CEFR and TAFL

كيف تقوم يا أنتونيو بتدريس الفصحى والدارجة المغربية بشكل يختلف عن أسلوب الكتاب؟ ألا تطلب من الطلاب أيضا المقارنة بالمفردات المغربية والفصيحة؟

أنا لا أقدم المفردات الدارجة والفصيحة بشكل مواز ومتزامن (يعني الطلاب لا يتعلمون كلمتي «صبّاط» و«حذاء»، مثلاً، في الوقت نفسه) وخصوصاً لا أقدم نفس المفردات بلهجة أخرى غير المغربية التي يتعلمها طلابي، في حين يقدم الكتاب كل مفرد جديد بكل من الفصحى والشامية والمصرية مما يعرّض الطالب لثلاثة ألفاظ (واحد منها بلهجة يفترض أنه لا يدرسها) وكأن اللفظ الفصيح ونظيره العامي متساويا الأهمية والإفادة دائماً بغض النظر عن السياق والمستوى.‏

سأعطيك مثالاً بسيطاً: إن طلابي لا يسمعون ولا يقرأون «لماذا» إلا بعد أن تدرّبوا باستمرار على استخدام الأداة المغربية للسؤال عن السبب، «علاش»، وتمكنوا منها.‏

Of course, CEFR is not a syllabus. The thing, again, is whether we need "a CEFR proficiency scale that meets the learning needs and the nature of Arabic" or just a reference level description for Arabic, as there are for other languages, like Spanish: an RLD for Arabic that could serve as a base for developing different curricula and syllabuses.

It is people, to start with, not languages, who have "learning needs". But, again, where exactly does the CEFR, or its scales for that matter, fall short of meeting our needs or addressing the nature of Arabic?

Do we need to amend the current CEFR in order to develop a variationist approach? Why?

Most Spaniards do not write postcards anymore (except for Lourdes!), but I don't think this is a major issue: we do send emails, chat, etc. In any case, who has never wondered what's the point of teaching beginners how to say 'reindeer' in Arabic, as some translated resources propose?

What you are doing know, Rasha, is what I used to call "a committed approach to TAFL", before I myself started integrating Moroccan Arabic and MSA (or teaching Arabic "as spoken and written in Morocco"). Most Arabic speakers in the Region of Murcia, where I live and teach, and in the rest of Spain, come from Morocco. Should I teach my students to approach them by saying كيف حالك؟ or simply كي داير؟, for example? Which one are they supposed to hear the most as they start taking their first steps? In choosing to teach كيف حالك؟ first, or instead of كي داير؟, would I be faithful to them and the CEFR or to tradition?

You're right Antonio, in the setting as in Murcia where the Arabic speaking community is mostly Moroccans, it's definitely the common sense to start with, integrate and focus on the darijah when it comes to productive skills (speaking and even writing when texting in darijah).

The setting in the UK is complex. First, as you mentioned the MSAfiction is a widely applied concept that is VERY difficult to change in the UK. I am personally flexible and I have taught the dialect to all levels before and I clearly see the point in using an IA for example but it's difficult to swim against the current.

Second, the Arabic speaking community here is very diverse with no single dialect for a majority. Third, our students are also very diverse in their backgrounds and needs. In the UK, we have heritage learners from allover the Arab world, we have a large number of Muslim Asian background and we have a large number of British and European non-heritage students. All come with their own baggage of motivations and backgrounds. In fact, it's this diversity that is used as one of the reasons by the pro MSA-only approach not to teach a dialect as they see the teaching of a certain dialect an imposition on the learners.

Anyway, I want to clarify that I have never been against the teaching of dialects. In fact, I have been attacked a number of times for my support to dialect teaching :| What I'm hoping to work on is a scale that can be flexible enough to accommodate the different needs and the different approaches yet delivers learning outcomes that provide for the wider learning needs. I believe that if the scale does address the learning needs and it's based on a combination of intuition, qualitative and quantitative methods, then it's a CEFR scale or an RLD if that's more appropriate.

Complexity, of course, complicates everything! Yet I don't think it is much more difficult to challenge the "MSA fiction" there than it is here, where most teachers are non-native (non-)speakers of Arabic with an Orientalist background and traditionally little interest, if any, in teaching Arabic for communicative purposes; and where, in my very personal opinion, those few who seem to care about TAFL either are too afraid of upsetting "the tribal elders" or just want to whitewash the situation, trying to convince no other than Munther Younes himself, for example, that IA is OK, but, alas, not for Moroccan Arabic, in an attempt to "swim while keeping an eye on one's clothes", as we say in Spanish (i.e., to hedge their bets).

Younes, again, has addressed many of the objections commonly raised against IA (op cit, p. 46-56), such as the one you mention, so I won't enlarge upon that. Whatever dialect, I think, is always much better than no dialect, then no one seems to realize that teaching MSA only is an imposition as well.

This is really insightful Antonio! You're right, teaching MSA only is an imposition as well and out of the two descriptions you gave above, I think I'm the former - too tired (not afraid) of upsetting the tribal elders :)

I have to confess also that as I have never had the chance to use the IA in teaching, I will never have 100% understanding of how it's applied even when I am not against it and totally believe in the rationale behind it .

I have a question for you as you have the experience of using the IA. What are the limitations or disadvantages (if any) of using the IA?

I have written in my blog about the difficulties one may encounter in giving the Integrated Approach a try, just in case some of you can read Spanish: first, those arising from the academic environment and setting, then, the intrinsic ones: from curriculum and syllabus design to the teaching resources at hand. But once in the classroom, I haven't found any limitations or disadvantages in the approach itself since I started fully applying it in late January 2015. At most, and I have blogged about this too, you should expect some students not to appreciate being taught a dialect, either because they already speak one (heritage learners, especially those with some previous background in MSA) or because they deem it irrelevant for their careers (mainly armchair wannabe Arabists), yet this is not something we can blame on the IA. It is often colleagues who turn students against dialect learning.

All this said, please keep in mind that I only teach levels A1-A2. Higher levels might pose some problems I am unaware of.

Thanks a lot Antonio for this and for the links to your blog. I am sorry also for not being much active as I'm on leave at the moment. I will be back online soon to continue our discussion and will remind other colleagues to log in and check the conversation.

Enjoy the summer time!

Thank you, Rasha. I will be on leave, too, for a few weeks. I hope you and all the colleagues here enjoy this time, away from TAFL and CEFR!

If we go back to the question of the possibility of amending the current detailed CEFR scale content/skills to suit the aims of teaching Arabic language, I personally think that we should make some amendments, such as the example we mentioned above of "writing postcards" which can easily be changed to "texting on social media" for example. Or to add to the skills of "the ability to understand basic questions such as how are you and where are you from" the phrase "in the major urban dialects".

I don't see such amendments to be negating the principles of the CEFR but actually, they are inline with them. and I wish that a group of us could spare the time and sit together to analyse each skill in the scale and reflect on how to Arabize it from a cultural and a sociolinguistic point of view.