Arabic-L:PEDA:Data discussion

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Tue 21 Apr 2009
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Data discussion
2) Subject:Data discussion

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1)
Date: 21 Apr 2009
From:benjamin.geer at GMAIL.COM
Subject:Data discussion

 > After attending this conference, I am wondering why is it that most  
of
 > our discussion is still based on intuition and anecdotal evidence. I
 > believe we need evidence- based decisions supported by empirical  
data.

You might be interested in Jeremy Palmer's article "Arabic Diglossia:
Student Perceptions of Spoken Arabic After Living in the
Arabic-Speaking World".  The abstract is as follows:

"This paper presents data collected from students who studied Arabic
for at least two semesters before traveling to the Arabic-speaking
world. Results show that if the majority of these students could
restart their study of Arabic, they would want to learn a spoken
variety of Arabic before traveling abroad. Results also indicate that
students who attempted to communicate in spoken Arabic in the
Arabic-speaking world felt that they were more easily able to
integrate into the culture. This new research provides considerable
support for inclusion of spoken varieties of Arabic in curricula -
even for beginning students."

The paper can be downloaded here:

http://w3.coh.arizona.edu/awp/AWP15/AWP15%5BPalmer%5D.pdf

Ben

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2)
Date: 21 Apr 2009
From:benjamin.geer at GMAIL.COM
Subject:Data discussion

Dear Reem,

I think you have hit the nail on the head! We have for many years been  
discussing the issue of how/when/if to integrate the teaching of  
dialect into the curriculum based on intuition and anecdotal evidence  
which, especially when dealing with an educational issue that is  
closely linked with language ideology, may not be getting us too far  
in terms of understanding our options in this area and understanding  
the advantages and disadvantages of these options.

Here at the University of Austin in Texas, we teach students dialect  
in a one hour per week “Dardasha” class that they enroll in  
concurrently with their core Arabic class for all three years of the  
program. This semester we are conducting an extensive evaluation of  
this aspect of the curriculum in the first year class and will be  
presenting the results of the evaluation at an AATA sponsored panel at  
this year’s annual MESA meeting in November. The panel is entitled  
“Evaluative Development of Curriculum Innovations in Teaching Arabic  
as a Second Language”. The results will also be published in a  
collection of evaluation studies that will come out later this year or  
early next. In shaa’ allaah. I hope to see many colleagues at MESA and  
be able to discuss this issue based on this ‘evidence’ that we are  
gathering about how this particular model for dealing with teaching  
different varieties of Arabic is working at UT Austin.

Peace,
Martha

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Martha Schulte-Nafeh
Senior Lecturer, Arabic
Director Designate, Center for Arabic Studies Abroad (CASA)
Department of Middle Eastern Studies
1 University Station, F9400
West Mall Building, 5.136
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin TX 78712-0527

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End of Arabic-L:  21 Apr 2009