Pattern recognition of the foreign learner (FL) in teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL); a cognitive and neurolingquistic approach to the efficacy of phonological-morphological correlations, al-ishtiq?q and ?ilm al-ta?r?f ABSTRACT: Research in cognitive- and neuroscience/neurolinguistics related to working/short-term memory as well as pattern recognition data from AI studies should be applied to TAFL given the highly consistent phonological-morphological and (categorical) semantic correlations in Arabic, which activate the ‘back cortex’, facilitate learning and warrant systematic ear-training predicated on an audiological approach to ?ilm al-ta?r?f and al-ishtiq?q targeting the FL’s phonological loop and memory. The FL is typically deprived of opportunities of native-speaker children to hear and internalize the distinctive rhythmic phonological patterns of Arabic intrinsic in acquisition, comprehension and reproduction where aural-/oral phonemic awareness is primary to reading and writing--all of which activate the auditory cortex. Most pedagogical and methodological principles of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) are applicable to TAFL; however, minimal attention to form (in preferencing communicative approaches) while often warranted, is inapplicable to discrete aural-phonological- and morphological- pattern recognition training given Arabic specificity, constituting a ‘state of exception’. Interactionist approaches are vital to committing semantic associations to memory, but internalization of Arabic-specific phonological-morphological patterns is the precursor. This ongoing research using cognitive psychology methods seeks to demonstrate that intensive exposure and aural-oral conditioning with Arabic derived forms--both without and before formation of semantic linkages--facilitates acquisition impacting aural comprehension, speaking, spelling and reading. The initial object is not attaching meaning to form but engraining and activating patterns to artificially simulate phonological-/audiological background ‘knowledge’ and ‘instincts’, thereby effectively compensating for and emulating the language ‘sense’ and receptivity enjoyed by native-speakers upon entering elementary school. This audiological ‘priming’ or implanting presumes that auditory pathways, awareness, repetition and imitation are primary in learning and that such is justifiable in TAFL due to the relations obtaining between Arabic phonology, morphology and semantics, contrary to other languages where such do not obtain, as well as the fact that FLs are typically unable to accurately pronounce, read, reproduce or acquire lexical items without repeated initial phonological input. This approach is distinct from general audio-lingual methods due to its Arabic-specificity and focus on inculcating awareness of its unique forms via staged, discrete activation in conjunction with regular instruction. It does not supplant but augments existing methodologies, and research seeks to demonstrate additional support for its efficacy in the positive response of students with learning disabilities.

Error analysis of students' verbal production is an area of interest for many researchers and foreign language teachers. Mitchell and Myles, (2004) previously stressed that errors, if studied, could reveal a developing system of the students' L2 language. This system is dynamic, open to changes, and resetting of parameters. Vahdatinejad, (2008) noted that error analysis can be used to determine what a learner still needs to be taught. It provides the necessary information about what is lacking in learners' competence. This is especially true of advanced learners whose capability to maintain a conversation with their interlocutor makes it possible to glide over errors without noting them leading to accuracy problems. A fact that is disappointing to learners who need to display high levels of accuracy that warrant a move to superior level but cannot deal with such errors. It is also disappointing to teachers who face difficulty pinpointing the seemingly sporadic errors that their learners are doing, thus making navigating them to the superior level (which according to the ACTFL guidelines is marked by higher levels of accuracy) more difficult. In an attempt to start a corpus of advanced learners’ errors, I analyzed audio-recorded speaking assignments of fifty advanced AFL students. Errors committed by AFL students have been extracted and classified syntactically and semantically. The goal of the analysis is to: 1) determine the most common errors made by AFL students and the frequency of occurrence of these errors. 2) highlight problems that teachers need to address at this level to help learners reach their superior level of oral proficiency. 3) suggest some teaching techniques and activities to help students overcome these errors. The analysis revealed that some of the most recurrent problems were the incorrect use of the active participles, irregular verb forms, phrasal verbs, idioms, and expressions in L2 as well as some complex sentence structures. Findings of the present study would 1)serve as a guidance to teachers on how to assist advanced learners to overcome their speaking problems so as to reach the superior level, and 2)urge curriculum designers to develop educational material that help overcoming the detected problems in AFL advanced speaking classrooms.

With the increased interest towards employing the communicative approach in teaching foreign languages, fluency is given more attention from researchers and foreign language teachers. According to Simensen (2010), fluency was viewed as a function of temporal variables of speech, namely, the rate of speaking and the number of words or syllables uttered between hesitations. Moreover, Wood (2009) also observed that formulaic sequences, multi-word phenomena such as collocations, idioms, phrasal verbs etc. proved to play a role in the production of fluent speech. While investigating the different teaching approaches aiming at developing fluency and spontaneity in foreign language teaching, the researcher adopted the approach which focuses on classroom practice and recommends teaching students how to use ‘small-words', set phrases and longer segments of language in the same manners of native speakers. Simensen (2010) favored this approach and further explained that the justification is obvious: to develop in a user of a foreign or a second language a proficiency which allows him/her to gain time to organize his/her thoughts, find appropriate linguistic expressions, etc. without interrupting the flow of language. To gain fluency for AFL learners at their elementary level, the present pilot study was carried out in a modern standard Arabic class which consisted of twelve AFL learners. The researcher applied the first six principles, originated from the seven principles proposed by Kellem (2009: 9 -11), namely, 1) incorporating repetition, 2)increasing the speaking time, 3) preparing before speaking, 4) using familiar and motivating topics, 5) ensuring appropriate level, 6) imposing time limits, and 7) teaching formulaic language, i.e., adding collocations, idioms, and so on". Each student was asked to talk about him/herself for about 4-5 minutes using vocabulary and grammatical structures covered. Students' presentations were digitally recorded. The same procedure was applied on another twelve students in another elementary AFL class, while employing Kellem's seventh principle (the use of Formulaic Language) as the main variable in the teaching process of the two AFL classes. Analysis of the results of both groups showed that the second group produced more fluent speech. This might be attributed to the use of Formulaic Language as it is easier for students to retrieve longer segments of language than to search for individual words and formation of grammatical structures. Findings of this study would raise the awareness of AFL teachers and curriculum designers of the importance of Formulaic language and its impact on different language skills.

Teaching Techniques Facilitating Vocabulary Acquisition for Dyslexic Students Learning Arabic as a Foreign Language The British Dyslexia Association (BDA) defines Dyslexia as a genetic neurobiological learning disability that causes difficulties in literacy, spelling, reading, processing phoneme-grapheme, and visual difficulties (Reid, 2011; Ryeng, 2010; Rossidou, 2006). Dyslexia “can affect cognition, such as memory, speed of processing, coordination and directional aspects” (Reid, 2011).The International Dyslexia Association states that “15-20% of the population have a language-based learning disability”, with 70-80% showing symptoms for Dyslexia. According to ACTFL, students at any level of ability have the right to learn a foreign language (Ganschow and Schneider, 2006).Students with Dyslexia tend to carry on with their studies after high school; they attend college and even take foreign language courses (DiFino and Lombardino, 2004). Dyslexic students face various difficulties during vocabulary acquisition. According to research by the Pacific Resources for Education and Learning, acquiring vocabulary means recognizing words and knowing their meanings in both oral and print forms on the receptive and productive levels. On the receptive level, students should be able to identify the word and recognize its meaning, while on the productive level, students can pronounce, spell, and use words correctly (Texas Language Technology Centre, 2010). The purpose of this research is to demonstrate the difficulties Dyslexic students learning Arabic as a Foreign Language have during the acquisition of vocabulary in terms of their visual and auditory perception, phonological processing, memory, spelling, writing, and sequencing (Reid and Peer, 2001). The main challenge for instructors is to find and utilize effective teaching techniques to deal with such problems, as there is very little research in this field. Accordingly, the paper also discusses techniques and strategies that teachers may use to facilitate vocabulary acquisition for Dyslexic learners of Arabic. Concentration will be on a multisensory explicit approach and mnemonic devices, which are the most effective techniques to overcome difficulties that Dyslexics experience (Ganschow and Schneider, 2006).The aim of this research is also to put forward to teachers ways of identifying such students, who are usually identified as merely weak learners, as well as offer special methods to deal with them when acquiring vocabulary. It also aims to assist Dyslexic students, as it will reduce the obstacles they face when learning a foreign language and enable them to resume their language learning in a more relaxed atmosphere.

The study of discourse markers as a linguistic phenomenon has drawn the attention of many researchers, foreign language teachers, translators and curriculum designers. Kammensjo (2005) explained that the function of the discourse markers is to link utterances in discourse through words, clauses and phrases. According to Al Kohlani (2010:2-7), "different language systems employ discourse markers differently with regards to the type of markers preferred, their frequency, or their distribution". Thus, a discourse marker that is appropriate and accepted in a certain language may be inappropriate when employed in other languages. From my experience in teaching Arabic as a foreign language (AFL), I observed that the use of discourse markers pose a challenge for AFL learners in their L2 listening and speaking classrooms even after reaching their advanced level of proficiency. While tackling various Arabic conversations in AFL listening and speaking classrooms, AFL learners misinterpret both the morphosyntactic structure as well as the functions performed by different discourse markers (expressing certainty, appealing to the hearer, concluding, etc.) and accordingly tend to avoid employing such discourse markers when engaged in Arabic debates. This observation motivated me to conduct the present study that aims at: 1) helping AFL students reach a better understanding and usage of this Arabic linguistic phenomenon and 2) contributing to previous research that suggested a fruitful future investigation of discourse markers in other Arabic data rather than lecturing monologues (Kammensjo, 2005), newspaper opinion articles (Al Kohlani, 2012), and written modern standard Arabic texts (Al-Batal, 1990). To conduct the present study, a number of Arabic talk shows addressing political, social, religious and cultural topics were recorded. While selecting this type of data, I was keen to use the same types of talk shows to which AFL learners are exposed in their L2 listening and speaking classrooms. The different discourse markers were elicited whenever they occurred in the recorded data. Analysis of the present data included: types of discourse markers frequently occurred, function(s) performed by each discourse marker and an explanation of the morphosyntactic structure of each discourse marker employed. Finally, so as to facilitate the teaching and learning of the different discourse markers that appeared to be problematic for AFL learners, different pedagogical activities that are developed to train AFL learners on how to employ different discourse markers (successfully) in their L2 Arabic conversations are provided.

In light of the need for new definitions of language and cultural competence, the present study sought to examine the cultural understandings and dispositions of Arabic language students at different Arabic course levels. Specifically, the study aims to determine if students’ experience with the Arabic language relates to their cultural understanding and openness towards the Arab culture. Congruently, the study inquired about what native speakers of Arabic (specifically, North African) expect from American students in terms of understanding and disposition towards Arab culture. This study fills a critical gap in the research in that it examines what students of Arabic know about the Arab culture at different stages of their language learning experience. Studying foreign languages has long been considered a key factor in helping cross-cultural understanding, building positive attitudes towards other cultures, and communicating effectively in the target culture. In the past, foreign language teaching targeted developing students’ linguistic and communicative competencies. Yet, it has been repeatedly observed that competency in these two aspects is not enough for students to function effectively in the target cultures which raised an urgent need to revise the definition of competence in the foreign language being learned (SFLL, 2006; MLA, 2007). Data collected for this cross-sectional study included scores from a Cultural Knowledge Test (CKT), an Intercultural Sensitivity Test (IST), and follow-up interviews with select participants. These instruments were administered to students of Arabic at different levels as well as native Arabic speakers. It is important to note that the CKT included items that showed shared cultural practices and perspectives between Arab regional cultures. A simple linear regression was conducted to determine if there is a correlation between scores of first, second, and third year students of Arabic on both CKT and IST, and CKT and language experience. Scores of first year students were also correlated with scores obtained from native speakers. The responses of students were juxtaposed with the responses of native speakers to see at what point students’ responses most closely approximated those of Native speakers. Preliminary findings suggest that there may not necessarily be a positive correlation between students’ language learning experience and their cultural understanding. However, it appears that a positive relationship exists between what students understand about Arab culture and their cultural ‘openness’ and ‘sensitivity’.