Challenges in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language

Book excerpt: An essential collection of empirical studies on the TAFL (teaching Arabic as a foreign language) classroom experience, by leading professionals in the field Although teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) has grown inexorably in recent decades, there is a dearth of empirical research on the TAFL classroom experience. In this insightful volume, Dalal Abo El Seoud brings together up-to-date practice-based research and conceptual contributions by eighteen professionals in the field. These address a wide range of challenges in teaching Arabic as a foreign language and ways of overcoming them with a clear eye to twenty-first-century language-learning skills, which advocate communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. The chapters address curriculum design, teaching Arabic to non-English speakers, trends in the use of technology, motivating students, teaching Arabic language varieties, and teaching language skills. This volume will be an invaluable resource for teachers and teachers in training of TAFL and for scholars and researchers in the field. Contributors: Dalal Abo El Seoud, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Hagar Lotfy Amer, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Wael M. Asfour, independent scholar, Cairo, Egypt Mona Azzam, State University of New York at Binghamton, New York, USA Mahmoud Al-Batal, The American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon Nino Ejibadze, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia Shereen Y. El Ezabi, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Mohamed Ibrahim, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr al-Sheikh, Egypt Mimi Melkonian, Brunswick School, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA Haitham S. Mohamed, University of California, Berkeley, Berkely, California, USA Joanna Natalia Murkocinska, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. Heba Salem, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Mohamed Sawaie, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA Laila Al-Sawi, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Paweł Siwiec, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland Iman Aziz Soliman, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt Przemysław Turek, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland Shahira Yacout, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt