35.3286, Review: General Linguistics; Yallā Part One: Ali (2024)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-3286. Tue Nov 19 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.3286, Review: General Linguistics; Yallā Part One: Ali (2024)

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Date: 20-Nov-2024
From: Farah Ali [farah636 at gmail.com]
Subject: General Linguistics; Yallā Part One: Ali (2024)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35.1029

AUTHOR: Shokry Gohar
AUTHOR: David Nancekivell
TITLE: Yallā Part One
SUBTITLE: A Beginner's Textbook of Modern Standard Arabic: Volume 1
PUBLISHER: Cambridge University Press
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Farah Ali

SUMMARY

As Arabic becomes an increasingly established part of language
programs in higher education, it is critical now more than ever that
Arabic language curricula incorporate up-to-date pedagogy and learning
materials that provide students with a framework to develop
(socio)linguistic and cultural competence. In the context of English
L1 speakers learning Arabic as an L2, developing such a curriculum can
be a daunting task, considering the typological distance between the
two languages. While this has traditionally resulted in a focus on
grammar and translation, teaching Arabic with a communicative emphasis
has become the norm in many language programs. Similarly, integrating
colloquial dialects alongside Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) has also
made its way into Arabic classrooms. Yallā, Part One: A Beginner's
Textbook of Modern Standard Arabic serves as an elementary level
textbook that aims to provide instructors and students of Arabic with
course material that fits squarely within current trends in Arabic
language pedagogy. As noted in the preface of this textbook, the
authors designed this textbook through a communicative approach to
language teaching, while also incorporating a flipped classroom model,
in which students have their initial exposure to course topics outside
of class and subsequently apply this material in class. Additionally,
the authors note that, while this textbook focuses primarily on MSA,
they have incorporated Egyptian Arabic throughout the text so students
may gain some degree of familiarity with a colloquial variety.
Additionally, this textbook includes a companion website to supplement
textbook lessons and activities. The authors also offer a suggested
time frame for covering each chapter in terms of classroom and
homework hours, which may be useful to new instructors. They also note
that from their pilot testing of the materials they estimate
approximately 130 classroom hours and 260 hours of
homework/preparation for all 12 chapters, though this does not include
instruction on Egyptian Arabic. Here, the authors suggest adding 2
classroom hours and 4 homework hours per week for incorporating the
colloquial variety into the curriculum.

Each book chapter includes several features that are meant to provide
students with a variety of input and opportunities to apply new
knowledge. These features include vocabulary presented in meaningful
texts, as well as grammar presentation through both implicit and
explicit instruction. Chapters 1-6 focus heavily on gradually
introducing the shapes and sounds of the Arabic alphabet while also
presenting high frequency words and short readings. Chapters 7-12,
which assume knowledge of the Arabic alphabet, shift towards a heavier
emphasis on developing major language skills through extensive
reading, listening, speaking, and writing activities. Additionally, it
is for these chapters that the grammar reference (explicit grammar
instruction) is included towards the end of the book. Additionally,
these chapters also incorporate a greater degree of mechanical and
close exercises, culture, word syllable and stress, as well as
continued presentation of vocabulary and grammar.

As noted above, Chapters 1-6 offer a gradual introduction to the
Arabic alphabet, and present them in accessible groupings in each
chapter, typically based on patterns in the shapes of the letters. As
an example, Chapter 1 introduces several of the letters throughout 4
units:

[ج, ح, خ] ;[ د, ذ, ر, ز] ;[ا, و,ي ] ;[ب, ت, ث]

This presentation of letters also includes the shapes of each letter
independently, and word initial, medial, and final positions.
Additionally, an array of vocabulary is introduced across all units of
each chapter. Though they do not necessarily represent any particular
thematic organization, the authors note that vocabulary introduced in
these initial chapters is intended more for the sake of reading and
writing practice in order for students to acquaint themselves with
Arabic pronunciation and reading letter sequences. The meanings,
however, are provided for students who wish to learn them.
Meaning-centered vocabulary presentation appears at the end of each
unit (thus 4 times in most chapters). While neither thematic nor
contextualized, these words are typically high frequency words that
will be useful for students to learn at the onset of their
instruction.

The introductory chapters also provide subtle grammar instruction,
using a “guided discovery of the form and meaning of grammatical
structures so that students uncover grammar independently” (p. xii).
While this is more salient in the latter half of the book, Chapters
1-6 also offer grammatical notes throughout, such as calling attention
to possessive suffixes attached to nouns, gender morphology, nisba
adjectives used for nationalities, possession constructions using noun
phrases (idafah) as well as with the preposition ل attached to
possessive pronouns. While these useful callouts are not prominently
featured, they bear relevance to the vocabulary and exercises that
appear in their respective units.

The initial 6 chapters present an array of drills and exercises that
challenge students to apply their knowledge. For learning letters,
activities consist of mechanical exercises such as coping with letters
in their isolated forms and as they appear in words, listening and
repeating sounds, connecting individual letters to form words, writing
transliterated words in Arabic, and writing transliterations of Arabic
words. While vocabulary exercises in the first half of this book also
include mechanical activities such as translation, this component of
language learning introduces more communicative activities, such as
practicing dialogues with classmates using phrases and expressions
that have already been introduced. Additionally, short readings are
introduced by Chapter 2. These readings - which may appear as either
paragraphs or dialogues - gradually become longer and more complex
with each chapter, and include follow-up application activities.

Chapters 7-12 shift in their objectives: namely, giving attention to
developing reading, listening, writing, and speaking skills in equal
measure. In this portion of the book, reading is presented through
more substantial texts and exercises. For example, the reading in
Chapter 7 includes a list of relevant vocabulary, as well as
comprehension questions, a written application activity that prompts
students to produce a similar text, as well as a form-focused activity
that centers on syllabification and stress. Grammar also takes on a
more discernible role in this portion of the book, and is
contextualized in the reading. These grammatical presentations are
also relatively brief and center on guiding students to notice
grammatical forms through a series of questions; however, they are
also supplemented by the grammar reference at the end of the textbook,
which includes a series of exercises to practice these forms. Finally,
each chapter concludes with an additional reading, which not only
includes  some of the previously noted features such as vocabulary
lists and post-reading comprehension and application exercises, but
also draws on the chapter’s grammatical lessons by prompting students
to notice these forms as they appear in the reading.

EVALUATION

This textbook represents an excellent new resource for both Arabic
instructors and students of beginner level courses that take a
communicative pedagogical approach. This book provides a comprehensive
overview of many of the fundamental grammatical structures that
require attention at the beginner level, as well as high frequency
vocabulary, both of which offer students the potential to develop a
solid foundation in MSA. The textbook content is presented with very
detailed and clear explanations, and typically in small, digestible
segments that are unlikely to overwhelm beginner students. Moreover,
the authors use accessible language in their explanations, and even
step away from strictly formal academic language in such a way that
many students may appreciate. As an example, they note in their
explanation of how the letter ayn (ع) is pronounced: “Distasteful as
it may sound, this consonant sounds closest to a gag in the throat.”
(p. 74). The presentation of content is engaging: it is thorough yet
concise, interspersed with a number of activities to practice and
apply one’s knowledge, and is aesthetically pleasing in its visual
cues through its inclusion of colorful photos and color-coded texts.

Overall, the textbook is extremely cohesive: the content is presented
with a logical flow and progression in terms of the complexity and
cognitive demands on learners, and gradually builds upon knowledge
acquired in previous chapters. As such, the content appears to be
appropriately challenging for students throughout the text. Each
chapter follows a consistent structure as well, and the use of
color-coded headings will help students navigate the text more easily.

It is also clear that a tremendous effort went into authoring this
textbook and producing a set of effective, accurate, and pedagogically
sound course materials. This is not only evident from the multiple
rounds of peer review and pilot testing that formed part of this
project, but also from the justifications they offer for the teaching
approaches and methods employed in this textbook. Some of these
approaches are disputable: while the authors offer an explanation for
the focus on MSA and the incorporation of Egyptian Arabic later in the
textbook and separate from MSA instruction, some research suggests
that integrated approaches to Arabic instruction (including both
targeted varieties from the very beginning) may not be as detrimental
to L2 acquisition as previously believed, and may even provide some
benefits to learners (see Azaz & Trentman, 2024). Nonetheless, it is
worth recognizing that the authors’ justifications are empirically
grounded, and that their inclusion of Egyptian Arabic in a beginner
level curriculum still marks a somewhat integrated approach early in
the L2 learning process.

One area in which this textbook may be improved in future editions is
the inclusion of culture. While the textbook also offers many
interesting and useful readings that highlight culture in the
Arabic-speaking world, this is more prominent in the second half of
the textbook. Such content could easily be incorporated into the first
half, and would in fact be a good way to break up the intensive
lessons on Arabic orthography. Not only that, the consistent inclusion
of culture also helps to show students that language is a social
practice that is embedded in the cultural, political, and historical
structures of speech communities. This limitation aside, the authors
have furnished an innovative and meticulously designed textbook that
provides an engaging and lucid introduction to the Arabic language.

REFERENCES

Azaz, M. and Trentman, E. (Eds.). (2024). Special Issue: Multilingual
Approaches to Language
Learning: Perspectives from Arabic as a Multidialectal Language.
Critical Multilingualism
Studies, 11(1).

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Farah Ali is Assistant Professor of Hispanic Studies at DePauw
University. Her research spans Spanish, Catalan, and Arabic
sociolinguistics. She is the author of Policy, Media, and the Shaping
of Spain-Morocco Relations: Discursive Representations of Migration to
Ceuta and Melilla (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024) and Multilingualism and
Gendered Immigrant Identity: Perspectives from Catalonia (Multilingual
Matters, 2022).



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