Arabic vs. English Online Reading among Students of an Arab University in Light of Language of Instruction

By Hazem Mahmoud Rashed.

Published by Journal of the World Universities Forum

Format	Price
Article: Print	$US10.00
Article: Electronic	$US5.00

This study compared between an Arabic medium group and an English medium group at United Arab Emirates University in interests and attitudes towards bilingual online reading. A bilingual online reading interests questionnaire and a bilingual online reading attitudes scale were administered to 295 students from different majors, 43% of the students were Arabic medium students (AMS), whereas 57% of them were English medium students (EMS). Findings indicated that EMS had significant higher interests and attitudes towards bilingual online reading. It is obvious that English as a medium of instruction did not harm EMS online reading interests in Arabic, while each medium of instruction helped in generating attitudes differences in favor of online reading in its language of instruction, but these differences were at the expense of attitudes towards online reading in the other language. Otherwise, the comparison between the two groups indicated that each of gender and grading points average was inconsistent predictor of online reading interests and attitudes, but there was a clear significant negative relationship between grading points average of EMS and their interests and attitudes towards online reading in Arabic. Results of this study invite the Arabic corner on the web to increase scientific specialized web sites.

Keywords:	Arabic Reading, English Reading, Online Reading, Interests and Attitudes, University Students, Medium of Instruction

Journal of the World Universities Forum, Volume 2, Issue 2, pp.145-156. Article: Print (Spiral Bound). Article: Electronic (PDF File; 1.230MB).

Dr. Hazem Mahmoud Rashed

Associate Professor, Education Studies, Emirates College for Advanced Education, Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

Hazem Rashed is an associate professor of Arabic and Islamic education cuuricula. He has different and good experiences in his field including: teaching of Arabic as a first language and as a second language,school and university teaching, writing Arabic textbooks, developing Arabic curricula, supervising student teachers. As a researcher, he has published 4 researches: two of them were in the field of teaching Arabic for bilinguals, the third one focused on criteria that should be considerd in preparing Arabic software, and the last one was about developing oral teaching skills and reducing teaching anxiety among female student teachers. In addition, Hazem Rashed has planned and implemented a lot of in-service Arabic teacher training programs in many Arab and non Arab speaking countries. His interests include bilingual education, teaching Arabic as a first or second language, and teacher education.

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