A Practical Guide to the Use of the Integrated Approach in the Arabic Undergraduate Programme at Edinburgh University
Ayah Durkawi, Department of Arabic and Persian, the University of St Andrews
Marwa Mouazen, Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, the University of Edinburgh
ABSTRACT
The shift which the field of the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) has been witnessing over the past few years in terms of the best teaching approaches and solutions to the challenges posed by diglossia has been gradual yet steady. The use of the Integrated Approach (IA) as defined by Munther Younes (1990) has been at the centre of this shift. As a pioneer in the teaching of Arabic in the UK, the University of Edinburgh has kept abreast of these changing attitudes towards TAFL, becoming one of the earliest British universities to embrace the use of the IA on the undergraduate level. This paper discusses how this use came about, the challenges it faced, and the steps taken by the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (IMES) to facilitate it. It also outlines the different techniques employed by staff members teaching on both the sub-honours and honours levels of the Arabic BA programme to implement the IA.
KEYWORDS: IA, Arabic, Edinburgh, UG, TAFL
INTRODUCTION
The shift in attitude toward Arabic learning and teaching has been the focus of several recent publications. In his latest book, Arabic as One Language, Professor Mahmoud Al-Batal contends that Arabic has, in fact, been long misunderstood by native speakers and non-native speakers alike as being made up of one formal, highly respected variety which learners of Arabic should learn exclusively, and various informal colloquial varieties which are often looked down upon as less pure, and, therefore, not worthy of the same regard which Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) deserves. It has been traditionally agreed that leaners of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) should not learn colloquial Arabic, a practice which has been in place as far back as interest in learning Arabic started. Recently, this attitude started to shift as more and more Arabic teachers began to offer training in colloquial to facilitate authentic oral communication. The IA has been similarly used in the UG programme at IMES in a manner which mirrors the reality of Arabic as neatly summed up by Al-Batal: one rich language boasting infinitely diverse varieties which enhance, and are enhanced by, their formal counterpart, MSA. This article draws primarily on the understanding, shared by Arabic teachers on the UG programme at IMES, that viewing Arabic as one rich whole is key to creating a programme which would equip students with the authentic skills required to function within this language. It is only when teachers start to believe that the Arabic they know is not two-fold, but is rather one and the same entity, that they can begin to impart this knowledge to their students. Only then can real teaching and learning of Arabic occur.
For many years, the Arabic UG programme at Edinburgh University has focused on teaching MSA with occasional insertions of a few commonly used colloquial terms and expressions by some teachers, such as ‘lā bāʾs?’ (alright?) and ‘kyfāk?’ (how are you?). The UG programme offers a total of five contact hours every week in the first and second years, four of which are conducted in the form of lectures while the fifth is an oral tutorial in which students are typically divided into small groups of up to seven students each to have oral practice. In 2016, the department decided to move on from that model and gradually adopted the IA to answer students’ continuous and growing demand to properly and systematically learn one of the colloquial varieties spoken in the Arab world together with MSA. The decision was taken after the department realised the importance of adapting its practices to provide students with a more satisfactory learning experience which reflects both evolving learner expectations and the latest developments in the field of TAFL, especially in North America. Integrating colloquial Arabic into the TAFL curricula seems to represent the most ample answer to learner needs: “in a survey of students studying Arabic in the United States, Kirk Belnap (2006) reports that the following are the top three reasons why students study Arabic: (1) interacting with people who speak Arabic, (2) travelling to the Arab world, and (3) developing better understanding of Arab culture” (Al-Batal, 2018). While it is true that this study was not carried out in the UK, there has not been enough evidence to suggest that the profiles of Arabic learners in the two countries are different enough for the results of the study to be inapplicable to learners of Arabic at British universities.
Adopting the IA meant the need to look at the challenges teachers of Arabic at IMES has faced hitherto and the shortcomings which could, to some extent, hinder the implementation of the IA. The following section discusses the challenges that the department and its language teaching staff had to deal with in order to have a successful implementation of the IA. It is worth noting here that the obstacles discussed below are similar to those several Arabic departments around the UK are also faced with based on the very similar learner profiles across the few departments offering UG Arabic degrees in the country.
CHALLENGES AND LIMITATIONS IN THE UG ARABIC PROGRAMME AT EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY IN THE UK
IMES has identified three challenges which need to be overcome in order to better implement the IA; these are class size, course structure and contact hours. This section outlines two models, the old model which was used at IMES prior to adapting the IA, and the modified model adopted by the department in order to improve students’ learning experience and facilitate the implementation of the IA. However, prior to that, it is worth providing a brief overview as to the definitions of the Arabic modules in IMES.
Arabic 1 is an elementary course in MSA. It also introduces students to the fundamentals of colloquial Arabic. No Previous knowledge of Arabic is required for entry to this course. Arabic 2 is designed to lead on from Arabic 1. It consolidates students’ knowledge of MSA and provides a further development of linguistic skills. Grammatical structures and oral skills are further developed and authentic materials are introduced. There is no Arabic 3 as students of Arabic in IMES embark on a year-long journey to the Arab World studying Arabic with affiliated institutes and integrating with the culture. Arabic 4 is a comprehensive, progressive course expanding students' knowledge of Arabic grammar, style, and vocabulary and focusing on speaking, arguing, discussing, debating, and presenting at an advanced level.
| Course | Old Model | Modified Model |
| Arabic 1 | Number of students is 75 with a cap on admission. The course is open to students from all over the university.
It consists of four lectures and one oral tutorial per week. For the oral tutorials, students are divided into smaller groups of no more than ten each. Number of weeks is 22 weeks. Assessment comprises of two mid-term tests, two oral exams and two end of term three-hour written exams. |
No cap on student numbers.
Students are divided into six groups with a maximum of 20 students per group. No scope for increasing the number of contact hours. Students have a total of five contact hours per week with the oral practice being integrated into the fifth hours. The assessment regime remains the same. |
| Arabic 2 | Number of students is 50. Joining the course is conditional on progressing from Arabic 1.
The course consisted of four lectures and one oral tutorial every week. Students are divided into smaller groups for the oral. Assessment comprised of two mid-term tests, two oral exams and two end of term three-hour written exams. |
Students progressing from Arabic 1 can join the course.
Dividing students into two groups, 25 students per group Oral tutorials are kept.
The new model maintained the same assessment regime. |
| Arabic 4 | Students of Arabic in year 4.
The course consisted of two lectures and one oral tutorial. Assessment comprised of a final three-hour written exam and a 20-minute oral exam. |
Students of Arabic in year 4.
Four hours of grammar, comprehension, translation and media Arabic. One hour of Aural. One hour of Oral. Assessment: two mid- term translation tests, end of term exam, one aural exam, one oral exam. |
Table 1: The old and new structure of the core Arabic language modules at the University of Edinburgh
Teachers’ and students’ attitudes
Amongst the other challenges faced by the department was the fact that some teachers who had a limited knowledge of a certain colloquial variety also tended to be reluctant to teach Arabic using the IA for fear of not being able to answer student questions. Here at IMES as everywhere else too, some teachers believed that teaching colloquial Arabic is secondary and subordinate in importance to teaching MSA, which is superior and sublime in nature and highly regarded in the academic world. But even those teachers who were willing to use the IA lacked of teacher training in how to effectively use of the IA in the classroom, use resources, or design materials with that purpose in mind. To respond to this challenge, some teachers at IMES attended a five-day Arabic-Specific teacher-training course which was developed within the University of Edinburgh by the Centre of the Advanced Study of the Arab World (CASAW).
Amongst the Arabic-teaching staff who did not attend the above teacher training course there have been two trends in terms of how they dealt with their lack of teacher training. The first is that the teachers themselves developed their own skills and materials, which demanded resilience, creativity, constant collaboration and cooperation with other colleagues in the department, the ability to admit failure, and a long series of trial and error in the classroom. The second approach was that course organisers with adequate training prepared all materials and provided comprehensive instructions on how they are to be used and how the IA is to be deployed in general. This was then shared with the other teachers involved in the teaching process who had no prior training. This process functioned as some sort of exclusive mini teacher-training.
The challenges faced by the IA are not restricted to teachers’ attitude but rather extends to deciding on the choice of colloquial variety to be taught with a view to staff availability. It is found that some teachers have preferences for one colloquial variety over others due to the fact that they either come from the country where that variety is spoken or that they have studied it before. IMES decided on adopting the IA employing the colloquial Arabic variety which is spoken by the largest number of IMES teachers, i.e. Levantine Arabic. In order to facilitate students’ transition into living in the Arab world in their third year, two more classes of Egyptian and Moroccan dialects were offered to students in the second term of their second year of study in order to prepare those amongst them wishing to study in either Egypt or Morocco for their year in the Arab world.
Despite the fact that the majority of students demand to be taught Arabic using the IA, some Arabic learners get frustrated due to the pre-conceived idea that they are learning two languages through the IA and are therefore expected to learn twice as much. In order to overcome this hurdle, the author of this section worked on organising what is known as the mentoring scheme which is an integral part of the undergraduate Arabic programmes at IMES. Senior students are paired with more junior ones to assist both in language learning and the academic study of IMES subjects. While mentoring is voluntary within this scheme, it has been consistently popular and successful, with take-up rates of over 90% among both mentors and mentees. A mentor within this scheme is understood not to be a teacher but rather someone with more linguistic knowledge and learning experience than the mentee. The mentors themselves will gain experience in supporting their mentee’s learning as well as an opportunity to revise their own knowledge of Arabic and to think through academic problems with another student. Both sides of the mentoring relationship require, and develop, commitment and relationship skills as well as proper recognition of what the mentor-mentee relationship does and does not involve. Due to the exchange of viewpoints and experiences when learning Arabic using the IA and living in the Arab World for a whole academic year, a change in the attitude of students who were initially reluctant to adopt the IA is immediately noticed, and progress in their attainment levels is achieved.
Textbook Limitations
There are only a handful of textbooks which use the IA, some of which do not follow a systematic order in terms of their coverage of linguistic skills and basic knowledge which students need. Moreover, some book series seem to have a gap in the level between their different instalments. Perhaps the most important challenge posed by the available textbooks which adopt the IA is the lack of instructions on how to implement the IA effectively using the materials contained in them. Jonathan Featherstone (2018) correctly points out that ‘Arabic textbooks are trying to be compatible with the IA, they are insufficient to support teachers with the tools required to deliver effective teaching […] While these textbooks expose learners to either the Levantine or Egyptian colloquial Arabic varieties or both, they do not have sufficient instructions or notes to help teachers to “integrate” both aspects in the classroom.’ The department’s response to this challenge was to gradually move away from the use of textbooks in the three years of the UG programme that students study at IMES (years one, two, and four). Teachers of Arabic in the department have worked together over the years to restructure the content of the three years and to benchmark the courses outcomes with those of the Common European Framework of Reference. The plan has been that, by the end of the first year, students of Arabic will have achieved level A1 of CEFR; by the end of the second year, level A2/B1; and by the end of the fourth year, level C1. Materials used in teaching/instruction are mainly designed in-house specifically in order to fulfil the learning outcomes. These are supplemented by materials photocopied and adapted from different sources, including TAFL textbooks. Materials used for years two and four come from authentic, up-to-date resources such as newspapers, magazines, various websites and blogs, interviews, etc.
APPLYING THE IA
After solving the technicalities of class size, courses structure, teachers’ & students’ attitudes and textbook limitations, the most important next step is discussing the techniques used for applying the IA at IMES, particularly in years one and two of the UG programme. The following sections will outline these techniques, the first three of which are referred to using the term, ‘Three Rs’: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Finally, the all-important step of creating a suitable learning/teaching environment to foster the IA will also be discussed below.
Reduce
Munther Younes (2018) points out that it is important to focus on what is common in the two Arabic varieties taught in order to form one system of communication in which the overwhelming majority of linguistic elements are identical. One of the most important steps for successfully implementing the IA is to reduce and minimise, as much as possible, the differences between the two chosen varieties of Arabic, at least in the initial stages of introducing colloquial. The aims of this step are to reduce the amount of vocabulary students have to learn in both varieties, to make it easier to apply the IA and to reassure anxious, demotivated students that they are not learning two languages but rather a combination of both. One way of doing so is to consciously look, and opt, for similar features/forms in both varieties and to ignore the element that is found in MSA only. For example, when introducing the adverb of time ‘lāmmā’, which means ‘when’, teachers point out that both MSA and Levantine Arabic use the same adverb interchangeably, in addition to ‘ʿindamā’. Another example is the verb ‘ṣārā’, which means ‘to become’. Teachers should point out to students that there are two words in MSA with almost the same meaning: ‘āṣbāḥā’ and ‘ṣārā’. Teachers consciously use the latter form, which is found in both MSA and colloquial Arabic. Students highly appreciate the ‘reduce’ aspect of the IA as it makes them feel that they are not learning two forms/words for the same meaning. It is essential to give students a sense of reassurance and stability during the learning process, particularly in the initial stages of applying the IA, to guarantee the continuation of learner progress and the success in the process of applying the IA. It is worth noting that the ‘reduce’ technique is used extensively in the first stages of introducing and implementing the IA. Once students reach their fourth year, different varieties of the same term are then introduced to enrich their vocabulary repertoire.
Reuse
The second key element in the successful implementation of the IA is repeating the same terms and expressions throughout the term. To ensure this, the IA should not be limited to oral sessions as is sometimes the case. Teachers wishing to implement this teaching approach properly should present all elements of the course using it. For example, a reading text introduced under the IA should be read in MSA, while the themes contained in it are discussed using both language varieties. Explanation of grammatical concepts is done in both varieties too, while the accompanying writing task is carried out in MSA. Terms introduced to students on a weekly basis should be consciously repeated and reused in different contexts. This process does not stop around classroom boundaries, it goes beyond it. Teachers, for example, could assign songs whose lyrics contain words which the students have learned in class as a listening task in their own time. This will reinforce the learning process and take it out of the classroom, thus making it part of their daily life as opposed to classroom experience. For example, the author of this section will introduce the song ‘mšwār rāyḥyn mšwār’ (we are going in an outing) by Wahid Jalal and Ronza through which the learning of the directions, ‘šārʾ w ġārb’ (east & west) and ‘šmāl w ǧnwb’ (North and South) is reinforced. At the same time, listening to the song will help students replace the term ‘yāwm’ (day) with ‘nhār’ (meaning also “day”) which is used in both MSA and colloquial.
Recycle
In his article ‘To Separate or to Integrate that is the Question’ Younes (2018) stresses the importance of the thematic organisation of the materials to build on the shared elements of the two Arabic language varieties introduced in class. In order to create a unified learning experience for students, teachers design materials revolving around themes/topics which allow for the same set of terms, expressions and vocabulary to be used over a specific period of time. For example, a weekly theme in the second year curriculum could be ‘Special Occasions and Festivities in the Arab World’. Throughout the whole week, teachers will make sure that the same terms are being recycled and used repeatedly. Terms related to the theme will be introduced to students through selected reading texts. Students discuss the similarities and differences between special occasions in the West and their equivalent in the Middle East using a combination of both MSA and colloquial. Later, students choose an occasion that is relevant to the Muslim world, i.e. Ramadan or Eid, to research and present to class about using as many of the terms learned, both MSA and colloquial, as possible. In addition to that, students are introduced to the song ‘lylẗ ʿyd’ (Christmas Eve) by Fayroz. In short, every week has to offer a comprehensive coverage of several aspects of that week’s topic.
The teaching/learning environment
Al Batal (2018) states that in order to have an effective integration of MSA and colloquial, both teachers and students need to feel comfortable in their teaching/learning environment, and the classroom environment needs to be stress free. Although the IA takes place in a classroom setting with a board, desks, PCs, etc, the environment in the classroom needs to be far from formal. The teacher should aim to create a relaxed environment where students feel comfortable making mistakes and learning from them, where an atmosphere of improvisation as well as fun takes place, and where students are constantly participating and moving around. In order to achieve this environment, the teacher needs to consciously change her/his attitude from that of the all-mighty, all-knowing instructor and dominant figure in the classroom to that of a facilitator, an organiser, a provider of guidance and feedback, and, most importantly, a constantly reliable companion. Students will then start feeling comfortable moving around in the classroom, playing roles, singing songs in Arabic, reciting poems, and performing dances, all in a mixture of MSA and a colloquial. Many activities for breaking the ice and getting students to personally know each other are given to students in the first month of their academic year, examples of which include, but are not limited to, discussing their daily routine, describing their favourite person in family, talking about their best and worst holidays, etc. Through these activities, students discover a world of things in common with their colleagues, which create closer ties and fosters a sense of belonging and solidarity in the classroom.
THE IA AT HONOURS LEVEL
Implementing the IA at honours level poses a slightly different, if interrelated, set of challenges to those faced by teachers and students of Arabic in their first two years of study. Students learning Arabic at IMES usually spend their third year in an Arabic speaking country. During their year abroad, students would normally continue learning MSA while also taking colloquial classes. By the time they come back to start their fourth year, they will typically be able to communicate in colloquial Arabic with ease, and will have developed a strong sense of the various contexts within which either MSA or colloquial can be used. Teaching an advanced Arabic class is no easy task. This is because students will have already learned most of what they need to learn by that stage, leaving the teacher with the difficult task of selecting appropriate materials and coming up with creative activities that draw on, reinforce, practise, and expand on, this existing knowledge. Teachers at this level are also faced with the challenge of having to deal with a group of students speaking different colloquial varieties, some of which are not easily mutually intelligible. In the authors’ experience, the main challenges faced by Arabic teachers at honours level on the UG programme at IMES are:
The existence of three or four different colloquial varieties in class
One of the most challenging aspects of teaching advanced students at IMES – and perhaps elsewhere – is that, by the time year four starts, learners will have been living in an Arabic speaking country for up to one year where they learned and practised the local colloquial variety (or varieties) both inside and outside the classroom. This makes it especially difficult for the teacher to create engaging materials involving all the students which both draw on their experience during their year abroad and help them practise, revise, and expand what they learned. Teachers’ inevitable limited knowledge of, and ability to offer support or guidance in a colloquial variety other than their own might lead to frustration on the part of both learner and teacher. It seems that overcoming this challenging aspect of teaching advanced Arabic would not be easy unless the department has a staff member for each colloquial variety. Each teacher can then be assigned a group of students who had spent their year abroad in a country where that teacher’s colloquial variety is spoken. Given that departments would rarely have the resources to hire more than one teacher per level of competency, this solution seems far-fetched. So how can we help students practise their newly acquired colloquial variety? Some classroom activities which group students together by colloquial variety might provide a reasonably good solution. One such activity calls for dividing students up in this manner before giving each group a funny picture showing an absurd or vague situation which they are asked to analyse and discuss in colloquial before coming up with an interpretation. Once this is done, the group is then asked to write a short description of the picture in colloquial before reading it to the class. This activity works on more than one level: students – especially those who have studied in a country whose colloquial variety is considered to be less readily understood by other Arabic speakers – usually find it satisfying to communicate in Arabic with speakers of the same variety. When the description of a certain photo is read out loud, members of the other groups would sometimes ask questions both about the description and any words they could not understand in the colloquial variety of that group. This usually creates a realistic environment where Arabic speakers from different countries are able to communicate by helping each other figure out the terms and expressions which are not mutually intelligible.
Students’ Fears
Having spent two years learning mostly MSA at IMES before heading to the Arabic speaking world in the third year of their BA, many students feel on resuming their studies in Edinburgh that the MSA skills they had worked hard to acquire in years one and two would likely be lost if focus is not given primarily to them in class. The seeds of this fear are usually sawn during the year abroad, when some students start feeling that the time and effort spent learning colloquial is taking away from their chance to focus on MSA, the variety advertised -- and perceived -- by many as the more important one, as noted earlier. What perhaps adds to this perception of colloquial Arabic as less important and necessary than MSA is the method of instruction used during oral classes, most of which present spoken Arabic as not only inferior and overly less helpful than MSA, but also separate from it. If teachers approach the teaching of colloquial as a strenuous effort to teach a separate language which students can only use in one country, it is no wonder that the learners themselves would resent any time spent in class on teaching spoken Arabic. When teachers approach colloquial as just one manifestation of that vast entity called Arabic, focussing on the similarities rather than the differences and using spoken Arabic as a tool to reinforce MSA, and vice versa, with the help of some of the methods suggested above, students’ attitude towards the learning of colloquial would start to shift gradually but surely.
To make things more complicated for teachers of advanced Arabic, there often appear in the fourth year classroom students who are worried that their fluency in spoken Arabic acquired during their stay in the Arabic speaking world might die away now that they are no longer living there. This group of students typically understands the importance of continuing MSA training but wishes to be given the opportunity and tools necessary to practice spoken Arabic whenever possible. Members of this group are usually more interested in the communicative and socio-pragmatic functions of Arabic as opposed to members of the other group whose priority in learning Arabic may not be communication but rather acquiring an in-depth understanding of, and training in, the more formal linguistic forms which might serve them well not only when it comes to academic tasks such as writing and translation but would also form a strong basis for learning colloquial when the right time comes. This reality of the advanced Arabic classroom poses a challenge for teachers who need to think carefully about the proportion of MSA-colloquial training they want to offer their students in order to accommodate their different objectives for learning Arabic while also fulfilling the learning outcomes of their course and the overall departmental goals.
As discussed in the previous section, training a mixed group of students in spoken Arabic is a daunting task. Careful planning is therefore needed to implement colloquial into the course in ways which allow students to practice their preferred colloquial variety. A great tool to encourage speaking is debate whereby teachers select a current topic related to the students’ interests and experiences, preferably as students of Arabic. Students are divided into groups, but not necessarily by colloquial variety learned. Brainstorming is then carried out in a mixture of spoken Arabic and MSA: students discuss their ideas in colloquial and write them down in MSA. When the debate begins students are asked to present their arguments in MSA and answer follow-up questions in colloquial. This activity allows for both spontaneous and planned discussion and gives students the opportunity to practice both formal and spoken Arabic. Another activity which is specifically designed to help practice colloquial Arabic is to task students with creating a sketch portraying certain aspects and scenes from their year abroad experience. This exercise usually gets the students’ creative juices running, resulting in some deeply informative and entertaining reflections on Arab culture and society. Students may also take this task a step further, creating scenarios where both MSA and colloquial are used. One of my classes came up with the ingenious idea for their sketch of portraying a group of travellers in the Arabic speaking world who need to resort to speaking in MSA every so often when they happened to travel to a country where their colloquial variety was not easily understood. This was especially significant as it mirrored what sometimes happens in reality. It also demonstrated that this group of students has understood Arabic as being one unified whole at the centre of which is MSA and around it revolve all the spoken varieties in a mutually dependent and very close-knit relationship.
Another possible difficulty faced by teaches of Arabic at honours level is the choice of Arabic variety for them to use in the classroom: if teachers choose their own colloquial variety, some students may not be able to understand properly because they had learned a different colloquial during their year abroad, and, even if they are able to understand the teacher to a certain extent, some may resent the fact that constant exposure to this particular colloquial variety may cause them to forget part of their learned colloquial Arabic variety. If, however, teachers chose to speak in MSA to solve this issue, they may feel unnatural and/or uncomfortable speaking a language variety which she/he does not normally use to communicate verbally in her/his own life, thus also defeating the purpose of giving the students an authentic experience learning the language within its own context. A possible – but not ideal – way out of this would be to use Educated Arabic in classes where such difficulties as the ones outlined above are to be expected. Since Educated Arabic involves using colloquial at a higher, more formal register than the one characteristic of everyday speech, it may allow learners to view Arabic varieties as forming a unity, the navigation through which is possible and helpful for effective communication in certain circumstances. Ultimately, it seems that teachers’ own attitude towards the perceived divide between MSA and spoken Arabic is essential in how their students would also regard this divide and how this may influence their experience as Arabic learners.
In conclusion, the IA has been used in the UG programme at IMES, the University of Edinburgh, in a manner which mirrors the realities of Arabic: one rich language boasting infinitely diverse varieties which enhance, and are enhanced by, their formal parent variety, MSA. Teachers on the UG programme at IMES have realised that the burden of bridging the perceived mental gap between MSA and dialect lies primarily with them, and that, should they be able to gear their programme toward drawing on similarities and using some simple strategies which reduce affect and facilitate learning Arabic, written and spoken, in an integrated manner, they can achieve very satisfactory result and allow their students to learn and use Arabic the way it is meant to be used.
Addresses for correspondence: Ayah Durkawi, Marwa Mouazen
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