Sharing Good Practice
Should we allow students to
read aloud in Arabic?
By Mazen Al-Sheikh
I
entered the field of Arabic
language education 15 years ago.
Since then, I have been continually
astounded by the significant
value placed on students’ reading
aloud in Arabic language classrooms.
With Sheikh Mohammed’s launch
of the Arab Reading Challenge last
September and declaring 2016 as
the Year of Reading, it seems a timely
opportunity to examine this topic
closely.
Normally, young children know how
to pronounce their mother tongue
sounds properly before they go
to school and learn the alphabet.
They have acquired this by intensive
listening and speaking at home. It can
be concluded from this that learning
correct pronunciation mainly takes
place through listening and speaking
activities that focus on word stress and
intonation and not by mechanically
reading aloud a written text.
I would first encourage you
to consider the following
questions:
Instead of investing a lot of energy
and time on reading aloud, Arabic
educators are advised to implement
ways that actively engage students in
reading for understanding. This can
be achieved through incorporating
effective reading strategies before,
during and after exposure to the text.
The pre-reading stage can include
activities that trigger students’
motivation to read the text and
establish connections between their
lives, interests and what they are going
to read. During the actual reading,
students need to be taught to apply
• How do people read in real life? Do
they usually read aloud or silently?
• Is reading basically a comprehension
skill or a pronunciation practice?
• Does reading aloud accurately mean
that the reader has understood the
text?
When learners read aloud they focus
on pronouncing letters and words
correctly and not on deciphering
meaning. Consequently, it is difficult
for them to pronounce well while at
the same time understand what they
are reading. Therefore, if students
are asked to read aloud they should
not be required to demonstrate their
understanding. The task just does not
match the purpose.
There
is
a
widespread
misunderstanding that reading aloud
in Arabic with correct pronunciation
automatically means that this person
is a ‘good’ reader. Experience does
not support this case. For example, a
non-Arab Muslim can recite the Holy
Quran perfectly with comprehending
only very little.
Reading is essentially a thinking
process that deals with sub skills such
as gist understanding, skimming and
scanning or as basic as matching words
or sentences with pictures at lower
levels. Being a good reader means
being good at such comprehension
skills. This leads to question the
efficiency of reading aloud as a vehicle
to enhance learners’ pronunciation.
16 | Mar - Apr 2016 |
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Class Time
techniques on how to derive general
and specific meanings, and form
understandings and draw conclusions.
The post-reading phase might provide
learners with opportunities to think
and respond beyond the text through
links to other contexts and disciplines.
Reading aloud in real life can be
helpful in very specific situations. It
can be used to inform others (i.e. news
reporter) or entertain them (i.e. telling
a story or reciting a poem). In fact,
these are performance practices and
have very little to do with the actual
purpose of reading.
Reading is first and foremost a
comprehension skill and should be
approached as a process for deriving
meaning from the printed word and
not a tool to encourage students to
respond to the surface features of
the language at the expense of the
message.
Director of Arabic Langauge at the
American School of Dubai.
[email protected]