Arabic Language Education in the UAE: Choosing the Right Drivers

Abstract

This chapter describes the many initiatives that have been spearheaded by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in an effort to develop the teaching and learning of Arabic in the country. Although there has been unprecedented attention given to Arabic language education in the decade up to 2018, including an Arabic language charter, a reading law, the Arabic reading challenge, the Arabic for life report, and the Arabic award to list just a few, private and public schools are still having some challenges in bringing best practice to the Arabic language classrooms with students still underperforming. The UAE vision and initiatives set in place to develop Arabic language education are to be applauded; however, it is the direction of that vision that needs to be adjusted to focus mainly on teacher preparation and teacher and school leadership training. Teachers and school leaders are the most important piece in the educational fabric and without ensuring that they receive the best preparation and continuous and meaningful training and support throughout their careers, then these initiatives will have little impact on Arabic language education outcomes.

Multilingual, bilingual, and monolingual Arabic teachers’ development of learner self‐regulation and language awareness in the Emirates

“…The various dialects exist mostly in spoken form and are not always mutually intelligible. They are used in day‐to‐day interactions between Arabic speakers (Thomure, 2019).…”

“…The effects of such changes can be witnessed in recent studies, which indicates that Emirati students are more strongly motivated to learn English than they are other foreign languages, whereas expat students are generally less motivated to learn Arabic than they are English and other foreign languages (Calafato & Tang, 2019a, 2019b). This is despite the UAE government's efforts to promote the learning and use of Arabic through numerous initiatives and directives (for an overview, see Thomure, 2019). According to some researchers (e.g., Thomure, 2019), this simultaneous prioritizing of English and lower motivation to learn Arabic could be occurring because private schools do not give Arabic enough importance, oftentimes because the generally Western expat leadership in such schools is neither proficient in Arabic nor do they have much background knowledge about it.…”

“…This is despite the UAE government's efforts to promote the learning and use of Arabic through numerous initiatives and directives (for an overview, see Thomure, 2019). According to some researchers (e.g., Thomure, 2019), this simultaneous prioritizing of English and lower motivation to learn Arabic could be occurring because private schools do not give Arabic enough importance, oftentimes because the generally Western expat leadership in such schools is neither proficient in Arabic nor do they have much background knowledge about it. As such, they are “at a loss regarding what to do and who to turn to for best practices in teaching Arabic” (Thomure, 2019, p. 81).…”

The Influence of Technology and Innovation in Online Teaching Arabic as a Second Language in Dubai

“…Different studies use various theoretical frameworks to achieve the objectives of the research. Several studies (Imenda, 2014;Haron et al, 2016;Taha, 2019;Carroll et al, 2017;Harrison, 2018;Alkutich, 2017;Cook, 2016;O'Neill, 2017;Ahmad, 2018) used the interpretivism theoretical models. Interpretivism involves a fundamental research approach in sociology that integrates human interest in the study.…”

“…Additionally, Belhiah and Elhami (2015) found that English was rapidly becoming a priority language in instruction in most schools in Dubai and other major UAE cities. Taha (2019) and attributed the trend to the increasing immigrant population in the UAE. Besides, Belhiah and Elhami (2015) reveal that convolutions and debates exist about the universality of using the Arabic language for decisions in pedagogical institutions.…”