The Effect of Using Interactive Website in a Traditional ...



The Effect of Using Interactive Website in a Traditional Arabic Classroom

Abeer Hassan Ahmed

Learning Language or even learning different kinds of it is not considered a more difficult nowadays. One of the main tools that many learners are counting on these days is the Internet technology. The internet language teaching sites are the easiest and the most accessible way to learn, to practice, and to enhance students’ language proficiency level in any language; it becomes, for many SL learners, the tool they use to move from the knowledge acquisition phase to the knowledge generation phase. The Internet is the main source of different Interactive educational e-learning website. In this paper I will discuss the impact of using the website, which I have already designed and published, on Arabic learners in the elementary, high-elementary, and Intermediate level. The focus will be on the importance of having a full access to a lot of interactive vocabulary and grammar exercises in order to give the chance for any SL learner who wants to practice or to review what has been already taught in the ASL/AFL classroom. The pros and cons of using and overusing such technological resources are many. It all depends on the way these interactive games and exercises are designed and on the way they are introduced in and outside classroom. They have to be well-integrated in the syllabus in order to achieve the required learning outcome. The SL teacher should always bear in mind the purpose of doing such interactive websites as the main purpose of doing them is not for impressing some SL learners with technology; technology is always a tool to help not an outcome to achieve.

Biography:

Ms. Abeer Hassan is a teaching fellow in the Arabic Language Institute and has been teaching Arabic for non-native speakers for three years. She teaches Modern Standard Arabic as well as Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Her major fields of interest are e-learning and CALL software development.

Using Technology Innovations to Improve Arabic Second/Foreign Language Upper Intermediate Learners' Reading Comprehension Skills

Marwa Abou Bakr Sultan

The main goal of this paper is to present the effectiveness of online hybrid reading course that is designed for upper intermediate Arabic second/foreign language learners. This course is designed to help and motivate Arabic upper intermediate second/foreign learners to improve their reading comprehension retention, strategies and to develop a variety of reading skills such as skimming, scanning, identifying tone and using contextual clues. These objectives will be achieved through interactive activities in relation to authentic source, i.e., technology.

In this paper I will present three basic principles for online hybrid learning for Arabic as a second/foreign language that is the context, the instructor, and the participants. Firstly, online hybrid learning should be seen as a tool that facilitate learning and not as course syllabus in it self. It is essential to build a well structured course to guarantee the successful and continuing of an online hybrid course in order to build a trust between the learners, the course and the instructor. Secondly, course designers should have a good understanding of teaching/ learning objectives and not depend only on high technology. Thirdly, having high technology doesn't itself improve the online hybrid course.

Therefore it's crucial to bring together what works from the schools of learning and adapt it in online courses. For example, what should we teach and what should we not to. How should we present the course materials? And keep in mind the students' learning individuality.

To conclude online learning is a useful tool that has been employed widely by many educational institutes with the fast spread of the information technology revolution. It is believed that hybrid course would work better in teaching Arabic second/foreign language than online learning. Finally, we should take into consideration the cost of designing these courses, will it meet learners’ needs, or it will benefit the designers believes.

Biography:

Ms. Marwah Abu-Bakr Sultan graduated from the department of Business Administration, faculty of Commerce, Ain Shams University. Ms. Sultan is a graduate student in the TAFL Program (Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language) at the Arabic Language Institute of the American University in Cairo. For the time being, Ms. Sultan is teaching Arabic as a foreign language at the Arabic Language Institute in the American University in Cairo.

Introducing Arabic Grammar in Smart Classrooms: A Computer Assisted Instruction Program

Laila El Sawi

The purpose of this paper is to present a computer assisted language learning (CALL) program for teaching Arabic grammar through presentation of the rules and by interactive exercises.

Before that, the paper examines the role of teaching grammar in second language acquisition. This role, as Richards & Reynandya (2002) put it, “is perhaps one of the most controversial issues in language teaching” (Richards & Reynandya, 2002 :145).

Grammar is not a skill by itself, it is a supplement to, or even the backbone of each of the four major skills of the language, reading, writing, listening and speaking. Grammar, together with other elements of the language, is the tool that enables learners to comprehend and produce the language effectively. However, grammar should not be taught as a set of rigid rules in isolation of the language, it should rather be associated with meaning an function. As Anderw Atikins (2000) puts it “negotiation for meaning allows interlanguage to develop more productively” (Atikins, 2000: 3) .

The paper will also discuss how the program through a variety of conscious raising activities highlights contextualized structures to increase students’ awareness. Then it will present interactive activities used as a means of developing students’ ability to use such structures in the proper context to express meaning.

Arabic grammar is often thought to be “tough and uninteresting”. However, effective implementation of technology assisted learning to introduce and practice syntactic structures is expected to have a positive effect on student’ usage of such structures in the proper contexts. The paper will also discuss the advantages and possible draw backs of such methods as compared to traditional methods of introducing grammar.

Generally speaking coloures, sounds and animation are motivating and eye-catching, and thus help making the learning experience both more fun and effective at the same time.

Biography:

Laila El-Sawi graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Arabic Studies from the American University in Cairo ,and received a Master's degree in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language from the same university. She has taught a wide variety of courses, including Egyptian Colloquial, Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking and Media Arabic. She has also worked on a number of material development projects in both Amiyya and FusHaa.

Laila El-Sawi also participated in a number of conferences and workshops; her last presentation was entitled "Culture Learning: Technology in Need is Technology Indeed" for the 2005 MESA conference.

Laila was the 2006 recipient of the CASA Award for Excellence in Teaching.

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