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CHAPTER 5

Learning Arabic: From Language Functions to Tasks in a Diglossic Context

Mahdi Alosh

Editors’ Note. This chapter discusses issues relating to the design of lower-level

courses in Arabic, in which pedagogic tasks form a significant portion of the

learning activities. Alosh uses a functional, communicative, and task-mediated

approach to teaching that places emphasis on process over product. Therefore, the

kinds of tasks presented here are somewhat different from those in other chapters

of this book which emphasize product and outcome. In Alosh’s system, both

meaning and form are important, and activities are interwoven with tasks in

developing both the ability to communicate thought and intent, as well as to

understand and (re)produce the linguistic phenomena underlying communication.

Until recently, designing and implementing learning tasks have not been

considered an integral part of language curriculum design. However, a growing number

of second language specialists believe that methodological practice goes hand in glove

with theory—and theory is leading teachers toward task-based learning. Practice, though,

lags behind for two reasons. First, a teacher’s prior experience in language learning and

teaching has an important impact on his or her teaching techniques, and few teachers

were taught in a task-based mode. Second, when there is lack of guidance about how to

teach communicatively, the textbook tends to become the source of language material

and its texts the object of linguistic analysis.

This article describes how classroom tasks are structured and implemented in the

Arabic Language Program at the Ohio State University. As part of the Department of
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Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, this program offers courses at all levels of

proficiency to students in two tracks: (a) the regular classroom track, and (b) an

individualized track. The latter track allows learners to learn at their own pace without

having to come to class at prescribed times. Instead of attending class, they work on their

own at the Arabic Learning Center, before seeking the assistance of the instructor there,

thus taking more responsibility in managing their own learning. Not only do students

have flexible hours, but they also receive variable credit, which allows them to cover as

much material as they are capable of learning.

It is important to note that the type of tasks described here not be construed as the

only effective kind for the classroom. Nor should non-communicative tasks always be

avoided. In the Arabic program, tasks are usually sequenced such that structural tasks

precede communicative ones, providing the learner with the linguistic tools required for

communicative tasks. The primary aim of engaging learners in communicative tasks is to

take them beyond manipulating language forms and to enable them to put these forms to

actual use.

ARABIC DIGLOSSIA

Diglossia has been defined as the existence of two varieties of the same language

side-by-side in a speech community, each variety having a specialized function (Ferguson

1959). In Arabic, one variety of language, usually a specific regional or local dialect, is

used for everyday, informal oral interaction. Local dialects are collectively known as

Colloquial Arabic (C). They are largely mutually intelligible, but they do vary from one

speech community to another. The degree of variation usually parallels geographical

proximity, and, indeed, there may be more than one dialect in a speech community. The
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other variety of language exists alongside the spoken dialects and is superposed, mostly

written, with limited oral use (restricted mainly to highly formal situations).1 This variety

is Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is based on Classical Arabic, and is more or

less invariable throughout the Arab world. It is the language of instruction, government

offices, the media, literature, and scholarship. It is used orally on radio and television

(e.g., news broadcasts, commentaries, formal interviews) and in political speeches, courts

of law, and the like. Although the distinction may sound much like a matter of register, in

fact the difference involves substantial phonological, lexical, morphological, and

syntactic variations.2

Diglossic differences are neither fixed nor permanent. Much depends on who is

speaking, to whom, and in what context. I have proposed a model (Alosh 1991, 1997)

with eight possible combinations, each one representing interaction among three different

variables: situation, event, and setting. The situation can be either formal or familiar. The

event in a formal situation may be public (e.g., many people involved, as in a ceremony),

or private (e.g., two department heads having a meeting). In a familiar situation, the event

can be either public (e.g., a party) or intimate (e.g., two close friends, man and wife). The

setting can be local or non-local (local being within the dialectal speech community of

the interlocutors).

According to this model, speech is conditioned by these three variables, resulting

in output that ranges along a continuum from pure Standard to pure dialect, with most

utterances occurring at some point on the continuum, rather than at either end. In real life,

however, language performance is affected not only by the three variables (i.e., situation,

event, and setting), but also by a host of other factors, such as age, education, status,
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topic, and gender, creating ever finer distinctions in the Standard-dialect “mix.” Figure

5.1 depicts this model.3

Figure 5.1 goes here

Dialect

The term “dialect” refers to local casual speech within a distinct

geographical/social area. This area does not necessarily correspond to political

boundaries. The differences observed between a given dialect and MSA are caused by the

influence of indigenous languages that existed before the introduction of Arabic, the

influence of the languages of the colonial powers that occupied parts of the Arabic-

speaking world, and deviations caused by extended isolation and geographical distance.

Most speakers of Arabic perceive their dialects as deformed versions of MSA (which is

linguistically untrue) and regard MSA with great respect.

The Impact of Diglossia on Arabic Instruction

In light of the model above, learners of Arabic ideally are expected to receive

instruction that reflects this linguistic situation. However, given the constraints of time

and opportunity of exposure to the language in its context of situation, many programs

teach MSA only. As Alosh (1992a) indicates, the rationale for not incorporating a C

component is threefold. First, the MSA content of the course is presented not with the

assumption that the student will have to use the same MSA items in communicative

situations, but rather because the student would develop the necessary strategies of oral

communication. Thus, a course may not necessarily contain C items if it enables the

students to develop the necessary skills that facilitate the acquisition of any dialect in its
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social context. Having first developed oral skill using MSA, students would be able to

use it later as a springboard to acquire a specific dialect in the social context where the

dialect is spoken. (The classroom is not seen as an effective environment in which to

produce highly proficient speakers. It is generally accepted that students who wish to

acquire Arabic language skills similar to those possessed by an educated native speaker

must travel to the target country.) Second, the use of MSA in an academic setting, such as

a university classroom, is perfectly appropriate from the sociolinguistic point of view,

though not appropriate for all topics that might come up within the classroom. Third, at

advanced levels of instruction, students are expected to perform at higher levels of

abstraction, which makes the use of MSA appropriate both in speaking and reading. I

may add another reason for excluding C from formal instruction. Many educators believe

that exposing learners to two varieties of Arabic at the same time would be confusing.

THE ARABIC LANGUAGE PROGRAM AT OSU

Students

Student demographics have changed significantly over the last decade. Growing

numbers of heritage students are taking Arabic. Their exposure to Arabic ranges from

none or very little and from some comprehension of colloquial Arabic to a low level of

proficiency in speaking one of the dialects. As most Arabic programs in the U.S. teach

mainly MSA, these students are, in fact, at a disadvantage because they have the

perception that they “know” Arabic, but this knowledge does not contribute positively to

their learning as it is of another linguistic code. Muslim students from India, Iran,

Pakistan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and other Islamic countries enroll in Arabic classes with

the purpose of developing the ability to read religious texts (mainly the Koran) and
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understand them. Many of them come with a rudimentary ability to “read” Arabic, that is,

to sound out the words, but generally they do not understand what they read. Even this

ability is, in most cases, defective. Muslim Americans constitute another category. The

vast majority has no ability in Arabic whatsoever, but they do have the same motivation

as other Muslim students, and many of them excel thanks to that. Caucasian Americans,

who used to be the dominant category in the 1980’s and earlier, enroll in Arabic classes

for various reasons: a relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend, academic interest, or

preparation for professional pursuits. This variability in background and interest of

students of Arabic has prompted some programs to create separate sections for heritage

and Muslim students if their enrollments allow it.

Theoretical Orientation

In 1987, the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Ohio State

University shifted to a function-based, proficiency-oriented curriculum. This shift

entailed drastic changes in methodology and instructional materials. The new, expanded

curriculum is designed around language functions (e.g., expressing possession, describing

location, narrating an event, expressing opinion, etc.). Structures that are needed for the

performance of these functions are presented and practiced as pattern drills. Information

about the linguistic system is provided in lucid explanations for the students to read

outside of class. These grammatical explanations are viewed as an intermediate stage

between the presentation of new input and actually using it in contextualized situations.

Since classroom time is reserved for teacher-student and student-student oral interaction,

attention to effective teaching methodology has become an important part of curricular

development. The description of the activities below elaborates this component.

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Curriculum

The Arabic curriculum includes five categories of courses: (a) language courses,

(b) literature courses in translation, (c) literature courses in Arabic, (d) linguistics courses

(historical and applied), and (e) Arab culture and folklore courses (taught in English).

Below is a more detailed description of the language courses.

Language Courses

The Department of Near Eastern Language and Cultures offers eight five-credit-

hour language courses in addition to two grammar courses. The first four satisfy the

foreign language requirement. They emphasize oral interaction in class designed around

the language functions listed at the beginning of each unit in the textbook as objectives.

Oral interaction involves the students in carrying out tasks, or communicative activities,

in pairs or groups. Out-of-class work consists mainly of reading, writing, and structural

exercises designed to reinforce the abilities being developed in the classroom and expand

on them. While it retains focus on the four skills, the fifth course represents a transition

from edited reading passages to authentic material. The sixth course focuses on reading

comprehension and strategies, in addition to continuing to develop the four languages

skills. The seventh course has a writing focus, and the last, most advanced language

course, is designed to develop advanced language abilities in all language skills. Students

who take this sequence of language courses are expected to reach at least the Advanced

level, according to the ACTFL scale (see Appendix B, this volume), in all language

skills. However, the unstated goal is to develop the ability to cope with literary and other

texts successfully. This may not be a realistic goal for classroom instruction alone unless

majors and graduate students in particular devote some time to studying abroad.
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Evaluation

Two formal means of evaluation are used. Every week for the first six weeks of a

given quarter, students complete an anonymous formative evaluation form during the first

three minutes of class. This form contains three questions:

1. What aspects of class work were most useful and interesting to you during this

week?

2. What parts of the material or class activities were unclear to you?

3. What can I do to help you learn better?

The responses help the teachers modify the syllabus, methodology, tasks, or other aspect

of instruction immediately, before the course is over.

At the end of each course, two summative evaluation forms are given, one

developed by the department and one for campus-wide use developed by the registrar’s

office. The feedback from these forms may be used for modifications of subsequent

courses and for evaluation of teaching performance.

Language Assessment

Informal assessment is accomplished daily whenever teacher and student are in

contact. In these private settings, students often relay to teachers their concerns and their

challenges with their language program; teachers likewise have an opportunity to elicit

feedback from students casually and naturally.

Formal assessment has several forms. The most familiar are written quizzes and

tests. The quizzes range from daily to weekly, and they focus on one or two points

covered the day before (e.g., vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension). The tests,
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including midterm and final tests, are more integrative and comprehensive. They

comprise vocabulary, reading comprehension, writing, and grammar. Oral proficiency

interviews are conducted the last week of classes (and sometimes at midterm). Function-

based skits developed and performed by students are also an assessment tool in beginning

classes.

Teachers

The majority of teachers are graduate students. All of them take a two-week intensive

training workshop. In addition, they take one course in methodology and one in language

acquisition. Higher-level language classes are taught by faculty members, while

elementary and intermediate courses are normally, but not always, taught by trained

graduate teaching assistants.

Instructional Materials

The instructional materials used are a series of textbooks initially designed and

developed by the author (1989-1991; 1991-1993). Additional textbooks were later written

to meet the program needs (Alosh 1996, 1999, 2000a, 2000b, 2000c). Textbook content is

organized according to language functions with a functional, pragmatic orientation,

where doing rather than knowing is the focus.

Study Abroad

Through an agreement with Damascus University, Syria, students can study

Arabic in an immersion, intensive fashion. They are placed with Syrian families in order

to maximize their exposure to the culture. Through home stay, shopping, using public

transportation, visiting sites of cultural and historical importance, meeting with

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dignitaries and spiritual leaders (both Christian and Muslim), and interacting with young

Syrian students of a similar age, they can get a first-hand knowledge and appreciation of

the culture and language. Preliminary reports received from OSU students on their

experience attest to the beneficial effects study abroad has on their language proficiency

and cultural awareness.

Learning tasks

The language courses are structured in a manner conducive to achieving the

targeted proficiency levels in the four language skills. The students perform in-class and

out-of-class tasks. Classroom tasks can best be summarized by the instructional cycle

described below. They show what students and teacher do in the classroom in order for

learning to occur. Such tasks are mostly oral, but they do include some reading and

writing tasks as well. Out-of-class tasks are mainly reading and writing tasks, in addition

to some listening comprehension tasks. The writing tasks include daily journals and

reaction papers.

Characteristics of a Communicative-Functional Approach

A communicative-functional approach does not preclude such activities as

practicing phonological, morphological, and syntactic points that have traditionally been

associated with structural, form-based approaches. The focus of instruction and activities,

however, is on meaning and the function to which the language is put and practice with

structure has a direct connection with development of understanding of form and

automaticity in its use in applied contexts. Some salient characteristics are:

Focus on Meaning
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Focus on meaning is highlighted, especially at the beginning level, by asking the

learners to elicit simple, yet genuine, information from their partners.

Sample Tasks (may be individual, pair work, or group work)

1. Find out who in the classroom walks to school.

2. Describe three activities that you usually do over the weekend and compare these

with your classmates’ activities.

Student-centered

In a task-mediated, communicative-functional approach, most activities involve

pair and group work. The teacher’s role is one of guiding these activities. The

presentation of the material is broken down into small segments (i.e., one language

function at a time with the necessary vocabulary and structures). Presentation of new

material and interactive activities alternate at a brisk pace so that the students remain

engaged.

Sample Task

Find out from your partner how far from school he or she lives and how he/she

comes to school. Report your finding back to the class. (If appropriate and the teacher

desires, students can then use that information for some purpose, such as completing a

transport survey.)

Proficiency Goal

The guiding principle in the OSU Arabic task-mediated communicative-

functional approach is the development of specific language abilities. The long-term goal

of instruction is the achievement of Advanced-level proficiency.

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Sample Tasks

1. Find out from your partner which foods he/she prefers, where he/she gets them,

and who prepares them for him/her.

2. Describe how your favorite dish is prepared (orally or in writing). Following this,

students could produce a class recipe book, try out some dishes outside of class,

and report back on them. These tasks give practice in using everyday functions

such as expressing likes and dislikes, making recommendations, giving

instructions, and specific language abilities like listing stages in a process and

reaching a decision within a group.

Interrelatedness of Function and Form

Another characteristic of the task-mediated communicative-functional approach is

the focus on the relationship between form and function, in which functional tasks are

used for reinforcing grammatical features. (Using tasks for pedagogic purposes has

received some support in recent days, especially from teachers of linguistically complex

languages; see, for example, Samuda, 2001). The purpose of instruction is obviously the

development of pragmatic control, accomplished by providing comprehensible input and

expecting students to produce output in relation to context-specific sociolinguistic

requirements realized through the correct application of grammatical rules. What seems

to be one process is, in fact, two--one pragmatic and the other psycholinguistic. Garrett

(1991) makes this distinction, noting that using language knowledge, or grammatical

rules, to perform communicative functions is a sociocultural, sociolinguistic

phenomenon, whereas using language knowledge to comprehend and produce language

is a cognitive, psycholinguistic phenomenon. Further, research conducted by Swain and

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Lapkin (2001) determined that regardless of task type—real-world or pedagogic—

students paid much attention to learning form, as needed for required output. Alosh

(1997) contends that separation of form and meaning under any pretext would deny

grammar its mediating role between these two sources of knowledge. For instance,

learners of Arabic find it difficult to master the subjunctive when it is presented as a set

of structural relations because they are unable to associate the form with the various

functions that require its use. If they know, however, that in order to express obligation or

indicate reason, they need to use certain expressions (which necessarily include the

subjunctive form), they can focus on meaning/intent, as well as relate the form to

something they already know (i.e., the concept of expressing obligation).

Use of authentic materials

To most foreign language teachers, authentic materials are those produced by

native speakers for native speakers. This is, in my opinion, a limited view of authenticity.

A broader interpretation of authentic that includes authentic function and communicative

activity can provide a better base for student learning, while still adhering to the

principles of proficiency-oriented language teaching and learning (Alosh, 1991).

Processing Information, Not Manipulating Form

The focus here is on the kind of memory (declarative or procedural)4 the learners

must access and the manner in which they are trained to view and use language. Students

are encouraged to focus on processing information, with the teacher keeping an eye on

form so that any gaps in structural knowledge may be addressed later. The following

tasks exemplify this concept.

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Sample writing task:

Use the chart in Figure 2 to write a paragraph on the hypothetical import-export activities

in the United States in the year 2001.

The purposes of this task are to enable learners to transform numerical data into

meaningful information and to use Arabic (and the pertinent grammatical structures) to

make decisions about export-import activities, e.g. to determine whether the US is in

good or bad shape economically, using the import-export data to make and support a case

for either opinion.

Figure 5.2 goes here

Sample reading task: Read the following paragraph and then fill in the chart to

illustrate the imports and exports of the United Arab Emirates in 2001.

Comprehension of expository texts with factual information and demonstration of

comprehension by filling out a chart with data based on this information entail the use of

the underlying knowledge and transferable skills that are developed in doing tasks on the

basis of this authentic input. The kinds of tasks that can be done are myriad, depending

on students’ proficiency levels: (1) hold a debate, write an essay, or argue in pairs over

whether the US or UAE has the better economy, (2) list actions that the government

might take in the following year to change the ratios, and (3) decide whether or not the

government needs to take any action, among others. The generic task, which can be

implemented in these and many other ways, is to find out something about imports and

exports in the UAE and to do something analytic, evaluative, or reactive with that

information.
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Figure 5.3 goes here

Treating Errors as Part of the Learning Process

Error correction is accomplished by modeling, repetition, or other forms of

feedback after the communication is over so that it will not interrupt the message. Errors

are viewed as a dynamic aspect of the learning process. Some of them may not simply go

away by correction alone. They might linger until the learner reaches a particular

developmental stage. There are written and oral errors. The instructor notes them and

focuses on them through form practice in class at appropriate moments. At the beginning

level, most errors are pronunciation errors. These are developmental errors, particularly

when they pertain to sounds and phonological processes that do not exist in the English

linguistic system (e.g. pharyngealization). Students are encouragedto repeat certain

sounds intensively, but with the understanding that learners will not be able to produce

them until they can perceive them (Alosh 1987).

Process versus product

By its nature, a task-mediated communicative-functional approach is based on the

process of learning, i.e. the “how” of student learning. A course of this nature is, in a

sense, performance based because learners are expected to perform language functions in

the process of learning. A speaking task that concentrates on the process (i.e. elicit,

negotiate, evaluate, and report meaning) might be the following: Find out from your

partner two things he/she prefers to do on Saturday morning, compare these with other

pairs of students, and vote on who has the most exciting life.

The above characteristics make it abundantly clear that teaching and learning
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activities according to a functional approach are centered on the learner, are task based,

and occur in context. Not only do classroom exercises meet these basic conditions but so

also does the Arabic language curriculum as a whole in order to ensure consistency

between instructional design and application.

Communicative Tasks in Practice

An oral communicative task, as used in the OSU Arabic program, is a series of

structured actions in the target language that 1) elicits new information, 2) processes oral

language input and output, and 3) is specified in relation to the components of a speech

event (i.e. learners are aware of the role they are playing, the setting, the topic, and the

purpose of the interaction). Tasks can be focused or unfocused, as shown in Table 5.1.

Table 5.1 goes here

The context is set by giving precise instructions in English. A communicative task is part

of an instructional cycle. A class is made up of a series of instructional cycles.

Instructional cycle: An instructional cycle may be defined as a series of classroom

procedures, the purpose of which is to provide learners with meaningful input that

facilitates interpreting, negotiating, and constructing meaning in the target language (see

Figure 5.4). Each cycle begins with a presentation of a new item by the instructor in

context. The context for the presentation of the new material (e.g., one function, one

structure, or a few vocabulary items at a time) is set either by pictures, charts, props,

gestures, or by explanation or description, depending on the topic and the level of the

students.

Example: The instructor uses pictures to teach the words for bicycle, car, and computer in
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a four-phrase approach. The first phase focuses on getting students to learn the new

lexical items. The second phase involves practice of the new items. In the third phase,

learners do things with the new language input that require understanding the meaning of

the items. The fourth phase is application and entails a communicative task; this allows

learners to use in context what has been presented, practiced, and learned. The

communicative task is basically the execution of a language function or functions. Below

are two examples from different stages in the OSU Arabic program:

1. Find out if your partner owns a bicycle and report your finding back to the class.

2. Find out which of your classmates have traveled or lived abroad and for how long and

report your finding back to the class.

The fifth, or evaluation, phase allows the instructor to assess how well the learners have

learned by checking for their recognition and production abilities.

Figure 5.4 goes approximately here

Components of a Communicative Task

The central component of a communicative task is context. As will be seen in Figure 5.4,

context influences all other components since it involves participants, setting, topic,

purpose, and so forth. Figure 5.5 illustrates the relationship among the components of a

communicative task.

Figure 5.5 goes here.

• Context: The context is set by props, pictures, or precise instructions. At the

beginning level, the latter are in English and prepared in advance because slight

changes in the formulation of instruction can result in different actions and outcomes.
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Instructions specify, among other things, participants, their roles and relationships,

the setting, and the purpose of interaction. Here are some examples of context from

the OSU Arabic program:

(1) Examine this picture of a hotel and read the description next to it. Imagine that you

are staying at this hotel and write a description of your stay, including the hotel

location and facilities, the time when you arrived, by which means of transportation,

with whom, for what purpose, how long you are planning to stay, and what activities

you expect to do.

(2) Examine this driver’s license and fill out the blank form with information about

yourself.

• Objective: The task objective is always functional, unlike unit/lesson objectives,

which may be specified in structural terms. Even if a task objective, for example, is

designed to make learners use the perfect, it is specified in functional terms.

Objectives related to the tasks above are:

(1) Structural: using perfect and imperfect verb forms; spelling basic words.

(2) Functional: describing physical surroundings and activities in the past and future;

providing biographical information.

• Content: The content refers to language items and structures learners are expected to

use in a given task. It is specified indirectly by describing the actions the learners are

expected to perform, which would call for the use of particular words and structures.

The content of the tasks described above is:

(1) Vocabulary related to hotels, living areas, travel, entertainment, exercise, and food.
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(2) Vocabulary related to biographical information.

• Student role: The students’ role in a communicative task is an active one. They draw

on their own resources to interpret, negotiate, and construct meaning. The learner

plays the role of a conversational partner or a participant in a survey or an opinion

poll. For the two tasks described above, the students’ role is as follows:

(1) To draw on previous input in order to express meanings describing their own

experiences.

(2) To emulate written input and modifying it to fit their own situations.

• Teacher role: The teacher’s role in a communicative task is not a dominant one. He or

she acts as a guide, consultant, facilitator, or feedback provider. The teacher’s

behavior during the initial stages of the two tasks (cf Willis Pre-task phase described

in chapter 1) would look something like the following:

(1) During task 1, the teacher would show the picture of a hotel preferably with some

action going on and do some brain storming to elicit from the students vocabulary

related to hotel, vacations, travel, food, exercise, entertainment, and so forth in

addition to structures used in describing such activities.

(2) During task 2, the teacher would show a drivers license (his/her own) and try to have

the students provide the words necessary in describing biographical information.

• Procedure: Procedure refers to what learners are expected to do in order to achieve

the objective. It could be exchanging information with one classmate or more, or

filling out a form with reference to the learner’s own background. Specifically, for the

two tasks described in this section, the following procedures are used.
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(1) In carrying out task 1, students are expected to be involved in a collaborative fashion

with the teacher and with one another in order to produce a list of relevant words and

structures, sort out the items, organize them, and develop a text to fulfill the task.

(2) In carrying out task 2, students are expected to work with one another and the teacher

to produce the items needed for this task such as the names of the months, spelling of

foreign names, and names of professions.

• Reporting: If the activity involves elicitation of information, students may be asked to

report the information back to the class, thus making them use the third person in

addition to first- and second-person forms. In the instance of the two tasks in this

section, students are asked to report specific information, identified below, to the

class.

(1) Report about the hotel where their conversation partner stayed, the occasion for the

stay, the duration, and the activities he/she performed.

The second task is not amenable to elicitation and reporting.

Conditions of Communicative Tasks

The communicative tasks in our programs have a number of distinct features. The

checklist below provides a guide for teachers to ensure that they address all the potential

conditions of communicative tasks wholly or at least partially in designing and giving

instructions for a task.

Table 5.2 goes here

Here is an example of the checklist in use from the OSU Arabic program.

Task: You have been invited to a classmate’s house for a party but you do not know the
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address. Call your classmate and get the directions to their house. Write them down as

he/she gives them to you. (The students sit back to back to avoid over reliance on

gestures.)

Checklist:

Table 5.3 goes here

Principles of Communicative Tasks

In order for a task to be “communicative” and to produce the desired functional outcome,

at least one of three basic principles must obtain: 1) the Information Transfer Principle, 2)

the Information Gap Principle, or 3) the Functional Principle. These principles are

described below.

The Information Transfer Principle.

In applying the principle of information transfer (Johnson 1982, 164), students’ attention

is focused on the ability to understand and convey the informational content in a form

different from the original (e.g., from text to graph, letter to application form and vice

versa). Information transfer is particularly useful in writing tasks. It is not really

communication, but it is communicative in the sense that the focus is on pragmatic

meaning and information. The student is not required to comment on any structural point

or lexical meaning. Here is an example of transfer from the OSU Arabic program:

Transfer: Read this letter from Adnan to his family about his life and study in the United

States then fill out his daily schedule based on the information in the letter.

The Information Gap Principle

The Information Gap Principle involves the transmission of information, or the

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conveying of a message, from person to person (Johnson 1982:166). The receiver does

not initially possess the information, and he or she receives it via spoken or written

communication. Tasks designed in this manner create the condition of unexpectedness,

with Student 1 not knowing in advance what Student 2 will say. Here is an information

gap task from the OSU beginning Arabic program:

Task 1: Find out your conversation partner’s favorite color and report this information

back to the class. (The reports can be used then, if desired, for comparison or other

activities such as a survey.)

Task 2: Find out your partner’s telephone number. If she/he agrees, report this

information back to the whole class. (Each class member could listen to the report and

make a complete list of class phone numbers).

The Functional Principle

There is a type of social interaction that has little or no informational load, yet it is

genuine and communicative. Examples include greeting, apologizing, excusing oneself,

and so on. Language is used in these expressions to perform a specific function. Tasks

based on functions may be limited to an elementary level of language. Here are some

functional tasks from the OSU Arabic program:

(1) You enter a room with several individuals talking together. Would you say

anything upon your entrance? If so, what would the phrase be?

(2) You pass by an acquaintance on the street in the morning. How would you greet

him/her?

(3) Your best friend is wearing a new shirt, how would you express your admiration?
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As we saw earlier, communicative tasks in the OSU Arabic program are conducted after

other components in the instructional cycle have been completed. We have found it to be

extremely important to strike a balance between prior practice and the opportunity for

genuine information exchange. For example, if students have already practiced the

functions of telling time and describing activity, using the verbs “to eat” and “to drink;”

the phrase “at x o’clock;” and several relevant nouns, there is still room for real

information flow because in pair work one student knows neither the time when an

activity usually takes place nor which foods have been consumed by his/her conversation

partner.

Task Types, Levels of Proficiency, and Linguistic Complexity

At OSU, we have found that one of the advantages of a proficiency-oriented approach is

that it describes what learners can and cannot do in the language at each step in the

process of language acquisition. When designing tasks, teachers are conscious of their

students’ levels and design tasks that are appropriate for their levels (see Appendix B and

the Arabic proficiency guidelines, 1989). Although linguistic complexity is not a major

consideration in designing a communicative syllabus and its accompanying materials, it

makes sense to select exponents of functions for beginning students that are less complex.

Davis (1997) recommends that task type be commensurate with proficiency level and

with what learners can do or are expected to do at that level.

In addition to taking into consideration proficiency levels, course designers also

consider task types. Figure 5.6 illustrates the choices available.

Figure 5.6 goes here

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The sample communicative tasks described in this chapter are divided into oral and visual

tasks. The latter are further subdivided into writing and reading exercises. The Arabic

curriculum also includes integrative communicative tasks.

Oral Tasks

A distinction is made between pair work and group work on the basis of the time the task

requires and the intensity of language use. Before describing the task, the teacher takes

the following preparatory steps.

(1) The instructions given to the students (perhaps in English for beginning students)

prior to conducting the task are very carefully formulated because they determine the

outcome of the activity and the kind of language forms used during its performance.

(2) After the instructions have been clearly stated, the instructor, in preparation for

the task, elicits from the students the forms of the language necessary to execute it,

including both the initial statement or question and the response, assuming that the

proper question word or words, the necessary verb, and lexical items have already

been presented and practiced. Examples for beginning students might be:

How do you ask someone in Arabic what he or she eats for breakfast?

How do you describe to someone what you eat for breakfast?

The students then make individual attempts at providing suitable responses. With

guidance and help from the teacher, they ultimately produce something like the

following:

What do you eat for breakfast?

I eat such and such for breakfast.

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If the language program emphasizes grammatical accuracy, this emphasis may be

reflected in the preparatory phases of drill and practice, as well as in the conduct of the

task itself. Students may, in this case, be expected to produce verbs and nouns with the

appropriate inflectional markers.

Pair work. Pair work involves two partners, and the content of the activity reflects

a language function. Students perform a language function whose exponent(s) have been

previously presented and practiced. Below are a number of examples of oral tasks

accomplished through pair work. (When one or more variations of the task are possible,

they are listed after it.)

Table 5.4 goes here

Notes on Task 1. The reporting back serves two purposes: (1) re-enforcement of the

forms used in the activity, and (2) the chance to transfer the elicited information to a third

person. The teacher decides if reporting is called for, and if so, how much of it.

Table 5.5 goes here

Notes on Task 2. This information may be elicited by two different Arabic structures: a

nominal sentence (What’s your address?) and a verbal sentence (Where do you live?).

Variation is determined either by the student or the instructor if he or she wants the

students to practice verb forms, for instance.

Table 5.6 goes here

Table 5.7 goes here

Group work. Group work differs from pair work not in the language content, but

in the intensity of practice. It often takes the form of class opinion polls and student
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surveys, thus requiring the student to repeat the same questions over and over and the

respondent to give the same response as many times as there are students participating in

the survey. Like pair work, it is highly communicative since the students’ attention is

focused on the information they are collecting or providing and how to process it in order

to give the right report (e.g., the number of students in the class who own bicycles).

Group work, however, requires more time to complete. The instructor uses his/her own

discretion in deciding on pair or group work, based on how much practice is needed and

how much time is available.

The sample tasks demonstrate the versatility of communicative tasks in terms of

the language forms practiced, the information elicited, variations of the same activity, and

the different levels of proficiency at which they may be conducted. They are used on a

regular basis in the OSU Arabic program as part of instructional cycles to promote aural

comprehension and speaking ability. Types of group work follow.

Interviews. Interviews may be of two kinds: staged and real (Harlow 1998). The

staged ones, in which a student assumes the role of a celebrity, for example, may be used

when access to a celebrity is not possible. They are appropriate because the background

knowledge is shared by most students. Interviews can be conducted at several levels of

proficiency, depending on whether the questions are provided in full (student reads from

script), suggested (student is told what to ask about), or only the type of information

sought is suggested (e.g., biographical information, work, hobbies etc.). Students ask

about personal biography, foods, drinks, hobbies, sports, etc. This provides an

opportunity to introduce cultural and/or historical information. Real interviews can be

conducted with real people from the community, such as classmates, teachers, and native
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speakers. This is a more complex task given the amount of new information obtained

from the interviewee. In this case, several students may interview the same person.

Class opinion polls and surveys. Selected students are assigned different tasks that

involve obtaining information from the other students and then reporting it back to the

teacher or class. Some topics from opinion polls and surveys include the number of

students planning to study Arabic abroad, which students are taking science courses, the

students who go away for the summer vacation, and the number of students who work

and study.

Information search. Different ID cards are distributed to all students. The task is

for students to go around the class and ask questions to identify the person assigned to

them.

Writing Tasks

Certainly, proficiency is not only oral. Communicative writing tasks can be designed to

develop proficiency in the literacy skills even at low levels of competence and in an

unfamiliar language like Arabic. Once students master the Arabic script, they may be

exposed to written texts so that they can perform reading and writing activities.

Communicative task types include activities that involve providing, transferring, or

replicating new information. These classroom tasks come in different formats, some of

which are described below.

Communicative sentence builders. Communicative sentence builders are used at

the Novice level and are usually a meaningful activity. They can be easily modified to

serve as integrative activities. To render them communicative, names of students from the
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class, their attributes, facts about them, or actual activities done by them may be used.

Teachers develop fresh exercises for every course or modify previous ones. The student’s

task is to form sentences from the table that have a high degree of truth value about the

other students mentioned. The students are required to verify the truth value of the

sentences they form by consulting orally in Arabic with the other students whose names

are listed. The chart in Table 5.8 is used as the basis of a number of tasks, for example

those in Tables 5.9 and 5.10. (Note that English is not provided in the original task.)

Table 5.8 goes here

Table 5.9-5.10 go here

Notes on Task 5. The five sentences may include the daily schedule of some students or

some other set of facts. From experience and observation, this kind of task has many

advantages. First, it makes writing fun. Second, it promotes oral and literacy skills

simultaneously. Third, it creates a genuine opportunity for purposeful and meaningful

interaction among learners. The teacher may control the amount of time needed to do the

task by increasing or decreasing the number of names used in the table or by limiting the

number of sentences required. At a higher level of difficulty, the task may be made more

demanding by providing infinitives rather than conjugated forms so that the students use

verbs with the appropriate tense, number, and gender as well as true information about

their classmates. In this manner, they pay equal attention to the accuracy of the language

and its functional use and strike a balance between form and meaning.

Filling out forms. This task can be performed at several levels, starting with

simple imitation at the Novice Mid/High level. Learners make minor changes in the

information pertaining to biographical information but not to language forms. At higher

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levels of proficiency (Novice High and above), students can replicate a form, which

means that they have first to understand the content in the model provided, make some

factual changes, and provide language forms with changes demanded by the suggested

context.

Imitating a form. Students examine and understand a model, then provide a

replica, following the same format, but with different information.

Table 5.11 goes here

Notes on Task 7. In transferring information from text to form and vice versa, the student

level may be Intermediate Low or above, depending on the complexity of the reading

passage and assigned task. The text may be in a letter format or an expository passage.

Figure 5.7 provides an example.

Table 5.12 goes here

Salem Elkhaled was born in Beirut on the fifth of August 1978. He lives in Tripoli now on

Elarz Street in house number ninety-nine. Salem is an accountant at a construction

company. His work number is 3785530 and his home number is 3784563. He got his first

driver’s license on the ninth of April 1996. His license expires within six years of its date

of issue. Therefore, he wants to renew it this year.

Table 5.13 goes here

Transferring tabular, numerical, or graphical information into verbal description.

The exercise in Table 5.12 is especially information- and meaning-based. Students’

attention is primarily on constructing a text that conveys the information properly. It does

not require reading comprehension as much as writing ability. Students are expected at
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this level at least to have mastered the formation of meaningful sentences with reasonable

accuracy.

Figure 5.8

Transferring textual information into tabular or graphical form. This is the reverse

of the writing task. It is made up of a text and a blank chart (Figure 5.8) that the student is

asked to fill out with numerical information according to the text. This type of task serves

also as a test of reading comprehension.

Variation: Based on the passage about the exports and imports of the United Arab

Emirates, students fill in a blank chart with the names and percentages of the different

commodities mentioned in the passage.

Replicating text and providing additional new information. This task involves

reading and understanding a model text (Table 5.14) and then providing a similar text

that differs from the model in content only. Students are preferably given inferential

comprehension questions prior to writing their own texts, postcards in this case. For the

writing task, they are provided with a blank form of nearly the size of the model postcard

so that the task is a realistic one.

Table 5.14 goes here

Reading Tasks

Reading is not restricted to reading literary or textbook passages. In real-life situations,

one reads signs, menus, schedules, business cards, memos, forms, invoices, maps,

recipes, shopping lists, brochures, messages, charts, graphs, and the like. Such short,

functional texts are especially suitable for elementary learners. Ervin (1988) describes
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communicative activities based on using 4x6 cards. He defines “communicative” as the

exchange of new, unpredictable information for the purpose of these activities, since

students, in order to complete the activity, have to interact orally with other students. The

activities are divided into four types: matching, grouping, arranging, and discovering.

1. “Matching” activities require students to go around the room with two or more cards,

reading them to one another in order to find the matching cards. Students may match

word and definition, question and answer, words and their antonyms or synonyms,

and sentence halves.

2. The “grouping” task is actually a categorization activity ideal for reviewing and

retaining vocabulary. Categories suggested by Ervin include things one keeps in a

refrigerator, things one finds in a student locker, things one takes on a trip, things one

does outdoors, and things one sees at the zoo.

3. The “arranging” task addresses the discourse level of meaning. Students work in small

groups to reconstruct a piece of discourse. It may be a text they have studied or a

modified version of it. In such an activity, students have to negotiate meaning in the

target language in order to find out who has which part and to put them in the right

order. They may arrange lines of a dialog, a story, events in history, or a sequence of

pictures.

4. “Discovering” activities integrate reading, writing, and speaking skills. They involve a

large group of students (e.g., the whole class). Ervin describes two kinds. In the

“cocktail party,” each student first writes an unusual fact or attribute about himself or

herself on a card. Then the cards are collected and redistributed randomly. Students

go around the room to find those with the characteristic on the card.
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Variable-level Tasks

The following tasks are ones that can be used with a picture depicting an event, such as

one that shows people in a restaurant, at a wedding in a hotel, at the airport, or in similar

locations. The tasks are arranged in order of complexity and level of proficiency.

a. List the names of objects in the picture.

b. Describe the location of objects, using prepositions of place.

c. Describe age, appearance, disposition, relationship, status of the people, activities

they are engaged in, etc.

d. Construct a paragraph from jumbled sentences, describing the picture.

e. Complete a paragraph about the picture.

f. Anticipate future events for the people in the picture (i.e., what they would do after

this event).

g. Describe where, when, and why the event is taking place.

h. Write about the event as if it were a story reported in the newspaper.

i. Pretending that the picture is that of a hotel room, for example, prepare an

advertisement, describing a stay at the hotel.

j. Write a letter to a friend about the event from the point of view of one of the

participants in the event.

k. Speculate about the place, people, weather, time of day and year, etc.

CONCLUSION
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Most students learn a foreign language in order to use it for practical purposes. It

is incumbent on those of us in the field of foreign language instruction to see to it that this

goal is achieved. With the existence of conflicting approaches and goals, it is important to

ensure that the meaning-form controversy does not polarize us and undermine our efforts

to deliver effective instruction. Although knowledge about the system of the language is

useful at a later point during the students’ course of learning it, in earlier stages the

Arabic program at OSU has found it useful to focus attention on ways of using the

language. Function and form are viewed as elements that support each other or as two

facets of the same phenomenon. It is not a matter of either form or function, but rather of

role and priority of each. Focus on function and focus on form are not two different

approaches or methodologies to choose between. Focus on one to the exclusion of the

one retards students’ ultimate progress. Both are simultaneously present and significant in

the language. Each component plays a specific role. In my view, accuracy in form is

essential to achieving successful communication. Using the language functionally in the

classroom through well designed communicative tasks will ultimately help learners to

develop not only communicative abilities, but also knowledge about the language that

contributes to the learner’s emerging linguistic (structural) competence. Although

students perhaps spend as much time drilling the forms as using them, creating a mindset

in students in which they perceive that the purpose of language study is functional use in

both the oral and visual modalities may be beneficial in developing their proficiency.

Endnotes

1. In fact, MSA is gaining in prestige and in potential for oral use. Many television and

radio programs, historical films, and some songs that used to be in the domain of dialects
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are now produced in MSA, particularly in the eastern part of the Arab world. The Arabic

adaptation of Sesame Street is a case in point (see Alosh, 1984). It scored considerable

success in the Arab world, triggering an influx of programs that are produced in MSA for

both children and adults.

2. To illustrate diglossic shifts, the MSA statement in example 1 below may be rendered

in different possible forms in different dialects, exhibiting phonological morphological,

syntactic, and semantic changes.

(1) yataqaaDaa al-muhandisuuna fi-ddawlati rawatiba mutadanniya.

Literal: receive the engineers in the state salaries low

Meaning: State-employed engineers receive low salaries.

In Damascene Arabic, for example, one possible rendition of the above statement may be

as follows:

(2) le-mhansiin bil-Hukuumeh b-yaakhduu ma`aashaat aliileh.

3. Nonetheless, given the imprecision of language interaction, the proposed model may

need further refinements to account for language behavior in specific situations. For

instance, in attested samples from formal interviews conducted by the author, the speech

of some native-speaker interviewees from the same dialectal speech community as that of

the interviewer (i.e., local), tended to be closer to the MSA end than other interviewees

who come from another dialectal speech community (i.e., nonlocal) contrary to what the

model suggests. Of course, this discrepancy may be attributed to other factors. Obviously,

therefore, the situation is certainly neither simple nor static.

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4. Declarative knowledge refers to knowledge of facts, such as the chemical elements in

the Periodic Table. Procedural knowledge refers to knowledge about how to do things,

such as riding a bike.