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Literacy Acquisition and Diglossia: Textbooks in Israeli Arabic-speaking Schools

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Handbook of Arabic Literacy

Part of the book series: Literacy Studies ((LITS,volume 9))

Abstract

Arabic is a language known for being diglossic. That is, it has spoken colloquial Arabic dialects (CA), which are the native speakers’ mother tongue, and a formal, written Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Literacy instruction in Arabic has long been a major concern and educators and students have long complained about difficulties in acquiring MSA and reading in it. The study asks (1) What structural elements of MSA and CA cause particular difficulties? (2) Do these differences vary in different grades? One way to examine the similarities and differences between MSA and CA is by comparing the parallel grammatical elements of CA and MSA in language (grammar) textbooks as in Rosenhouse and Shehadi (Philosophy, language, arts: Essays in honor of Alexander Barzel (251–272), 1986) for 1st and 2nd grades. The present paper applies this method to new 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th, and 11th grade books. The vocabulary of the textbooks that were examined and about twenty morphological and syntactic forms that occur in the books studied in that earlier paper are compared with parallel structures used in the recent textbooks in Israeli CA. Our findings show variability in the occurrence of these features in the textbooks of the various grades. The comparison of the recent textbooks with findings in Rosenhouse and Shehadi (Philosophy, language, arts: Essays in honor of Alexander Barzel (251–272), 1986) reveals both differences and similarities regarding the examined linguistic features.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Such deviations were named Laħn al-ʕ a:mma, e.g., Ayoub 2007 .

  2. 2.

    Yet they may be exposed to MSA through TV, listening to stories or songs earlier, in the kindergarten or at home.

  3. 3.

    Sulaiman (1993, p. 22–23) mentions that already in 1899 activity was underway to facilitate the structure of the Arabic alphabet and thus its acquisition.

  4. 4.

    These include Lebanese Christian writers such as Khalil, Nuʕaima, and others.

  5. 5.

    The public education system in Israel has separate schools for native Hebrew speakers and native Arabic speakers, but individuals can learn in either, or in (a few) bilingual schools.

  6. 6.

    Kindergarten education is also obligatory from age 5, but in fact many children begin kindergarten education at earlier ages. We do not study this stage here, however.

  7. 7.

    This method in fact involves “tacit” or “implicit learning” (see e.g., Polanyi 1966; Reber 1993; Ellis 1994; Rosenhouse 2008), i.e. acquiring a subject without special effort or attention to it. This method is used in some Israeli kindergartens (probably without being aware of the theory of implicit learning). The benefit of listening to stories in MSA read aloud by the kindergarten teacher has been investigated concerning later enhancement of MSA acquisition (Feitelson et al. 1993).

  8. 8.

    We use the IPA transcription for the Arabic names and words.

  9. 9.

    The difference between these two methods is that the new ‘synthetic’ method basically begins with teaching letters combining them into words, whereas the previous ‘analytical’ method starts with words and breaks them down to syllables and letters.

  10. 10.

    The CA examples in our comparison reflect the urban dialect of Jerusalem. When just “Arabic” is mentioned, we mean the Arabic language in general.

  11. 11.

    For more comprehensive descriptions see e.g., Ryding (2005); Holes (2004).

  12. 12.

    This was also the picture in Rosenhouse (1990), which studied Classical and modern Arabic literature.

  13. 13.

    We do not discuss the basic negation particles ma: or la: which are shared by MSA and CA, although MSA and CA differ in their syntax. We will note only more “specifically MSA” forms, such as lam which is used only in MSA and not in CA (i.e., being non-cognate lexical items), if they occur.

  14. 14.

    Neither do we discuss pedagogical issues which are usually discussed in the context of MSA teaching and literacy acquisition (see Wahba 2007), such as the teacher’s role before and after reading a new text. For instance, usually the teacher first discusses the topic orally and explains some new words and notions. Then, the text is read and exercises on it are conducted both in class and as homework.

  15. 15.

    The numbers 1–17 refer to the studied elements presented in Table 12.1 and detailed above.

  16. 16.

    The form of this MSA adjective ‘good’ xair remains unchanged, unlike regular adjectives such as al- ʔ akbar ‘the biggest’.

  17. 17.

    Part 1 of this book teaches the alphabet, and is usually used in kindergartens related to the school; to be able to compare a book of the al- ʕ arabiyya luγatuna: series we therefore used part 2.

  18. 18.

    This form is also called ‘internal (or apophonic) passive’, since it involves modifying the vowels of the active verb pattern. Cf. kataba ‘(he) wrote’ vs. kutiba ‘(it) was written’. It is mentioned here because it does not exist in sedentary CA dialects in Israel.

  19. 19.

    Cognate words are related to CA and MSA lexical items in being derived from the same consonantal root. e.g., MSA: kita:b CA: kta:b ‘book’. They often differ in their morphological patterns, however, as in MA: masaka CA: misek ‘(he) held, seized’. Non-cognate lexical elements differ in both root and pattern. For example, cf. MSA: qasʕsʕa CA: ħaka ‘tell (a story)’. These structural differences are expected to affect MSA acquisition for students who are native speakers of CA.

  20. 20.

    Makhoul (2011) notes that in fact all the textbooks aim at reading comprehension.

  21. 21.

    This structure signifies a potential but uncertain event. This is a new role for this word which also governs verbs in the past tense, yielding a past perfect tense, and in this role occurs in 2nd grade books (see Sect. 3.1 above, p. 14).

  22. 22.

    ‘The ‘internal object’ or ‘cognate accusative’ (mafʕ u:l mu ṭ laq) is the structure where ‘an action is intensified through use of a verbal noun cognate with the verb (i.e., derived of the same root)’ (Ryding 2005, p. 174).

  23. 23.

    Rosenhouse’s (1990) analysis also reflects this kind of text style.

  24. 24.

    We do not discuss here other school subjects and their language, but this statement is based on books of e.g., biology and mathematics which we have perused.

  25. 25.

    Teaching the new books requires modifications in teachers’ pedagogical methodology, but this issue is not part of the present study.

  26. 26.

    In these three verb patterns, C stands for a root consonant.

  27. 27.

    This point has hardly been investigated, but cf. Badry-Zalami (2007) and Wahba (2007).

  28. 28.

    We say “at least” because we have not checked the relevant book(s) of the 3rd grade. The author of al-ʕarabiyya luƔ atuna: has in the mean time published the 3rd grade book of the series (Makhoul 2013).

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Acknowledgments

Dr. Baha Makhoul is gratefully thanked for her generous help in collecting the textbooks for this study and for interesting discussions.

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  1. Swantech Ltd., 89 Hagalil St., 3268412, Haifa, Israel

    Prof. Judith Rosenhouse

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  1. Prof. Judith Rosenhouse
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Correspondence to Judith Rosenhouse .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

    Elinor Saiegh-Haddad

  2. Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA

    R. Malatesha Joshi

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Rosenhouse, J. (2014). Literacy Acquisition and Diglossia: Textbooks in Israeli Arabic-speaking Schools. In: Saiegh-Haddad, E., Joshi, R. (eds) Handbook of Arabic Literacy. Literacy Studies, vol 9. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8545-7_12

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