Creating Peace: Creating Effective Teachers of Arabic in Bahrain

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Creating Peace Creating Effective Teachers of
Arabic in Bahrain

• Dr. Hanada Taha-Thomure
• Language Acquisition Resource Center at San Diego
  State University

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Arabic Programs at LARC

• Teaching Arabic language.
• Developing Arabic language instructional
  materials.
• Training teachers in student-centered and
  communicative language approaches.
• Outreach through after school Arabic programs and
  teacher training.

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Bahrain Teachers College

• An autonomous College within the University of
  Bahrain.
• Train all new teachers and upgrade the skills of
  existing teachers, head teachers, and selected
  specialists.
• Under the direct supervision of the Ministry of
  Education
• Ensure programs are consistent, relevant, of an
  appropriate quality and comprehensively address
  teachers' needs.
• Extensive support from The National Institute of
  Education (NIE) in Singapore, a leading
  international provider in teacher training.

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The Case of Arabic Language

• Training Arabic language teachers by proxy.
• 135 public schools Arabic Observed.
• Teacher-centered
• Textbook dominated
• Rote learning.
• No concept of reading.

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Statistics

• According to UNESCO, there are 40 million
  children who do not attend school in the Arab
  world.
• In Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunis,
  Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar, Syria, and UAE 80
• Libya and Saudi Arabia lt 70
• Morocco, Sudan and Yemenlt 60

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Boys Schools
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Girls Schools
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The Result?

• High drop out rates.
• Lack of proficiency in the language.
• Teachers who are out of touch.
• Heyneman in 1997 found that 13 year old Jordanian
  students had so much less basic knowledge of
  reading, writing and arithmetic than those who
  are 14 in another country. In 1995, the National
  Research Center administered Arabic language
  tests for 4908 students in 4th grade in 205
  schools in Jordan and found that the percentage
  of correct answers given was 54.
• 51 for boys, and 57 for girls

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What are we doing?

• Introduce the concept of classroom libraries
  (MEPI Scholastic).
• Train teachers through intensive summer
  institutes starting this summer.

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Teacher Training