Arabic Debate and World-Readiness

Abstract

Arabic is a major world language with some 22 million native speakers largely living in the West-Asian region. Thus, the learning of Arabic may be a shortcoming if it does not equip learners with the world-readiness to function in the language and interact in the Arabic culture. World-readiness has been defined in terms of the standards for foreign language learning. These standards correspond to ‘The Five C’s.’: Communication, Culture, Connection, Comparison and Community. Previous studies on these standards have predominantly focused on the main instructional language curriculum. The contribution of co-curricular activities to the realization of world-readiness received less research attention. Thus, this paper seeks to report the contribution of debates to the world-readiness of non-native learners of Arabic at the tertiary level. This investigation is part of a larger study on the impact of debate to learners’ language development. Qualitative data were collected through observations of debate training sessions and subsequent interviews with four debaters. Data were analyzed thematically and those related to world-readiness were identified and discussed. These preliminary findings show that debates as an activity for learners of Arabic as a foreign language contribute to the achievement of four of the 5C’s: communication, culture, connection and community goals. These findings support the importance of debates in foreign language learning as a powerful tool in equipping learners with world-readiness.

Keywords: world-readiness; debate; language learning; Arabic