Toward systematic diversification of collegiate U.S. Arabic language curricula

Repository record updated on:

Oct. 31, 2022, 10:12 a.m.

Database record updated on:

Nov. 19, 2022, 9 p.m.

Last Harvested on:

Nov. 19, 2022, 9 p.m.

bitstream:

['https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstreams/1e8a5220-7b77-4822-8ec8-f9124263e142/download']

bitstream_txt:

['https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstreams/f9534e6d-a3af-434b-881a-78f5b01bd140/download']

collection:

Volume 03 - Issue 1

contributor.author:

Vanpee, Katrien

date.accessioned:

2022-10-24T21:07:53Z

date.available:

2022-10-24T21:07:53Z

date.issued:

2022-11-01

description.abstract:

Growing recognition of the importance of instruction in colloquial Arabic has led to increased incorporation of colloquials into collegiate Arabic programs, whether taught separately from Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or in an integrated fashion. Nevertheless, collegiate U.S. Arabic programs have, overall, not yet succeeded in foregrounding the Arab world’s tremendously rich linguistic and cultural diversity. In many programs, both those that teach MSA and colloquial Arabic separately and those that follow an integrated approach, the lived experience of a great number of communities in the Arab world remains invisible. This report examines how the push for colloquial instruction has inadvertently sustained the practices of erasure that increased instruction in informal Arabic had sought to address, and calls into question existing center-versus-periphery schemata that inform the work of Arabic curriculum designers. Instead, it proposes an approach to Arabic curriculum design that centralizes the Arab world’s diversity and heterogeneity, rather than presenting it as a “tokenized side note” (Randall, 2017). This means offering alternatives to dominant narratives about Arab culture in the classroom and diversifying the Arabic colloquials taught. The report concludes with steps that Arabic program leaders, and curriculum and material designers, might take toward profound diversification of our Arabic curricula.

endingpage:

150

identifier.citation:

Vanpee, K. (2022). Toward systematic diversification of collegiate U.S. Arabic language curricula. Second Language Research & Practice, 3(1), 140–150. http://hdl.handle.net/10125/69873

identifier.issn:

2694-6610

identifier.uri:

https://hdl.handle.net/10125/69873

llt.topic:

Special Section on Decentering Language Curricula

number:

1

publicationname:

Second Language Research & Practice

publisher:

University of Hawaii National Foreign Language Resource Center (co-sponsored by American Association of University of Supervisors and Coordinators; Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition; Center for Educational Reources in Culture, Language, and Literacy; Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning; Open Language Resource Center; Second Language Teaching and Resource Center)

site_url:

/item/401

startingpage:

140

subject:

Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language diversification decentering colloquial Arabic curriculum design

title:

Toward systematic diversification of collegiate U.S. Arabic language curricula

type:

Report

type.dcmi:

Text

volume:

3