My Vision Concerning the Excellence in Arabic Language Teaching

The Arabic Language has a remarkable standing among the world's contemporary languages. Over the past 1400 years, Arabic has become a key component in the unique identity of the peoples of the Arab and Islamic regions across the globe. Thereby making the profession of teaching Arabic language and culture such an interesting and rewarding mission that serves a long-held cultural and religious tradition. That mission is particularly challenged in our modern days by globalization trends. --- Thereby we as teachers and experts of the language and its outstanding heritage are required to help new generations profoundly understand and appreciate the originality and uniqueness of their mother tongue. That teaching process shall by no means ignore the latest developments of other contemporary languages.

The teaching of Arabic, however, involves a slew of challenges, of which diglossia (person's ability to switch from one dialect to another dialect within the bounds of a single language) and bilingualism. In our daily life, we do that switching between codes (dialects and languages) on a constant basis. That involves, however, some challenges for young learners. For the language taught in classrooms is distanced from the language (code) spoken at home and in social settings, and that impacts the learning process negatively. As students rarely develop easy familiarity with the language, and tend to develop a negative image of the formal code taught in classrooms, and sometimes the personality of the teacher who might seem to them as a representative of an outdated subject who has a rare connection with modern age, which in turn impairs students' ability to interact and process the subject matter.

The writer of this CV has over ten years of extensive experience in the fields of academic research and applied linguistics, e.g. discourse analysis and computational linguistics, as well as teaching Arabic across the different phases, from preparatory schools to university level. And based on this expertise, I take over the responsibility of helping students build and use critical faculties ---- based on brilliant linguistic competencies.

To this end, I have developed a 'Full-fledged Arabic Language Learning Framework' that regards the language teaching process as a continued activity that stretches beyond classroom hours. This framework stands on multiple teaching styles and strategies that involve the execution of procedures and exercises within the classroom and beyond, to serve the target knowledge skills that enhance students' linguistic competencies on the three levels of linguistic competency, sociolinguistic competency and strategic competency.

This framework is applied through a series of procedures. These procedures start with diving lecture time into three subsequent sections. In the first section, the teacher directs a set of conversational questions designed to help students infer, generate and discuss a target body of knowledge through the standard techniques of observations, comparisons and analysis. Afterwards, students are asked to put together the small, interconnected notes to bring about a more comprehensive understanding of the subject in question.

The initial brainstorming questions shall be directed to the largest possible number of students, particularly those who may seem less interactive or less tuned in, to ensure the inclusion of all attendees into the learning process, based on a subtle balance between the Feed-Forward and Feed-back turns, in such a manner that prompts students to phrase as many questions as possible without fear of inaccurate answers.

The conversation between the teacher and students shall be exclusively in the Modern Standard Arabic code, in which situation the teacher directs constructive feedback that ensures the development of the listening and speaking skills of students: such a development area that will be further stressed into Section II of the lecture.

In Section II of the lecture, the teacher reads out the conclusions inferred by students in Section I, adding his own comments and feedback to take students' understanding of the topic to a higher level. Students make their additional answers and participatory notes in standard Arabic, to further enhance their familiarity with the correct way of pronouncing syntactic and grammatical constructions in extended sentences with varying phrasing styles. In this context, the teacher may also recall some traditional terminology and concepts to enrich students' knowledge and give them a general background of the philosophy of renowned Arabic linguists who coined the major term ---, rather than confining the scope of study to basic concepts and definitions. In this connexion, too, the teacher can make relevant references to comparative linguistics topics ---- that connect the entire linguistic phenomenon in Standard Arabic with other languages and other dialects, or clarifying the exclusivity and originality of some phenomena in Standard Arabic.

For example, we can make approximations between the concepts of 'Mudaf and Mudaf Eleih' (The Genitive Construction) and Al-Milkia (Possession Construction). In Colloquial Arabic, for instance, we use additional auxiliary words (such as bitaa - بتاع) that serves the same function as OF in English (The flag of my country) to clarify the resemblance to students. For instance, in the construction " سكني عن بعيدا ليس الجامعة The headquarters of the university is not far) "مقرfrom my house.), we can express of using the word بتاع in colloquial Egyptian Arabic.Another example can click on the exclusivity of the Prefix and Suffix system in Arabic, thereby an entire sentence can be expressed in one word, as in the Quranic word أنلزمكموها (Literally: Shall be hold you liable to it?)

The teacher may also employ a color-coding system to mark and explain each and every component of the sentence in order to help the students decompose ambiguity in some Arabic constructions.

In Section III of the lecture, the teacher employs a host of practical exercises with aim to enhance the research skills, and the reading and writing competencies of students, in which case, students are asked to choose any favorite topic to work on it. This exercise is aimed to enhance students' methodological capabilities and link the formal Standard Arabic code with their daily lives.That exercise is also implemented by asking students to participate in writing activities in Fus-ha (Standard) Arabic on the different social media sites.

By so doing, students are properly encouraged to organize their ideas and do an objective analysis of their topics of choice, as well as develop their writing skills, by receiving constructive feedback on the level of coherence and cohesion in their writings. The feedback covers areas such as sentence length, complexity, the use of logical connectors (linking words), and students are provided by a variety of synonyms and relevant lexical items.

The stream of feedback and follow-up is by no means confined to lecture time. The teacher provides his students with a more extensive work schedule that covers his own daily working hours, in which time, he would be ready to continue the two-way interaction with students.

And based on my areas of expertise (mentioned hereinabove), I would welcome any potential cooperation in the field of preparing and delivering curricula in areas of Arabic Grammar and Syntax, Rhetoric and Criticism, Literary Studies and Writing for Specific Purposes (particularly for Journalism and Media).

I always welcome building a close coordination with colleagues in all respective specializations, thereby ensuring the smooth flow and efficiency of the learning process, and meeting the team's designated key performance indicators (KPIs), as advised by the Department's management.