Nabil Abdullah
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The perception of using Arabic language instruction in teaching English for Arab
Beginners at the Early Stages of their Learning
Nabil Abdullah
A42460636
April, 29, 2008
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What happens if I use 100% of instruction in Arabic language while teaching
English for Arab complete beginners who come recently to the United States?
Nabil Abdullah
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An introduction
The American public is under the impression that bilingual education does not work.
Yet even a quick glance at the professional literature shows it does. Study after study has
reported that children in bilingual programs typically outperform their counterparts in allEnglish programs on tests of academic achievement in English. “Stephen Karshen”,
Reviewing the Latest Evidence of Bilingual Education.”. Any discussion about bilingual
education should begin with the understanding that bilingual education is neither a single
uniform program nor a consistent “methodology” of teaching language minority students.
Rather, it is an approach that encompasses a variety of distinct goals.” “For example,
while some bilingual education program models promote the development of two
languages for bilingualism and biliteracy, other programs may incorporate the students’
first language merely to facilitate a quick transition into English.” (Ovando, Combs and
Collier, 2005, PP.8-9) Moreover, “one of the principal reasons for bilingual education is
to keep children from falling behind academically.” Through bilingual education children
can be keeping up in the subject areas with instruction in their primary language while at
the same time they are playing catch up with the English necessary to function socially
and academically in English dominant classroom setting.” (Ovando, Combs and Collier,
2005, PP. 29-30) Therefore, according to my experience as an Arabic student who came
to the United States after getting in teaching ESL for more than six years in an Arabic
country and as a tutor of one Arab students who has come recently to the United States of
America in the Islamic school in East Lansing teaching him English language, meeting
with his English teacher, the principal of the school, meeting with my classmates who
teach Arab students, the interviews with the student and other Arab students, the readings
about bilingual education and the use of native language in teaching. I discovered the
need to use Arabic language to teach my student to help him understand English.
Therefore, I used the student’s primary language instruction (Arabic) merely to facilitate
a quick transition into English, to keep him from falling behind academically and to help
him keep up with his studies.
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The case hypothesis
Presently, much of the debate centers on which the best models for educating language
minority students are. According to previous studies and what was stated earlier, we have
two teams, proponents of bilingual education who defend models that use and promote
the native language of the students, and opponents who favor models that only emphasize
English language development. Therefore, we hypothesize that

Using the students’ native language (Arabic) at the early stages of schooling
would help them learn English faster.

Using it predominantly for a long time may postpone the students’ academic
achievement in English.
Method
In my case study, as one of the personal accounts methods, I tried to focus on the
processes of knowing and constructing meaning through narratives. It reflects my
experiences with the participant involved. Therefore, when I first selected the studentMohammed- who is in the second grade in the Islamic school, I relied on the background
information that I collected from the interviews with him, his father, his teacher, the
principal of the school and the surveys and interviews conducted with some Arab
students and classmate teachers who are teaching Arab students. In my analysis, too, I
relied on the observational notes, KWL charts, and the student’s interaction in my class
and in the other teacher’s class along with the informal assessments conducted during the
sessions.
Motivation
Once I met with the student from the first time, I discovered the need to use his native
language to help him learn English as he could not understand anything in English
language. Moreover, I went through many books and websites to see what is written
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about bilingual instruction and the use of native language to teach ESL students.
Therefore, as the controversy about the advantages and disadvantages of using bilingual
instruction stated above, I thought it would be a chance for me to examine the strategy of
using bilingual instruction in teaching my student using Arabic in my instruction while
teaching English. I am meeting him twice a week. I am using this strategy because he was
struggling understanding English and he is still at the emergent stage- as noted by Sandra
McCormick-of his learning even in his native language.
Description
Mohammed is seven years old. He joined the Islamic school in January 2009 and was
placed in the second grade. He came with his parents who are still themselves studying
English language to be qualified to get into academics at MSU. He studied two years
back home. He likes to stay at home according to him. He is shy and anxious according
to his teacher as well. According to the first diagnostic session, the student was struggling
in reading and writing in both English and his native language (Arabic). He could say
four letters (ABCD) only and could write them correctly as well. He could not write any
word from memory. He could say almost all the Arabic alphabetical letters and write
them and distinguish each other. He was placed in grade two in the Islamic School in
East Lansing when he arrived from Saudi Arabia. According to his teacher, Mohammed
is shy and does not understand anything in English. “He is so anxious” the teacher added.
This is I think happening for all of the students who join a new environment of study
even an adult ones. Fisher and Rothenberg noted that if a seminar is conducting for
Japanese teachers only attended by others who do not know Japanese’s language, those
would probably experience some of these feelings; nervous, overwhelmed, in adequate,
alone , unengaged, frustrated…….. . (Rothenberg & Fisher, 2007, P. 1) The former
schooling at home in Saudi Arabia did not help him, too, as he did not attend
Kindergarten. He studied two years in Saudi Arabia before coming.
In my first session conducted with him, he seemed relaxed in the class as he could talk
to a teacher that he could understand him. This proves what Fisher&Rothenberg noted
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that one of the effects of using the students’ native language is that of “creating low
anxiety environment” students need to feel safe to make mistakes and take risks.” (Fisher
& Rothenberg, 2007, p. 35) Dr Li, 2004, noted that schools that value students languages
and cultures have higher rates of academic success with ESL students than schools that
do not value students’ languages and cultures. These attitudes affected Mohammed from
the first time as in the next week he seemed so happy that he was smiling most of the
time while studying with me.
In the second session he studied the first eight letters in English A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. I
gave him these eight letters and referred him to the following website
http://www.english-4kids.com/kidsvideos/ABC.html to listen to the letters at home with
the help of his parents all of the week everyday. He was assigned to write five words
related to each letter at home to practice writing and let his parents read them for him as
well. The way that connected him with learning at home to attain success “Teachers
expectations extends to beliefs about families as well, “ We , as educators, often
underestimate the capacity of ELL parents to help their children succeed in school.” Roth
& Fish, 2007, p. 12. “Teachers who know their students parents well can involve them in
their children’s learning.” (Rothenberg & Fisher, 2007, P. 13)
An important aspect is that when he attended the third session, he was so active and
said that he was waiting this day to come. He brought the assignment well done. He did
not write only the five words he was assigned to but also he wrote each word four times.
His writing was neat and organized. This proved that he understood the directions given
to him with the help of his parents to do well in the assignment as one of the principles of
language acquisition is that of making directions for the assignments comprehensible, “
What prevents students from participation is simply that they do not understand the
directions for the task.” (Roth & Fish, 2007, P. 44) Motivation is the core aspect of
teaching and learning of any language. Unless the learner is motivated well, he/ she will
not understand the content being taught to him. According to the observations of his
interaction with the English teacher who is teaching him in the second grade, there was
no participation by him and even when he was asked to do something he was looking at
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me to help when I was available that time in the class. Mohammed seemed shy and he did
not respond to the teacher’s instruction. The teacher indicated that she could not get him
engaged in his study well. When the teacher asked about how to engage him in
assignment at home she said the she could not do that as she said that she was not in
contact with his parents as they are still studying English themselves. She seemed so
frustrated by the situation of Mohammed. She could not do anything that can help him
learn quickly and can close the huge gap between him and his classmates. However,
when he was taught colors in one of the sessions, the teacher used visuals which could
help him understand what meant by the teacher when she asked him about what types of
colors were. Although using visuals and TPR method by the teacher might help, she does
not get to do that as she did not have the time to spend with him at school.
What is worth mentioning is that while teaching him in his native language I was
using the Total Physical Response method as well even in imitating animal sounds and so
on. This helped to attract him and to motivate him to be eager to come to my class.
Creating low anxiety environment in the class is one of the most important factors to help
the student learn as noted earlier. He studied the letters I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, using the
flash cards with words related to each letter with pictures as well. It was noticed that he
learned the letters of English in A very short time; his parents help at home and the
materials used with him along with using the internet technology helped him a lot in
learning besides using his native language. Dr Li, 2004, noted that using authentic
materials can help students learn more. Therefore, listening to these videos on the internet
many times a week helped Mohammed to learn a lot especially with help of his parents at
home. He was not engaged in assignments at home before I worked with him. Moreover,
the English teacher did not engage him in assignments at home at all. This affected his
progression in learning as he was not engaged in a home work on a daily basis.
In the fourth week, Mohammed came to the class getting learned all of the
alphabetical letters. According to the letter name assignment given to him, he could
produce all of the letters correctly, fluently and in an organized way. As I asked him to
write the letters each session at the beginning of the class, he could write all of the letters
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neatly. He not only wrote the ones that he studied in the last classes, but also the ones
were not taught by me yet. In addition, he could say some words like fan, dog, moon, ant,
and so on. This happened as he kept listening to all the letters everyday through the net
and writing them down daily at home as he explained. This was a great change in
Mohammed’s progression in learning as the strategy of listening to and writing the letters
at home helped him learn quickly and accurately. This relates to the use of his native
language instruction which the English teacher could not do with him as the gap between
her and the student’s parent understanding and connection. I was in touch with the
student’s father who was so caring about his child learning. Therefore, I tried to utilize
this connection and increase the student’s engagement at home with his parents using his
native language instruction. Mohammed was referred to the following website to bring
two words in English along with Arabic meaning.
http://www.lingvozone.com/main.jsp?action=translation&do=dictionary&language_id_fr
om=23&language_id_to=2&word=elligable . Using internet utility was a good tool to
help my student learn more.
Another important point is that Mohammed was exposed to reading in the sixth week.
He was exposed to read some simple sentences like (I can swim, I can run) and so on.
Those sentences were actually related to visuals through context as noted by Ovando&
Collier . Moreover, Mohammed was given an assessment to check his understanding of
letters. He was assigned to match words to each of the letters and to sort words after they
were mixed up together; he succeeded to do that with all of the words. This activity of
sorting words was used in each class session along with pictures as well. When he was
asked, as a reflection, at the end of the session how he did that, he explained that he used
only the first letter as a code to identify the words. Stemmed from my understanding of
using the internet at home before coming to the next class with the help of his parents, I
referred him to listen to the sounds of English on the following Website
http://www.english-4kids.com/phonicsheets.html . Therefore, in the second session of the
week, he began learning sounds of English (phonemes) and their relationship to letters
(phonics). I started with him with the first consonant sounds /p/, /b/, /t/, /d/ and then, k, g,
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f, v, th, sh, ch,. In the last sessions he learned the vowels (ee, ea, oo). “Many instructional
sequences begin the teaching of phonics with consonants” (McCormick, 2007, P. 265)
According to the last session, he could identify and say most of the sounds studied
when he was exposed to reading simple sentences with visuals in a context. “ one
common example is the way good readers use context in combination with initial
consonant sounds to figure out unknown words.” It is very useful because it can be used
quickly, and it frequently results in accurate word identification.” (Gerald G. Duffy,
2003) He still needs to be exposed more to both reading and writing to help him learn
more. His perception towards learning is not well as sometimes he does not want to listen
to the instruction and try to waste time by asking some unrelated questions. As one of the
most effective factors on language learning is that of motivation which “stems from the
students’ perception of the need to learn English” Some of our immigrants arrive in this
country with the expectation that they will soon return to their home land.” (Fisher&
Rothenberg, 2007, P. 50) However, I think that he is making good progression to this
point as he even began saying sentences and phrases like “can you be quite?” come with
me, give me, why take this when I took a book from his basket. He explained the phrase
(I have) in Arabic and (Go to office) as well. He could give the meaning of some words
in Arabic too.
Interpretation
I would like to understand how using the student’s native language- Arabic- in teaching
English at the early stages of learning affects my student’s achievement in acquiring
English. As a tutor of one of the Arab students at the Islamic school, I got to a hypothesis
that using the students’ native language may affect positively or negatively on the
students’ achievement in acquiring the second language. My purpose is to test the
strategy of using 100% of Arabic instruction while teaching the student English language
, who is in the 2nd grade and just came to the United States four months ago. Moreover, I
would like to understand how long it would take me to use his native language in
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teaching him and in which point I should reduce it to the extent that the student would be
able to understand fully English instruction.
According to the KWL charts analysis, the observations in the other class with the
native teacher, the weekly session reports in my class and the informal assessment
conducted with him during the sessions, it revealed that Mohammed is progressing well
given where he began. When the first KWL chart compared to that of the last session’s
KWL chart I conducted with him, the first diagnostic session and the observations of the
student in the other class along with the informal assessment analyses, it appears that the
student made great strides towards proving what it was hypothesized first that using his
native language in teaching English language would help him learn English in this stage
of learning. However, I can not say that only my intervention participated in his
progression as his study in the regular classroom helped him as well. What is worth
mentioning is that my intervention could expand his learning out of the classroom to
reach to the approach of connecting home with school as noted in Dr Li 2004. It seemed
that he learned English well when his native language used in teaching and instructing
either at home with help of his parents or with me in the sessions I conducted with him;
the materials used at the school were above his level that he was excluded from studying
these materials rather than studying Arabic language and Islamic studies that can be
connected to his progression in Arabic as well.
Another important aspect that can relate to the second hypothesis is that of the use of
Arabic language in the school. He uses his native language while interacting with his
classmates because most of the students he is in touch with are Arabs. This might held his
progression backward to some extent. He forgets some of what he studied like words and
expressions. Fisher and Rothenberg stressed the importance of the exposure to an English
environment when using the student’s native language in teaching as a good tool to foster
his learning in both Arabic and English.
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Conclusions
I can conclude and say that Mohammed seemed that he benefited from using his native
language in instruction while teaching him English. However, it appeared that more
exposure to Arabic language in instruction for a long time would probably postpone his
progression in English language as well. That is to say, if the student relied on the
interpretation given to him in Arabic for a long time, he would not make an effort to
understand English with the conception that what is said in English should be translated
in Arabic. This might affect him in his future study of English language in case he
depends mainly on this perception. Therefore, based on this I can give some
recommendations that can help both his parents and his teacher of how to work with him
in the future.
Recommendations
1- It would be helpful to continue teaching Mohammed a one-to-one tutoring using
his native language for not more than a year while being taught by English native
speaker at school.
2- Modeling reading Arabic stories for him at home can help him, too, to convey the
experience of his native language to that of the second language.
3- More exposure to English reading with an explanation in his native language on a
daily basis would help him learn English as well.
4- After one year, it would be good for him to be exposed to at least 50/50
instruction in both his native language and English.
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5- More exposure to an English speaking environment out of the school to convey
what he is studying and practice it.
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References

Donald R. B, Marcia I., S.T. & Francine J. (2007). Words Their Way.” Word
Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling instruction”

Gerald G. D (2003). Explaining Reading

Li (2004). Perspectives on Struggling English Language Learners. Case
Studies of Two Chinese- Canadian Children

Ovando, Combs, and Collier (2006). Bilingual and ESL classrooms

Rothenberg & Fisher (2007). Teaching English language Learners.
A differentiated Approach

Sandra McCormick (2007). Instructing Students Who Have literacy Problem
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Commentary
Artifact #1
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