A case for Arabic teaching

Introduction The teaching and learning of Arabic at the primary level of our educational system in Nigeria for a long time suffered so much humiliation in the hands of educational administrators and policy makers who, in their myopic perception, thought Arabic was better taught at the primary school level as an aspect of Islamic Studies […]

Introduction

The teaching and learning of Arabic at the primary level of our educational system in Nigeria for a long time suffered so much humiliation in the hands of educational administrators and policy makers who, in their myopic perception, thought Arabic was better taught at the primary school level as an aspect of Islamic Studies and thus made it a unit of Islamic Studies curriculum with a quasi title “Islamic Studies Arabic”! They refused to accept the truth that Arabic was good enough to be taught as a distinct school subject in our public primary schools even though it has always been part of the secondary school curriculum. The discriminative policies made against Arabic by educational planners and curriculum developers may not be unconnected with the long-standing history of hatred sowed by British colonialists in 1903 in Northern Nigeria when they overthrew and replaced Arabic alphabets as medium of communication with Latin letters, which is the most popular means by which English culture spreads and dominates others.     

Arabic became a teaching subject in public primary schools with a curriculum of its own only with the introduction of the 9-year Basic Education, even though Arabic had been an integral part of the curriculum in private Arabic or Islamiyyah primary and secondary schools especially in northern and western parts of the country. The 9-year basic curriculum for Arabic is the first of its kind in the teaching and learning of Arabic as a school subject at the primary level of our educational system. This, perhaps, accounts for the dearth of books for teaching and learning Arabic such as the one under review at the primary school level. I was privileged to be part of the team that developed the 9-year basic education curriculum under the auspices of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC). The document was published in 2007 and is currently in use in all private and public schools across the country.

Physical features

The size of each of the six books (book 1-6) under review is handy and proportionate to the chronological age of the pupils they were designed for.  The cover design which is the same for all the books is beautiful, each in a color that distinguishes it from others. It is also good that each of the six books has each own International Serial Book Numbering (ISBN). The size of both Arabic and English fonts in all the books is within the recommended limits, making the texts legible. The colorful printing of pictures and drawings used in the books adds to their beauty. That may serve to attract and motivate the pupils to learning the books with much attention and concentration.

Contents

The author claims with a bold inscription on the cover of each of the books that they are

“Based on NERDC New National Curriculum”. Unfortunately this is actually not true with the contents of some of the books if the “New” curriculum the author refers to is understood to be the 9-year basic education published by the NERDC, 2007. For instance, while the curriculum for Basic 1 prescribes the teaching of Arabic alphabets by grouping them according to similarities in their sounds, such is not the case in book one. The same book teaches numbers 11-30 (see pages 23-25) as against 1-10 prescribed by the Arabic curriculum for Basic 1. The irony here is that there is no place in the book where the pupils would learn 1-10 bearing in mind that counting does not begin with “11” but “1”.

Some typographical and technical errors have been noticed in some of the books. For instance, typographical errors occurred in book 5 where the Arabic word “ma’had” was written as “mi’had” on page 3 just as the English word “pilgrim” on page 8 of the same book was written as “prigrim”. The letter “j” in the Arabic word “tarjim” on page 28 of book 6 was written as “h”. A technical error is noticed in sentence no. 10 on page 27 of book 6 where the passive voice of the verb in the sentence is wrongly vocalized, giving it a meaning that is different from what it was intended to mean. We frown at any form of error in the books used by primary school pupils because of the negative consequences such will have on their mental image of words and sounds.

Methodology

The methodology used by the author and which cut across the six books, is the use of English translation and transliteration of Arabic words in order probably to help learners in the pronunciation and understanding of the Arabic words. This is technically and professionally a wrong method of teaching a language that is foreign to the learner’s socio-cultural background. We discourage the translation of Arabic words in the reading text used by learners of Arabic as a second or foreign language in to English or any other language. Doing that in some cases may imply teaching the learner two languages at a time (i.e. Arabic and English in to which Arabic words are translated). The pictures and drawings as shown in the books are good enough to remind learners of the meanings of the Arabic words. The use of English transliteration as can be noticed, for instance, on pages 22-26 of book 4. It is even more harmful when transliteration is used to teach alphabets as on page 1 of book 4 because such a method alienates the pupil from the literary culture of Arabic language. It equally seems ridiculous to use English transliteration to teach Arabic alphabets to learners of Arabic language.

Conclusion

In accordance with the modern trends of teaching foreign languages, we encourage writers and authors to use indigenous names, events and ideas in writing the books used at this level of our educational system in order to make them more culture-friendly. It has been observed that the author of the book under review restricted himself to the use of Arabic pronouns (I, My, You, etc) in the few passages used in some of the books, which actually contradicts currents trends in teaching Arabic language to non-Arabic speakers.

We consider it an embellished opinion for the author to have referred to himself as an “authority in Arabic language”. It would be difficult for us to refute or accept the author’s claim made on the back cover of each of the books because neither did he give an outline of his educational background or qualifications nor an idea of his teaching experience. He only states that “his wealth of experience has been brought to use in writing this book”. The “wealth of experience” here also is undefined. It would have been better if he had stated that he is a professor of Arabic to make it easier for us to appreciate his “authority”. In any case, the effort of the author is commendable.