Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century

Drawing on the collective expertise of language scholars and educators in a variety of subdisciplines, the Handbook for Arabic Language Teaching Professionals in the 21st Century, Volume II, provides a comprehensive treatment of teaching and research in Arabic as a second and foreign language worldwide. Keeping a balance among theory, research and practice, the content is organized around

12 themes:

• Trends and Recent Issues in Teaching and Learning Arabic
• Social, Political and Educational Contexts of Arabic Language Teaching and Learning
• Identifying Core Issues in Practice
• Language Variation, Communicative Competence and Using Frames in Arabic Language Teaching and Learning
• Arabic Programs: Goals, Design and Curriculum
• Teaching and Learning Approaches: Content-Based Instruction and Curriculum
• Arabic Teaching and Learning: Classroom Language Materials and Language Corpora
• Assessment, Testing and Evaluation
• Methodology of Teaching Arabic: Skills and Components
• Teacher Education and Professional Development
• Technology-Mediated Teaching and Learning
• Future Directions

The field faces new challenges since the publication of Volume I, including increasing and diverse demands, motives and needs for learning Arabic across various contexts of use; a need for accountability and academic research given the growing recognition of the complexity and diverse contexts of teaching Arabic; and an increasing shortage of and need for quality of instruction. Volume II addresses these challenges. It is designed to generate a dialogue―continued from Volume I―among professionals in the field leading to improved practice, and to facilitate interactions, not only among individuals but also among educational institutions within a single country and across different countries.

Kassem M. Wahba is Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell University, USA.

Liz England is Principal at Liz England and Associates, LLC, USA.

Zeinab A. Taha is Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Linguistics, The American University in Cairo, Egypt.