Jennifer Eschler and Dr. R. Kirk Belnap, Asian and Near Eastern Languages
While Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is used for schooling and for writing in the Arab world, it is not the oral means of communication. Several dialects of Arabic exist. Each of these is related to Modern Standard Arabic, but vocabulary and some basic grammar rules differ according to geographic location. Although primary schools are conducted in MSA, most preschool instruction is in the local dialect or there is a combination of dialect and MSA with the amount of MSA varying according to school and instructor.
During the spring of 1999, Jill Jenkins, a TESL MA student at Brigham Young University, studied the effects of the Arab Flowers Preschool MSA immersion program on the students’ performance in primary school. Her research in Harasta, Syria found that all mean reading and composition scores for AFP students are higher than the mean scores for non-AFP students.1 However, Jenkins’ study did not take into account whether the students who did not attend AFP attended another preschool or did not attend preschool at all. This information is crucial to the validity of her conclusion that the AFP MSA immersion program is the factor influencing the superior grades of the students she studied.
The objective of the current study is to determine whether the higher reading and composition scores of AFP students can be attributed to the language immersion program of AFP or merely to preschool attendance. Upon my arrival in Syria in January of 2001, I applied for government approval of my project. Permission was granted in April, but due to minor misunderstandings in what information was needed, there were errors in the original approval and I had to reapply. When I was finally approved, I had barely enough time to finish my research before leaving the country, and so the Ministry of Education arranged for the English specialist for the primary schools in Harasta as well as the supervisor of the preschools in the area to accompany me. The delay in the government’s approval of my request turned out to be quite beneficial as it gave me the time necessary to acquaint myself with the language and understanding of Arab culture necessary to properly conduct my research.
Once the actual research began, I was able to visit eight preschools in the Harasta area, a suburb of Damascus. I met with preschool directors and teachers as well as officials employed by the government who oversee the schools to ensure that all programs follow national guidelines. After asking questions about their approaches to education and observing classes and programs available in the various schools, I requested student records from 1991 to 1999, which were provided by five of the eight schools.
Upon returning to the United States, I compared the preschool records I had collected with the primary school records collected during the original research two years ago. We were able to find 75 students who had attended preschools other than AFP for whom we had complete primary school records. Several more could be matched by name, but due to poor copies and incomplete records we were unable to compare their birthdays and thus could not conclusively say that they are the same person.
The statistics department at Brigham Young University will begin working with the data during in the next few weeks and we expect to see that the AFP students have significantly high scores not only in relation to the general population, but also in comparison with students who attended other preschools.
Linguistically, culturally, and academically, this research has been an excellent opportunity for me to grow. It challenged my Arabic language skills and allowed me be integrated into a part of the culture I would have otherwise not been a part of. Education and the Middle East are both very important to me, and if the desired conclusions are reached, the results of this study will provide insights that will potentially aid the Arab educational system.2
References
- Jenkins, J. (2000). The effect of a preschool MSA immersion program on Arab children’s primary school reading and composition scores. Master’s thesis, Brigham Young University.
- Grants: ORCA and Honors Department, Brigham Young University
- Acknowledgements: Without the aid of Staci Sharp, assistant director of the Winter 2000 Damascus Intensive Arabic Program, Dr. Al-Dannan, Vice President of the University of Damascus; Khaled Al-Hay, English specialist for the Harasta primary schools; Mohomad Faadil, supervisor of the Harasta area preschools; and the Ministry of Education of the Syrian Arab Republic, this research would not have been possible.