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Part of
Applied Linguistics in the Middle East and North Africa: Current practices and future directions
Edited by Atta Gebril
[AILA Applied Linguistics Series 15] 2017
► pp. 269–287

Chapter 12
Arabic language teacher education

| Endowed Professor for Arabic Language, Zayed University, UAE

Quality teacher preparation programs have been shown to greatly impact student learning outcomes as studies often refer to the importance of quality teacher education as a key factor in learning. Linguistic realities in the Arab world reflect a bleak situation where Arabic language teachers remain largely poorly prepared and deprived of sustained and meaningful professional development. This situation is manifested in students’ results on international standardized Arabic language proficiency tests. This chapter describes current practices in teacher Arabic language teacher education and cites student Arabic language learning outcomes as demonstrated on the 2011 PIRLS test. The chapter covers research investigating the importance of effective teacher education including quality of preservice admissions, and field experiences associated with those programs.

Keywords: Arabic language, Arabic teacher education, Teacher preparation in Arab World, Arabic teacher quality, PIRLS, Arabic literacy, Arabic standardized tests, Arabic teachers’ outcomes, teaching Arabic, Arab colleges of education
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Current status of Arabic language teachers
  • Student results on standardized Arabic literacy tests
  • Arabic language teacher education programs
    • Quality of pre-Service teachers entering the program
    • Quality of teacher education curriculum used
    • Field experiences
    • New teachers’ induction
  • Continuous professional development for in-service teachers
  • Future needs and plans
  • Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 18 July 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/aals.15.12tah
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