This presentation is part of the Research Talk series hosted monthly by the Arabic Language@Leeds Satellite, School of Languages, Cultures and Societies. Here is the abstract of March talk, given by Dr David Wilmsen (American University of Sharjah): "In the Arabic dialects in which it operates, the grammatical particle šī, also realized as šay(y), šē, or ši, variously and inconsistently functions as an existential, a disjunctive, a negator, a partitive or quantifier, a polar interrogative, and one of many words expressing the concept ‘thing’. It has been assumed that these various grammatical functions of šay(y)/šē/šī derive from the latter meaning, but that has become a point of debate. There are reasonable arguments to be made either for or against. Arguing against is recent work with the Modern South Arabian language Mehri, where a similar particle, ɫī, performs most of the same functions that šay(y)/šē/šī performs in Arabic. It is now possible to entertain the idea that the origin of šay(y)/šē/šī is not a native Arabic word but a borrowing from the ancestor(s) to the Modern South Arabian languages." Dr Wilmsen has spent nearly thirty years in the Arabophone world, teaching in and administering Arabic-as-a-foreign-language study-abroad programs at the American University in Cairo, the American University of Beirut, and the American University of Sharjah. He is interested in the linguistic history and prehistory of the Arabic dialects, especially the grammaticalization of syntactic features, such as object markers, interrogatives, negators, and existential particles. A consistent preoccupation has been the search for and documentation of dialect features that are independent of the Arabic of writing that might reasonably be dated to the early Islamic era or before, thereby offering some proof that the modern Arabic dialects cannot have descended directly from pre-classical Arabic.

The study proposes an assessment framework of communicative Arabic proficiency considering its diglossic nature. It explores the concept and components of communicative Arabic proficiency (CAP) in relation to the Arabic varieties, and its potential testing norm and constructs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine assessment stakeholders who fall into three categories; assessor teachers, teachers and learners of Arabic as a foreign language at the (UKHE) context. The findings highlight a) aspects like social appropriacy, grammatical accuracy, cultural and bi-dialectical knowledge to be the major attributes of CAP. b) the socio-linguistic, cultural/intercultural, bi-dialectical competence, and interactional competences as the different components that CAP comprises; c) interaction and culture/inter-culture as the potential different constructs through which learners’ CAP could be measured. And d) the diversity of participants’ opinions regarding the description of Arabic native speaker and the disagreement amongst them about the appropriate assessment norm; the educated native speaker or an L2 user. The research findings reflect various opinions mainly regarding three topics of those under scrutiny; testing MSA and/or the colloquial, culture meaning and assessment approaches, in addition to the educated native speaker/ or an L2 user as a norm of proficiency assessment. Through examining the research findings in the light of the relevant literature, the UKHE context and the learners’ needs, a languacultural assessment framework of CAP was proposed. The distinctive aspects of it are; proposing a situated assessment approach of MSA and the colloquial, an interactional construct and a diglossic competent L2 user as a norm of proficiency assessment.

In our first year Arabic BA course we have been experimenting with teaching grammatical structures first orally in ECA, then in MSA, within a structural syllabus based very loosely on Al Kitaab Part 1. Examples of ECA structures are presented in communicative contexts and students first repeat then manipulate them. Explanation in English follows, and is also provided in writing, then students practise intensively through drilling as a group or in pairs, other oral exercises, and brief interactions. The structure is further reinforced through listening, and oral translation into ECA. The same structure is then studied comparatively in fully vowelled MSA through matching exercises or analysing a text, and practised through oral drills, written exercises, and finally free writing. This approach has several advantages: practice is far quicker orally than in writing; structures are practised intensively in class, leaving less for students to absorb independently; learning to speak first helps reading; students practise accuracy in spontaneous speech, then have time, with writing, for contrastive reflection and grammatical precision in MSA. At the end of the year the students had more fluent, grammatically accurate and wide-ranging command of ECA than previous students, and wrote MSA more correctly and effectively, with a wider range of grammar and vocabulary in both. Their aural and written comprehension was improved and they were less confused between the two varieties. Overall they had a far better feel for and command of the language.

Given the rising interest and enrolment figures in Arabic language teaching programmes, the new global technological and security concerns, and the recent shift in understanding the importance of teaching culture in foreign language pedagogy, there has been an inexplicable lack of scholarship on the integration of culture and technology in the teaching of Arabic as a foreign language. Likewise, research into appropriate web-based tools that address the unique cultural context of the Arabic language and into creative teaching materials that can support the integration of culture and technology in the Arabic teaching classroom is conspicuously lacking too. Existing scholarship on these topics also tends in many cases to be theoretically based and does not explain exactly how to create intercultural communicative competence through experientially embracing the changing world of technological communication in the target culture. A significant part of this everyday communication takes place in colloquial Arabic rather than MSA. However, despite the extensive scholarship on the issue of diglossia and the integration of colloquial Arabic alongside MSA in the Arabic curriculum, there is limited research into effective methods of employing colloquial Arabic in cultural training within the Arabic classroom. If such an employment and integration does not happen, Arabic learners will find it difficult to reach a true intercultural communicative competence. This presentation will look at possible ways the above issues could be resolved by employing teaching tools such as Facebook, Youtube, song, dance, calligraphy, cooking, and original filmed sketches: technological forms of communication and cultural products in the ever-changing contexts of language use. However, such a new way of teaching Arabic would require integrating the various discussions and scholarship on the teaching of Arabic, breaking existing boundaries, and promoting a new re-defined role for the Arabic teacher, as well as an increasingly innovative, experiential, and student-centred use of technology, curriculum and web-based tools that could support these changes.

Communicative Language Teaching has been changing the way foreign languages are taught since the 1970s. Despite this, and the surge in students opting for Arabic at universities in the West over the past 15 years, many Arabic language departments are not preparing students for communication. In the majority of UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), students are taught to speak, listen, read and write in MSA and are expected to pick up a dialect during their year abroad. This study has revealed that some HEIs have introduced regional varieties into the curriculum. However, participants are still dissatisfied with the lack of focus on them and speaking in general. To date, no comprehensive study has investigated the reasons UK students are opting for Arabic or how regional varieties are dealt with in undergraduate degree courses. This study addresses this gap through mixed methods research, drawing on both quantitative and qualitative methods, including questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations. Research on curriculum development suggests that including the student voice in discussions on course content is crucial if students are to be engaged in learning. Findings from this study reveal that students are learning Arabic to converse with L1 speakers and to use their language when travelling to the Arabic-speaking world. Due to the diglossic nature of the Arabic language, students need to draw on two varieties when choosing the appropriate variety in any given situation. Therefore, in this study, it is proposed that regional varieties are incorporated into Arabic undergraduate degree courses.

In this paper, I argue that Arabic diglossia is represented in the native speaker’s mind (Giolfo and Sinatora, 2011) through mental categorisations of the different functions that the language varieties fulfil. I also rely on recent findings showing that Standard and Colloquial Arabic vocabularies are neurophysiologically separated (Khamis-­Dakwar and Froud, 2014) in the speaker’s mind. This reconceptualisation of diglossia greatly affects the field of the Teaching of Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL). It implies that it is necessary to teach both the formal and the colloquial varieties, and that students of Arabic need to develop linguistic skills that allow them to perform a native-­like diglossic level of differentiation. Since vocabulary is the major contributor to proficiency and the strongest predictor of proficiency ratings (Iwashita et al., 2008), the development of diglossic vocabulary is the requisite for proficiency in Arabic. Inasmuch as it implies a potential overload for students, it is necessary to make sure that they are able not only to enlarge their vocabulary quickly and efficiently, but also to reduce the efforts required to memorise it. This can be achieved through cognitive linguistic approaches based on explicit vocabulary instruction, focus on form and focus on phonetic variation between formal and vernacular Arabic. Moreover, diglossic vocabulary building can be accelerated by drawing students’ attention on regular changes that occur comparatively within word patterns and features of both varieties. References Giolfo, M.E.B., Sinatora, F. (2011). “Rethinking Arabic Diglossia. Language Representations and Ideological Intents” in P. Valore (ed.), Multilingualism. Language, Power and Knowledge. Edistudio, Pisa, pp. 103-­128. Iwashita, N., Brown, A., McNamara, T. and O’Hagan, S. (2008). “Assessed Levels of Second Language Speaking Proficiency: How Distinct?”. Applied Linguistics 29. 24-­49. Khamis-­Dakwar, R., Froud K. (2014). “Neurocognitive modeling of the two language varieties in Arabic Diglossia” in R. Khamis-­Dakwar and K. (eds.) Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XXVI: Papers from the annual symposium on Arabic Linguistics. John Benjamins, New York, 2012. pp. 285–302.

Motivation and engagement in language learning are two of the core mechanisms that facilitate the successful development of proficiency. However, little theoretically-based research has been conducted into either of these concepts in the field of Arabic as a Foreign Language, particularly in the UK. Given its di/multiglossic nature (Hary, 1996), Arabic presents an interesting case when it comes to both of these areas. Using a re-developed approach to the L2 Motivational Self-System (Dörnyei, 2005), which explores the strength and existence of learners’ future self-concepts as language users as the driving force behind their desire to learn, and by integrating recent multidimensional theories of engagement, this longitudinal, mixed-methods study outlines an approach to measuring learners’ motivational profiles, and the nature and intensity of their engagement with classroom tasks. This will determine: a) why students are/ aren’t motivated to study Arabic, and the internal mechanisms driving their motivation, b) what types of tasks learners’ are engaged in and why, c) the relationship between learners’ motivational profiles, and their levels of task-based engagement. Through the design and testing of Motivation and Engagement surveys, and the conducting of interviews, this study aims to offer a tool for teachers of Arabic to accurately identify and understand the reasons for their students’ desire to learn the language, in order to tailor their pedagogical approaches to match students’ aims and goals, and employ strategies to boost learners’ levels of motivation and engagement where necessary. References: Dörnyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Hary, B. (1996). ‘The Importance of the Language Continuum in Arabic Multiglossia’. In Elgibali, A. (Ed.), Understanding Arabic: Essays in Contemporary Arabic Linguistics in Honour of El-Said Badawi. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. pp.69-90.

The demand for studying Arabic has increased in the recent years. In order to meet this demand, Arabic language as a full degree, joint honours or an evening course has appeared as an option on most if not all of the UK universities list. In the process, several courses were introduced at different levels. It was therefore important to link the language to the CEFR to assign a clear academic progress pathway. While it is easy for most of the other languages, Arabic represents us with a challenge. The language consists of two main components: the standard modern form used in the academic field and most of the printed materials, news and media, and several other varieties in the communicative area. Another challenge was setting up the assessment criteria and credit levels. Several points had to be taken into consideration when assessing the different language skills, such as minimum number of words, whether the spoken variety can be accepted in oral assessments and if so which form of variety, how much of the grammatical structure should be observed in these varieties.

Audio recording of the Power-point Presentations given by: Mr Saleh Patel titled "Digital Story Telling" Mr Jonathan Featherstone titled "Teaching the Integrated Approach using Communicative Language Games " Dr Rasha Soliman titled "Using Language Corpora to Develop Arabic Lessons and Syllabuses"

Audio recording of the power-point presentations given by: Prof James Dickins titled "The teaching of Arabic in the UK: past, present and the future" Dr Hanem El-Farahaty titled "The teacher researcher: challenges and support" Mr Taoudiq Cherkaoui titled "Incorporating culture effectively in lessons as a way of raising cultural capital, motivation and progress in Arabic".

This paper aims to present using corpus-based activities to improve the writing skills of Arabic learners. Corpus-based teaching in L2 classes is now considered an established approach supported by corpus resources, tools, textbooks and research. However, Arabic teaching is yet to make full use of this approach, and this study is an attempt to promote corpus-based teaching in TAFL by going beyond the more common uses of corpora in the classroom (e.g. vocabulary building and grammar teaching). Within the huge literature on error analysis and self-correction in L2, this study presents a model of self-correction through corpus-based tasks for intermediate level learners of Arabic. Self-correction is a type of indirect approach to error correction by “encouraging learners to self-correct by highlighting the errors, identifying the category of error with a code, or giving an explanation without providing the correct form” (Guenette 2012: 118). This approach supports engaging learners in a cognitive problem-solving situation in the same way that a corpus-based task is designed. The general aim of such corpus-based tasks is twofold. First, to actively engage the learners in thinking about their own errors in written Arabic, and how to correct them. Second, to use the corpus as a resource for the correction of the original mistake or error, as well as for furthering the learners’ understanding of other uses of the particular word or expression. The procedure follows a simple error analysis model, broadly following the work of Sridhar (1980). It starts with (a) collection of data (i.e. the teacher reads students’ written assignments); (b) identification of errors (i.e. underlining the written error); (c) a classification of errors is done in relation to both frequency and type (e.g. grammatical error, lexical error, individual error, common error, etc); and finally (d) therapy (i.e. the teacher designs individual or group corpus-based tasks to tackle these errors. References: Guenette, D. (2012). The Pedagogy of Error Correction: Surviving the Written Corrective Feedback Challenge. TESL Canada Journal, 30 (1): 117-126. Sridhar, S. N. (1980). Contrastive analysis, error analysis, and interlanguage. In: J. Fisiak (ed.) Contrastive Linguistics and the Language Teacher. Oxford: Pergamon Press.

In the new era of digital technology, the use of microblogging networks such as Twitter became a common practice among youth learners and digital natives across language classes. In the presence of VLE across all universities, do we really need to add Twitter to language classroom? Researchers suggest that Twitter as a tool outside the classroom can be a good support for language learning. In this study, we discuss the students’ perceptions regarding the use of Twitter in an Arabic for Media classroom, and how Twitter could be used as facilitator to maximise the students’ motivation. The data of this paper is based on a questionnaire that has been given to final year students of Arabic at the University of Westminster. The students took “Arabic for Media” as a major module in their Undergraduate Programmes. Students were asked to answer questions about their usage of and opinion on Twitter, and how they felt about the whole experience. From their answers, it was concluded that Twitter can be used as an effective tool and a practising collaboration among learners of Arabic for specific purposes.

By analyzing the Net Generation’s motivation to use the digital technology and identifying the activities that are involved in the process we can pinpoint the essential characteristics that guide the best practice for integrating the digital tools and resources in teaching and learning. Those tools are generally characterized by one or more of the following attributes: • adaptive to individual preferences • providing opportunities for collaboration and sharing • offering sense of community • profiling individuals according to their contributions • maintaining stealth user assessment and giving ranking • community recognition and individual motivation • activity tracking and reporting on demand Supplementing our teaching with digital tools in a way that lacks to any of those attributes will only result in offering variety of materials format and activities without getting out of the traditional classroom box. This presentation will showcase a mobile friendly web application that provides teachers and students with a platform for hosting structured and collaborative activities to practice reading and listening of media Arabic web content. The application implements the SAMR model higher levels of modification and redefinition. Both the application and activities try as much as possible to create a small learning community with collaboration, sharing and ranking functions. The presentation will showcase a live demo of the application as well as an overview of other related implementations and projects.

The present lecture is part of the monthly Research Talks organised by the Arabic Language@Leeds Satellite group in the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies at University of Leeds. Abstract: Traditionally, the acceptable form for Arabic writing was the fuṣḥā form, and yet we see in the digital age the proliferation of writing that more closely resembles the spoken āmmīyah forms. Perhaps even more interestingly, we see the use of ‘mixed’ forms of writing that combine elements of both fuṣḥā and āmmīyah. Is this mixing random or are there patterns we can identify? Are we witnessing an evolution of Arabic writing? How can we analyse this language use in the wider context of Arabic writing, and how does this language use compare with traditional print media and literature? Dr Saussan Khalil is a Senior Arabic Language Teacher at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge University. She is also the founder and director or Kalamna, a social enterprise providing Arabic language classes for children, teacher training and research-based resources for teaching Arabic. She holds a PhD in Arabic sociolinguistics and MA by Research in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language – both from Leeds University. She also holds a Certificate for Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language from SOAS and a BA English Literature from Alexandria University in Egypt. The talk took place on May 24th, 2-3pm BST