Blended Learning: Infusing thinking skills in the AFL curriculum Blended learning is becoming an increasingly common practice across higher education these days. It is the teaching that integrates both face to face and on-line learning. In other words, it is a mixture between independent and collaborative learning. Moving from a face to face only approach to a blended one requires making additional transformation in delivering the curriculum. This transformation aims at promoting students’ interaction and engagement to be able to deal with asynchronous material. This means, having a pedagogical approach that addresses the diversity of students, since they will be responsible for a large part of their learning. In this perspective, previous studies have called for the need for supporting students regarding the non-reliance on teacher, as well as the need for developing their critical thinking capacities (Torrisi-Steele & Drew 2013). Others have indicated the need for teaching students more metacognitive skills to make the best out of their learning (Lust, Vandewaetere, Ceulemans, Elen, and Clarebout 2011). Accordingly, the changes that have to take place in the curriculum should encompass factors that prepare students to think skillfully, to deal with cognitively complex problems encountered during the asynchronous part of blended learning. This paper addresses how such changes could be reflected in an Arabic language blended learning curriculum. The aim here is to move students from being recipients of information, to becoming manipulators, discoverers, evaluators and creators with Arabic language. The change in curriculum focuses on infusing thinking skills by introducing “a thought-filled curriculum” (Costa, 2011). Such a curriculum combines teaching thinking skills as a major component of course content. A “thought-filled” curriculum seeks to enlarge students’ capacities to think creatively and critically and to be able to solve problems. It also focuses on “enhancing the ways students produce knowledge rather than how they merely reproduce it.” (Costa & Kallick 2011 p.16). In this paper, concentration is geared towards showing examples of curriculum where thinking skills are embedded into content knowledge to achieve changes to be reflected in students’ way of learning.

This paper introduces the morphological ‘sampler’ designed to accompany an online course in elementary and intermediate Modern Standard Arabic. Even in one’s first weeks of learning Arabic, an acquaintance with the basic notion of roots and patterns is extremely helpful. Without an awareness of how prevalent these patterns are, students can be hard put to discern order in the masses of new information they encounter. Once attuned to them, however, making analogies becomes possible, ambiguity is reduced, and recall is facilitated. Because patterns are based on phonology, a careful introduction to them can also help immensely with pronunciation. As an adult learner of Arabic, and a long-time teacher of it, the author can also attest to the fact that elementary learners sometimes become frustrated at being obliged to communicate in very basic fashion for months on end. These analytical exercises require the use of higher order thinking and can provide a welcome change of pace and a satisfying complement to the other skills they are working on. The sampler consists of 22 bite-sized “Morphs” which address, among other things, dual formation, sound plurals, the place noun, root identification clues, adjective patterns, and some derived verb forms. Of particular interest are the segments devoted to broken plural patterns and the links between particular broken plurals, root types, and semantics. Each "Morph" is limited to one to two pages in length in an aim to introduce students to a pattern and pique their curiosity without overwhelming them. A brief explanation is followed by a data bank which must be used to solve a morphological puzzle. Vocabulary is chosen to reinforce and supplement that most commonly encountered at the elementary and lower intermediate levels. This graduated Morph sequence can be covered in a year’s course work, and can be usefully approached at any point in the elementary or intermediate level. Morphology receives only a modicum of attention in many contemporary Arabic programs. It is my contention that students benefit from its direct incorporation into the curriculum. To reach fluency in Arabic, there are no ‘miracle cures’. As in learning any other language from scratch, much effort is required. Students will still require intensive work in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. But add morphology to the mix, and it’s like working out with steroids - except that morphology is very legal, and lots of fun.

AFL Students’ perceptions regarding Arabic Online Learning Teachers’ perception regarding online teaching has been an important topic to many researchers, however, AFL perceptions, their needs, opinions, and views regarding Arabic online learning have not been given much attention. This is a study that investigated AFL perceptions, expectations and needs regarding future online Arabic language program at the American University in Cairo. Bristow, et.al. (2011) noted “it is important to ascertain these perceptions as they may have significant impact on the progress of online learning and which direction that progress may take.” ALI is in the process of launching an Arabic online program, accordingly, the aim of the study is to determine, how potential AFL perceive Arabic online courses, why they enroll, what courses they prefer, what makes them willing to take more online courses. These are important questions for Arabic language instruction to ask and know in the process of implementing the new Arabic online courses. The study was conducted using a survey comprised of 13 items presented in yes /no and open ended questions. Items focused on reasons for enrollment in Arabic online courses, preference of courses ( MSA / tailored / skill- based /colloquial /culture). The participants were asked to share their perceptions regarding various aspects of Arabic online courses and what motivates them to be enrolled in these courses. Participants gained access to the survey through a link to faculty teaching Arabic at AUC and in different universities in USA. Participants’ responses to the survey were classified into three categories: reasons for taking online courses ( past – future) , Arabic online courses preference and why ( past – future) , advantages and disadvantages of their experiences ( past). Initial results confirmed that their experiences were positive however, the most common complaint was the lack of clarity, interaction and feedback. Some students preferred to be enrolled in face to face traditional culture, speaking and colloquial classes rather than online ones because they believe that these courses need more interaction. Students reported interesting, useful comments that can provide insight in the challenge of building content online courses and providing professional development for teachers involved in online teaching.

Developing Dyslexic students’ grammatical competence through blended learning Dyslexia is defined by the International Dyslexia Association as “a specific language disorder where the brain is unable to distinguish, process and codify coherently”. In other words, dyslexics have poor language processing. The four components constituting a language are phonology, semantics, grammar and pragmatics (Snowling, 2006) but dyslexics don’t process them all at the same level of strength (Knudsen, 2012). According to Marion Rondot-Hay, dyslexic students will suffer in acquiring a second language as much as they do in their first language. Despite those difficulties, dyslexic students can acquire a second language, but using certain teaching techniques and accommodations to achieve the targeted results. Dyslexic students learning a foreign language face some difficulties while acquiring grammar, such as word order and parts of speech recognition (Rondot-Hay, 2012). Furthermore, dyslexics find difficulty in learning new syntax, such as the past, present, and future tenses (Knudsen, 2012). Moreover, The British Dyslexia Association states that common difficulties dyslexic students face are manifested in information processing, memory, sequencing, concentration, and visual perception. Online teaching facilitates learning a second language for dyslexic students. It provides a learning environment that accommodates every student’s personal learning style (Marsh, 2012). This allows students to work with their own pace without time or place restriction (Marsh, 2012). However, in class instructions are indispensable for dyslexic students as they need multisensory teaching which can only be achieved through face to face contact. Consequently, blended learning is considered the ideal option when teaching a foreign language to dyslexic students as the core concept behind blended learning is introducing online teaching along with recognizing the importance of keeping face to face instructions (Janet, 2008). The recommended pedagogy for teaching grammar to dyslexic students is to focus on different components of language, creating what is called “grammatical awareness” (Nijakowska, 2010). The objectives when teaching a grammatical structure should be teaching students its “constituent elements”, “proper order”, and “meaning”; in other words, dealing with grammar as a means for learning the language and not an end in itself. Ganshow and other researchers have agreed that the “multi-sensory approach”, “communicative”, and “total physical response” are the best techniques to teach grammar to dyslexic students learning a foreign language. Accordingly, this presentation will focus on applying those techniques through blended learning with dyslexic students to facilitate Arabic grammar acquisition as a second language.