Chattering away in Arabic

Ha’aretz

Colloquial Arabic is being taught again in the schools of Tel Aviv, outpacing French in popularity. As Tamar Rotem discovers, however, the controversy over how to teach Arabic still rages in academia.

It was the research of a young doctoral candidate that finally ended the Education Ministry’s well-funded efforts to teach spoken Arabic in elementary schools.The study, conducted by Dr. Hezi Brosh, found that even after three years of study, pupils were unable to manage even a simple conversation in Arabic, and found it difficult to progress to classical Arabic later on. Moreover, large numbers of students abandoned the study of classical Arabic after just one or two years in high school.

Brosh’s findings, coming as they did just a few years after the state comptroller’s tough report on the issue, resulted in a decision to stop teaching spoken Arabic. The school system reverted to its traditional position of teaching only modern standard Arabic (the written and literary language used in books and in the media throughout the Arab world).

Now, however, 12 years after virtually disappearing from the classroom, colloquial Arabic is making a comeback. It is currently being taught in 177 classrooms at 31 Tel Aviv schools (five from the state-religious school system), and goes along with a growing interest in Arabic among older students throughout the city. For the first time, more schools teach Arabic than French. The numbers (from 1997) speak for themselves: while Arabic is taught in 75 junior high and high schools, French is taught in just 59.

The story actually began several years ago, when Tel Aviv schools began to teach English in the second and third grade, as a result of parental pressure, and despite the opposition of the Education Ministry. Success with one language provided the impetus to try another, and the possibility of teaching spoken Arabic in elementary school began to be investigated. Ruth Cooper, a teacher who had continued teaching Arabic independently even during its «underground years» – when it had remained an elementary school elective that was not encouraged by the ministry – was called upon to oversee Tel Aviv’s colloquial Arabic project. The idea was tested in a few schools, and when it was clear that it had caught on and parents did not object, more schools were included. Today, Cooper says, the demand far outstrips what the current budget can supply. The project is funded by the municipality and by the Tel Aviv district of the Ministry of Education.

Not everyone is happy, however. Academic «Arabists» are displeased with the return of colloquial Arabic. Critics accuse the Tel Aviv initiative, which has revived the old debate on how Arabic should be taught, of being populist and «frivolous.» A number of views on the issue were presented at a symposium held Thursday at Tel Aviv University.

Shlomo Elon, who supervises the teaching of Arabic at the Ministry of Education, says he is pleased to see colloquial Arabic being promoted, but points out that the initiative is contrary to the ministry’s official position – according to which modern standard Arabic should begin to be taught as a required subject in grades 7-10, while colloquial Arabic should be provided as an elective in grades 11-12.Until now, Arabic was considered unappealing to Israeli youngsters. Approximately 150,000 students begin the study of Arabic every year, and yet only 3,000 take the Arabic matriculation exam. What happens to the rest? According to Brosh, who today heads the teacher training program at Tel Aviv University, the problem can easily be explained in terms of a lack of proper curriculum development and teacher training. The Arab-Israeli conflict, however, also has an impact. A 1996 study conducted by Prof. Ilana Shohami and Smadar Donitza-Schmidt compared Jewish views of Arabic with Arab views of Hebrew. A majority of Jews, the study found, were interested in studying English or other languages, and only a minority thought it important to study Arabic. As expected, most Arabs ranked Hebrew after Arabic in importance, with English coming in third place.»The findings,» Shohami says, «reflect patterns of conqueror versus conquered which continue to be ingrained in Israeli society.» Brosh found that the Sephardi community, which as a political minority wished to avoid identification with the Arab sector, preferring to identify with the Ashkenazi majority, was more reluctant to study Arabic, despite the greater ease with which they could learn it.

According to Shohami’s study, a majority of Jews prefer colloquial Arabic, which is essentially the native tongue of Arabic speakers, to literary Arabic, which native speakers also learn in school. Colloquial Arabic, considered more communicative and easier to learn, was chosen as a starting point in Tel Aviv precisely for this reason. It was hoped that it would instill motivation in younger children, who have not yet been as affected by stereotypes. Shohami also points out that in South Tel Aviv’s large Sephardi community, the unexpected happened: «Sephardi students are flourishing. They are suddenly discovering the family connection and feel at home with the language.»The debate on how to teach Arabic has been raging for over 100 years among Jewish and Arab linguists in Israel, said Prof. Sasson Somekh, former chairman of the Department of Arabic Literature at Tel Aviv University, who now heads the Israel Academic Center in Cairo. Somekh, who was unaware of the Tel Aviv initiative, believes it is problematic. «People who do not live in Arabic-speaking environments have no chance of learning colloquial Arabic,» he said. «Where will they practice? Even if the kids do have the chance to meet Arabs, they will be answered in Hebrew, since minorities always want to speak the language of the majority.» Opinions also vary as to just how different the two languages are. Some say the gap can be bridged. Others hold that the two forms of Arabic are completely different, noting that even native speakers have a hard time understanding all the various dialects of the spoken language.

There is also a value judgment accompanying the concept of the spoken and written languages as separate: the spoken language is considered «lower» (by Arab intellectuals, for example), while the written language and its spoken form are considered elitist. This is one reason, Shohami says, that the establishment prefers the written tongue.

The current controversy focuses on the order in which the two languages should be taught. Professor Aryeh Levine, for example, chairman of the Asian and African Studies department at the Hebrew University and head of the Education Ministry’s steering committee on Arabic teaching, is among those vehemently opposed to introducing colloquial Arabic into elementary schools.

«It’s very bad,» he says of the Tel Aviv experiment, «primarily because there is no uniform colloquial dialect, and the differences between the dialects are huge. The Jerusalem dialect is closer to the Damascus one than to that used in Beit Safafa. Once literary Arabic, with its consistent and relatively simple grammatical rules, is taught, just a few rules are needed to teach the colloquial form. Teaching spoken Arabic first is a disaster, and it creates confusion. It’s a waste of time and money.»

Ilan Laibe, director of the Tel Aviv municipality’s elementary school department, however, disagrees. «We are not training orientalists,» he says. «We just want to teach the kids to be able to say a few sentences in Arabic, to allow them a basic ability to communicate with their neighbors.

© Copyright 1998 Ha’aretz. All Rights Reserved. Translation to English by Ha’aretz staff.