UAE must Improve Teaching of Arabic Language

According to an article in The National online, researchers have found that children in the UAE are leaving school without the ability to speak Arabic fluently, and with poor command of written skills in their native language.

Professor Helen Abadzi, from the University of Texas, told the Gulf Comparative Education Society symposium that Arabic students are lacking essential skills in their mother tongue due in part to lack of teaching time for Arabic within schools, and the complexities of the language.

“Whether you like it or not, research shows that Arabic students are not performing as well. For many, their reading of Arabic is a little slower than reading English,” she stated at the symposium.

Ms Abadzi continued with suggestions that Arabic schools should be dedicating more time for Arabic language classes, with a return to rudimentary grammar tests for those children who are struggling to grasp the basics.

Other experts at the symposium, organised by the Sheikh Saud Bin Saqr Al Qasimi Foundation for Policy Research, talked of the necessity to raise academic success for all Arab pupils from grade one onwards.

They suggested the following points would be beneficial in raising standards of Arabic language within schools across UAE:

• Grade 1 curricula should include oral instruction in Standard Arabic
• One, 45 minute, class per week in Standard Arabic is insufficient to raise standards
• Grade 1 & 2 students should be fluent Arabic readers
• Subjects such as, technology, science, and social studies can be taught in later grades
• Class time should be given to reading longer passages of Arabic in the early grades
• Textbook appearance should be improved
• Grade 1 children must practice individual letters, and combinations
• Conjugations of common verb forms should be taught
• A systematic curriculum with emphasis on Standard Arabic grammar
• Frequent curriculum checks and revision should be undertaken in line with research findings

Ms Abadzi suggested that one of the reasons that Arab nations score lower in international tests is due to the visual complexities of Arabic writing, and the limited grammatical knowledge that is acquired at an early age.

Young Arab readers take longer to recognise the complicated script of Arabic, compared to their English counterparts, and patterns are harder to discern. This slows the general reading speed, overloading memory, and can negatively affect their reading, and learning.

To combat this the Al Qasimi foundation have created a textbook which can be used to increase reading speed though use of large, well-spaced letters, individual symbols and combinations.

Reading has constantly been proven as an indicator of student ability in later years. For instance, by the end of grade 1 most children in UAE can read a single sentence, while international children are reading a full page. This gap widens as children progress through their years at school with UAE pupils reading approximately 200-300 words by grade 4, while internationally the levels are 800-1000 words.

The need to constantly practice cannot be overlooked; the higher the reading speed and accuracy in the early school years, the greater the ability to link concepts, and think critically in the latter years.

Gaps in knowledge, reading, and comprehension early within a school career, lead to larger gaps in understanding in later childhood. Fast visual, and linguistic processing is required to understand large volumes of text.

Ms Abadzi suggests that rigorous daily reading for children in grades 1 and 2, with use of increased letter size and spacing in texts, should encourage greater reading abilities.

As part of a pilot programme in a public school in RAK, two first grade sections received two extra classes of reading per week over three months.

The pupils with lower performance doubled the number of letters they could read from 12 to 23 per minute, and the number of words increased from 6.4 to 11.

There is a variance in educational standards, and teaching priorities, for the Arabic language within UAE as a whole. Dubai, for example, teaches Arabic four times per week, for 45 minute classes, in many private schools, but this is often less in other schools in UAE with only one class of 45 minutes each week in some instances.

However, the quality of teaching, home/school partnerships, and practising outside of the classroom are also crucial to improving the Arabic language standards of the young people of UAE.

Assistant professor of education policy, Khalaf Marhoun Al Abri, at Oman’s Sultan Qaboos University, stressed the need for integration.

“Our students show intelligence when they study abroad. Then they perform well like other students but when they are here the whole context changes. Why? We need to bring improvements to the system. We need cooperation and partnership to overcome the issue,” he said.

“When there is work done in schools, there is no support from families and parents. Sometimes we publish research results but there is no support from policy makers to take the findings forward. So everyone needs to be focused not just the education sector and schools, but the government, society, families and individual students.”

Kaltham Kenaid, head of research at Dubai’s regulator, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), highlights the importance of regularly testing Arabic language and Islamic Studies teachers through examinations and interviews.

“We try to use positive psychology and don’t focus on the weakness but on their strengths. The focus must be on what will take us into the future,” she said.
Test programmes have been instigated by the KHDA over the last couple of years that encourage teachers to set targets, instead of the school, principle, or regulators.

Teachers are given more control over their subject area, which in turn allows them to focus their teaching on what each class requires. The teacher then monitors progress of the class, sharing information with other teachers. The school then becomes a collective team that are focussed on the requirements of students as opposed to the desires of the regulators.

The UAE has agreed objectives to rank in the top 20 countries in PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) and the top 15 nations within TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) by the year 2021.

This follows government announcements last year that Arabic Language education would be given greater prominence in private schools, which will include improved teacher training, and a revised curriculum in a bid to protect the Arabic language.

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