Teachers of Arabic in the U.S.

The Initiative for Multilingual Studies is investigating the professional identities of K-12 Arabic language teachers in the U.S. and their critical language awareness of Arabic as a global language with many varieties. The study is funded by the Qatar Foundation International. The project began in January 2022 and concluded in July 2023.

The research team members are Dr. Lourdes Ortega and Dr. Hina Ashraf (Principal Investigators) and doctoral students Rima Elabdali and Saurav Goswami. The findings will contribute to supporting the professional development of primary and secondary teachers of Arabic in the United States.

Teacher Professional Development Modules

As part of the project, the research team developed five professional development modules for teachers of Arabic in U.S. K–12 education. Informed by the project’s research findings and interviews with Arabic language teachers, the modules provide practical, research-informed resources to support teacher learning and professional practice.

Each module is designed to function as a standalone professional development workshop of approximately 90 minutes. Together, the five modules can also be used as a sequenced series for a multi-session professional development program.

Download the modules:

Module 1: How do teachers explain Arabic as one language with many varieties to students?
Module 2: Reflecting on the diversity of student backgrounds in Arabic language classrooms
Module 3: How does your identity impact your teaching?
Module 4: Language ideology
Module 5: Integrating materials

Grant Publications

The evolving needs of Arabic language teachers in U.S. K-12 education (white paper)

The team at the Initiative for Multilingual Studies synthesized the existing literature on Arabic language teachers and explored their evolving needs in U.S. K-12 education. You can read and download the paper here.

1. Translanguaging in support of MSA learning: The case of an Arabic community/heritage school (Abourehab & Azaz, 2020)
2. Using a spoken variety alongside MSA fosters pragmatic development in L2 Arabic study abroad (Al Masaeed, 2022)
3. Integrating Arabic dialects in classroom instruction fosters L2 sociolinguistic competence (Nassif & Al Masaeed, 2020)
4. How do Emirati teachers of Arabic address multilingualism and self-regulation in secondary classrooms? (Tang & Calafato, 2021)
5. Language contact during a semester of study abroad drives Arabic oral competence (Trentman, 2017) 
6. Teacher resistance to written translanguaging in storybooks for Arabic-English bilingual children (Al-Bataineh & Gallagher, 2021)
7. What can an exceptionally good nonnative speaker of Arabic tell us about the critical period? (Ioup et al., 1994)
8. Advanced oral proficiency in L2 Arabic: Successes and challenges of a nonnative-speaking Arabic teacher (Samimy, 2008)
9. Using an Arabic language corpus to promote learner self-correction (Zaki, 2021)
10. Teaching with use of the L1 can be more effective than L2-only teaching in beginning-level French and Arabic instruction (Brown, 2021)
11. Attitudes towards different Arabic dialects and their speakers matter in interdialectal communication in the U.S. (Chakrani, 2015)
12. Students’ views on Arabic dialect learning after two months of intensive study abroad (Shiri, 2013)
13. Bilingual pedagogical strategies used by three teachers with bilingual Arabic-Hebrew kindergartners (Schwartz & Asli, 2014)
14. Translanguaging in Arabic and English: Insights from two Emirati university students (Palfreyman & Al-Bataineh, 2018)
15. Teachers’ experiences while teaching Arabic in K-12 schools in Israel (Saada & Gross, 2019)