Program

Education Doctorate

Year Approved

2018

First Advisor

Paulson, Patricia

Abstract

The Arabic language is one of the significant world languages; it is the official language of 21 countries. Over three million people speak Arabic as a first language in the United States and almost all of them are native-born Americans (Sehlaoui, 2008). Taha (2007) indicated that 84.5% of international students and American students felt that learning Arabic was an asset because of the linguistic and cultural aspects. Arabic as a second language does not reach the same level of popularity as other world languages (Ryding, 2013). Students choose not to study Arabic due to the complex sociolinguistic situation in the Arab world diglossia and because of the Arabic script’s complexity. A mixed-study method was used to understand Arabic learners’ speaking motivation and to draw a framework for the best plan when focusing on a foreign language speaking skill. This study examined the impact of two factors, the content and the instructional strategies, on learners’ speaking motivation. The quantitative and qualitative data results indicated that the content of a Five Cs designed unit impacted ASL learners’ motivation to speak. Regarding the four instructional strategies, the quantitative results showed there were no significant statistical differences. The interview results showed clear preferences regarding three of the four instructional strategies: real-world connections, competition, and missing information.

Degree Name

Education Doctorate

Document Type

Doctoral dissertation

Terms of Use and License Information

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

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