The Limitations of Reading to Young Children in Literary Arabic: The Unspoken Struggle with Arabic Diglossia

Shendy, Riham

doi:10.17507/tpls.0902.01

Cited by 15 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…When the three mothers read to their children, they used English books but not Arabic books because their children did not understand the formal Arabic used in books. In general, children's books are not published in a'amiya , the Arabic used in everyday communication, because publishers are reluctant to support this genre of colloquial books (Shendy, 2019). However, teachers can send Arabic or English picture books home for families to have book sharing time.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culturally Sustaining Instruction for Arabic‐Speaking English Learners

Louie¹,

Sierschynski²

2020

The Reading Teacher

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Arabic is the second most common home language of English learners in the United States. Educators seek to design culturally sustaining pedagogy to develop Arabic‐speaking English learners’ English skills while nourishing their heritage language and affirming their culture's values. The authors report on a series of interviews with three Arabic mothers on their perceptions of North American and Arabic award‐winning picture books and their experience of reading with their children. Based on the analysis of the interviews, the authors put forward five culturally sustaining pedagogical possibilities.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Culturally Sustaining Instruction for Arabic‐Speaking English Learners

Louie¹,

Sierschynski²

2020

The Reading Teacher

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“…In contrast, literature published in English focused more explicitly on the linguistic issues around Arabic language use in education (e.g. Shendy, 2019).…”

Section: Arabophone Countriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Minoritised languages, education, and technology: Current practices and future directions in low- and middle-income countries

Hub¹

2022

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This article explores the current status and future directions of minoritised language education and the use of technology in low- and middle-income countries. Our literature review of available academic sources in multiple languages reveals a lack of evidence on the use of technology in minoritised language education across different countries, especially multilingual contexts with greater linguistic diversity. To understand the issue in greater detail and to offer recommendations informed by current practice, we then conducted interviews and a collaborative workshop with four organisations with relevant EdTech initiatives. The analysis covers facilitating and limiting factors these organisations have encountered, as well as the impact of good practice initiatives on learners and society at large. We conclude by identifying the practical, policy, and research properties in the development of minoritised language education and technology. Keywords: minoritised languages, mother tongue, educational technology, LMIC, multilingualism, language of instruction An output of the EdTech Hub, https://edtechhub.org

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“…For example, Saiegh-Haddad (2008) and Asaad and Eviatar (2014) conducted studies on letter learning and suggested that letters that correspond to sounds that do not occur in the Arabic dialects are more difficult to learn and to identify than the ones that do exist in the spoken Arabic variety of the speakers. Moreover, Tibi and Kirby (2018) pointed out that the diglossic situation of Arabic could pose a potential challenge in learning to use the language, since ammia, or dialectal Arabic is considered a child's first language (Shendy, 2019) and precedes their exposure to literary MSA in most cases. Children learning to read and write for the first time in MSA may face difficulties coping with a linguistic system that is essentially foreign (Taha, 2013;Horn, 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

What the Eyes Hear: An Eye-Tracking Study on Phonological Awareness in Emirati Arabic

et al. 2020

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Phonological awareness is the ability to perceive and manipulate the sounds of spoken words. It is considered a good predictor of reading and spelling abilities. In the current study, we used an eye-tracking procedure to measure fixation differences while adults completed three conditions of phonological awareness in Emirati Arabic (EA): (1) explicit instructions for onset consonant matching (OCM), (2) implicit instructions for segmentation of initial consonant (SIC), and (3) rhyme matching (RM). We hypothesized that fixation indices would vary according to the experimental conditions. We expected explicit instructions to facilitate task performance. Thus, eye movements should reflect more efficient fixation patterns in the explicit OCM condition in comparison to the implicit SIC condition. Moreover, since Arabic is consonant-based, we hypothesized that participants would perform better in the consonant conditions (i.e., OCM and SIC) than in the rhyme condition (i.e., RM). Finally, we expected that providing feedback during practice trials would facilitate participants' performance overall. Response accuracy, expressed as a percentage of correct responses, was recorded alongside eye movement data. Results show that performance was significantly compromised in the RM condition, where targets received more fixations of longer average duration, and significantly longer gaze durations in comparison to the OCM and SIC conditions. Response accuracy was also significantly lower in the RM condition. Our results indicate that eye-tracking can be used as a tool to test phonological awareness skills and shows differences in performance between tasks containing a vowel or consonant manipulation.

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The Limitations of Reading to Young Children in Literary Arabic: The Unspoken Struggle with Arabic Diglossia

Cited by 15 publications

References 19 publications

Culturally Sustaining Instruction for Arabic‐Speaking English Learners

Culturally Sustaining Instruction for Arabic‐Speaking English Learners

Minoritised languages, education, and technology: Current practices and future directions in low- and middle-income countries

What the Eyes Hear: An Eye-Tracking Study on Phonological Awareness in Emirati Arabic

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