Learning Arabic language in China: Investigation on instrumental and integrative motivations of Chinese Arabic learners

There is an increasing demand in recent years for the study of the Arabic language by foreign learners as a second language, especially Chinese students. There are wide ranges of necessity to Arabic languages, such as commercial, industrial, economic, cultural, political, media, and other fields. Many foreign learners are learning this language to increase demands in all areas of life and use it in non-Arabic-speaking countries. China is one of those earliest countries that took this advantage and offered this program for an academic major. It’s almost 37 universities and institutes where the Arabic language is taught in China. The request for learning this language has increased because of the urgent need for exchange programs with Arab-speaking countries. As result, international experts believe motivations are an important factor in teaching Arabic to non-speakers that can be influential reasons for the foreign learners to practice, argue, push and motivate them to benefit more and overcome the difficulties of the Arabic language. This study examines two facial types of motivations, instrumental and integrative motivations. In this study, all participants are Chinese students currently studying in China. The number of participants was 125 students from both genders, including 4 academic directors of the Arabic language department in five public Chinese Universities. The findings show that Chinese students learning Arabic as a Second Language (ASL) are highly instrumental than integrative to studying Arabic. A lack of experience of the Arabic language in their classrooms and society guides their attitude. The findings also revealed that there is a relationship between the language structure and a classroom environment that decreases their motivation and achievements of learning Arabic.

Acoustic characteristics of voice and speech in Arabic-speaking stuttering children

Background Using different methodologies, several researchers have reported certain acoustical and physiological differences between fluent utterances of stutterers and normally fluent speakers. The aim of this study was to determine acoustic characteristics of voice and speech in Arabic-speaking stuttering children in comparison to normal children and correlate these characteristics with stuttering severity. A sample of 80 Arabic-speaking Egyptian children (including 40 typically developing children and 40 stuttering children) in the age range 5–8 years were subjected to acoustic analysis of voice and speech using the Praat software. Results The stuttering children showed significantly higher values of jitter and shimmer in prolonged /a/ vowel sample, as compared to the normal group. This may reflect the subtle differences in laryngeal functioning or in the complex interaction among the laryngeal, respiratory, and the vocal tract systems in stuttering children. Both jitter and shimmer of prolonged /a/ vowel demonstrated significant positive moderate correlation with stuttering severity as assessed by SSI3. F0 was significantly higher in females than in males, both in normal and stuttering children. Conclusions The present study revealed significant differences in the acoustic parameters of voice and speech between Arabic-speaking stuttering children and normal children. Some of these acoustic parameters were significantly correlated with stuttering severity. Acoustic analysis can be used as simple, quick, and cheap tool for assessment of stuttering in children and might be a valuable addition to the diagnostic set for assessment of stuttering severity.

Stress Misassignment in the Pronunciation of English by Arabic-speaking Learners: Erratic Practice or Crosslinguistic Influence?

The role of L1 interference in English stress assignment produced by Arabic-speaking EFL learners has received little research attention. This study aims to investigate whether faulty stress assignment by Arab learners is arbitrary or systematic. It also attempts to discover a linkage, if any, between Arabic phonotactic rules of stress placement and stress misplacement in English by Saudi learners. 120 learners from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University were randomly chosen from 3 different levels of English proficiency (lower-intermediate, upper-intermediate, advanced); they were asked to pronounce 72 stimulus words that covered all morpho-syllabic word structures that the learners often mispronounced. The recordings were analysed using WASP spectrogram software and also by two independent raters. Results strongly indicated that crosslinguistic influence may have caused the learners to consistently a) place the stress on a specific syllable in a word even when this word has multiple stress assignments with a difference in meaning, b) stress the second item in a compound noun instead of the first, c) place the stress on the penultimate syllable of most polysyllabic words, d) place the stress on the second syllable of contracted negative auxiliary verbs , and e) misplace stress irrespective of their level of English proficiency.

Arab Women Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet and Insomnia

Background and objective: Sleeping difficulties affect the overall health, nutrition, and wellbeing. The Mediterranean diet has proven effective in improving the quality of life and overall health of people of all ages. Therefore, this study aimed to determine whether adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) is linked to reduced insomnia in Arabic-speaking female adults in Jordan. Materials and Methods: A self-administered, cross-sectional survey was used to detect the relationship between MD and sleep quality in Arabic-speaking female adults. Data were collected from 917 Arabic-speaking female participants of 14 Arab nationalities in Jordan between March and May 2021 via social media. All participants answered the whole questionnaire, including questions on sociodemographic aspects, Mediterranean diet adherence, sleeping habits measured with the Athens Insomnia Scale (AIS), and lifestyle components such as smoking and dietary patterns. Results: The mean age of the 917 Arabic-speaking female participants was 36 ± 10 years. Most participants were unemployed (85%) single females (64%) with an undergraduate degree (74%). Most of them (86%) were non-smokers. More than half of the participants were Jordanians (57%). The BMI was normal for 52% of the participants, whereas 26% of them were overweight, and 12% were obese. One-way ANCOVA showed a statistically significant difference between MD adherence score categories and AIS, F (2, 914) = 3.36, p = 0.015. Among the MD adherence score categories, we found that between groups, MD scores above or equal to 10 were associated with a statistically significant difference in AIS. Cohen’s value was calculated for the three MD score categories and indicated a ‘small’ effect size association between all adherence scores of the MD categories and AIS. Conclusions: In conclusion, our findings provide preliminary evidence that participants’ adherence to the MD was significantly associated with better sleep and reduced insomnia symptoms, highlighting the need for further research.

Students' Self-Assessment of Arabic Speaking Skill

This study was aimed at determining students’ self-assessment of their Arabic speaking skills. The data was gathered through distributing speaking rubric to 92 Arabic language learners. The rubric was adapted from Cherice Montgomery and was consisted of six aspects of speaking, namely pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, content, accuracy, and comperehension and startegic competence. The data was analysed using Winstep to determine their self-assessment of speaking and how they perceive those six aspects of speaking skills. The result showed that the students identify their speaking performance as moderate level. The Wright Map revealed that content was the most difficult aspect of speaking, while pronunciation was the easiest aspect of it.

Mehrsprachigkeit in transmodaler Kommunikation

The paper is concerned with codeswitching in transmodal WhatsApp messenger chats. Based on a corpus of text and audio postings from a group of German-Lebanese cousins that is complemented by ethnographic interviews, the study shows that language alternations can be associated with particular metapragmatic or indexical functions in the different modalities. In audio postings, switching between German and Arabic contextualises varying discourse relations. Also, the cousins use Arabic discourse markers (such as ya'ne, ‘it means’) frequently to structure their talk. In contrast, when they switch to Arabic in their text-postings – using Arabizi, a CMC-register in the Arabic-speaking world – this recurrently establishes a playful or ironic frame for ritual teasings. The final section discusses these transmodal and multilingual practices as multi-layered identity positionings vis-à-vis a monolingual society, their multilingual family and networked communities.

Behind Successful Refugee Parental Engagement: The Barriers and Challenges

This two-year study examined the barriers and challenges encountered by refugee parents as they negotiate their children’s successful transition into a new school system. The researchers sought to determine what can be learned from parent and educator experiences of these obstacles in order to optimize parent–teacher collaboration for refugee families. Contextualized within a LEAD (Literacy, English and Academic Development) program in an urban centre in Western Canada, the study triangulated data from focus groups comprising Syrian and Iraqi Arabic-speaking families, teachers, and settlement workers. The data were qualitatively analyzed by incorporating Epstein’s six types of parental involvement, a culturally responsive model accounting for parental engagement within the context of home-school-community collaboration (Epstein & Sheldon, 2006). From this model, the researchers make recommendations that include province-wide initiatives to support leadership and teacher training, mandated programming to support refugee and immigrant youth, and the establishment and expansion of board and in-school settlement best practices province-wide.

The Implementation of Total Physical Response (TPR) Method in Improving Arabic Speaking Skills

Students in Islamic boarding schools have difficulty expressing their thoughts verbally using Arabic. Meanwhile, in terms of understanding written texts and reading written language, they have pretty good skills. This study aimed to describe the implementation of the TPR method to improve the speaking skills. This study used a qualitative method with a descriptive approach. The data were obtained through observation, interviews, and documentation studies. The subjects of this study were Arabic teachers and selected students using the snowball technique. Based on the results, the TPR method can break the ice of communicating in Arabic among students, their difficulties in expressing their thoughts can be minimized by getting used to responding to those around them.