I definitely should, whenever I
plan to teach two related languages (suchas Fusha and some Colloquial)
or, e.g. Latin and Spanish), teach them in parallel, pointing out the
common features and the differences. Of course this needs dedicated
and willing students, at least at college level; but learning two
languages need not take twice the effort if they are related, and may
even be fun.
But enough of speculation. Somehow this discussion reminds me of an
old joke, about the difference between Pedagogics and Medicine:
In Medicine there are three stages of a case: Anamnesis, Diagnosis,
and Therapy. In Pedagogics it is just the other way round.
What about just trying out the ideas, and looking at the result?
Peace
Klaus
--
Prof. Dr. Klaus Lagally | mailto:lagally at informatik.uni-stuttgart.de
Institut fuer Formale | http://www.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/ ...
Methoden der Informatik| ... fmi/bs/people/lagally.htm
Abteilung Betriebsoftware| Tel. +49-711-7816392 |Zeige mir deine Uhr,
Universitaetsstrasse 38 | FAX +49-711-7816370 | und ich sage dir,
70569 Stuttgart, GERMANY | | wie spaet es ist.
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3)
Date: 24 Jul 2007
From:"khorshid" <khorshid at aucegypt.edu>
Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
Dear colleague,
I have three observations on the colloquial-first discussion:
FIRST OBSERVATION:
I´m afraid that concentrating on the approach may distract our
attention from another more important factor; namely, the shameful
lack of teaching material. If you follow the "right" approach without
the backing of suitable teaching material, the results will not be up
to our aspiration. Look at the commonly used textbook and compare
them to a basic check list of what a good textbook is!! By teaching
material I don´t mean the main textbook only. Rather, there should be
a wide range of other material. When I taught English, my problem was
choosing from a wide variety of available good material. Now, can we
take collective action to remedy this crippling shortage?
SECOND OBSERVATION:
If Mostafa wants to experiment with the colloquial-first approach
again, what is the difference between this and previous experiments
with the same approach elsewhere? How long will your experiment last?
One semester? Four? If you have the courage to challengen the
prevailing approaches, I recommend that your experiment be extended
for as long as possible so that the results could be more conclusive.
How much colloquial can you learn in one semester in the States anyway?!
THIRD OBSERVATION:
"al-qird fii aini ummihi ghazaal". Who is going to evaluate this and
other existing programs? Certainly not the ones undertaking them. If
you evaluate your own program positively, this doesn´t necessarily
mean it´s good, or bad. It may just mean you are used to it, or you
have been doing it for long. Can there be a collective effort to
evaluate different programs by neutral people and report the findings
to the whole profession? Who can lead this collective effort for the
good of the profession?
salaam wa tahiyya.
Ahmad Khorshid
Arabic Language Instructor
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4)
Date: 24 Jul 2007
From: Munther Younes <may2 at cornell.edu>
Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
In response to Mr. Colangelo's question (below), no, it wouldn't be
"hilarious to watch the news on any Arabic television channel where
fusha is used. The reason is that Fusha has been accepted by the
Arabs as the language of news broadcasts (and scripted speech in
general), but it has not been accepted as a means of ordinary
conversation. On the other hand, most Arabs would find a formal news
bulletin in the colloquial quite hilarious or at least very odd.
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5)
Date: 24 Jul 2007
From:"Tressy Arts" <tressy.arts at gmail.com>
Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
First of all, let me introduce myself: I am a Dutch Arabist currently
finishing an MA at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, specialization
linguistics. I have been a contributor to the first Dutch-Arabic/Arabic
Dutch dictionaries, coordinated by Jan Hoogland and published by Bulaaq,
Amsterdam; and lexicography is my passion. I am writing a thesis on the
"matrice-étymon-racine"-theories of Georges Bohas, under supervision of
professor C. Versteegh, and work part-time as a teacher of Arabic and
the
Egyptian colloquial to adults.
I am glad to be a part of this list, and have read many interesting
posts
already.
The comment quoted here made me think:
>
> "My observations of instructors in other programs, where MSA is used
> for conversation, is that teachers are more comfortable speaking
> English than Arabic with their students. This is only natural,
> because English is a naturally spoken language, while MSA is not.
> I,as an Arab, find it silly and completely unnatural to ask my
> students in Fusha about what they did over the weekend. I think
> that my colleagues who are native speakers of Arabic would agree
> with me that it is more natural to ask a student "ween ruHt yoom
> issabt" and "Where did you go Saturday" than "?ayna dhahabta yawma
> ssabti"?
>
Prof. Munther Younes states here that English and colloquial Arabic are
"naturally spoken languages", and MSA is not, and therefore it feels
unnatural to him to speak MSA with his students. I can see where you are
coming from, I feel slightly odd when I teach my students to say "haat
li burtuqaalatan min faDlika", but I wonder where this distinction
originates: is it intrinsic in the languages, or is it caused by the
fact
that one never hears anyone speak MSA as a native language? If it is the
second, could one not learn MSA as a "second language" the same way as I
learned English, and become quite proficient in it, so that it becomes
nearly natural to speak it? Or is it necessary to hear it spoken as a
natural language for anyone to be comfortably using it in daily life?
Would
a group of children raised in standard Arabic feel and use it as a
natural
language, or are there elements in MSA that are foreign to natural
languages?
I hope I have expressed myself correctly, I think this an interesting
question raised and would be delighted to read all your views on this.
Sincere regards,
Tressy Arts
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6)
Date: 24 Jul 2007
From:"Schub, Michael B." <Michael.Schub at trincoll.edu>
Subject:Colloquial in the Curriculum
touche. m
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End of Arabic-L: 24 Jul 2007
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