Arabic in Pakistan: problems and solutions in the field of teaching and testing

This dissertation discusses with both the teaching and testing systems associated with the language of Arabic in Pakistan. This study does not only discuss the pedagogical issues of teaching this language in Pakistan, but it also highlights the importance of it being a symbolic language and the resultant symbolic interpretation. The focus of the study is the translation and interpretation of the Arabic language and how it has affected socio-political aspects, in general, and linguistic issues, in particular, in Pakistan. Due to the Arabic language, linguistic symbolism has brought a distinctive intervention in the society. Arabic, as a symbolic language, has promoted a parallel ideological perspective in Pakistan. This study was conducted in four phases. The first phase was empirical and it started in 2009 with the translation and teaching of the book entitled, “Modern Stan-dard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course” to the Arabic-language students in Lahore, Pakistan. The second phase was to evaluate the translation and teaching of the book with the help of pre- teaching and post-teaching assessments. The third phase of the research was to understand the scope of the Arabic language as it exists in Pakistan with the help of the survey method. The researcher interviewed 220 conveniently selected respondents in Lahore and Multan, Pakistan. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze the three types of data (pre-teaching, post-teaching and the scope of the Arabic language). The fourth phase of the research was to analyze the data that comprised the research report. The study revealed that a significant majority (80%) of the respondents were interested in learning Arabic because it is the language of the Holy Qur’an and Islam. It also showed that people also wish to learn the Arabic language in order to secure employment in the Middle-Eastern and in the Arabian Gulf countries. The respondents also reported that they want to learn the Arabic language because of its rich literature of history, science and culture. However, the respondents were at odds with the traditional method of teaching and testing the Arabic language. As a result, these students were learning less language but more ideological construct in the name of Arabic. This pedagogical problem has serious consequences. The study also found that the “Modern-Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course” is an excellent resource to use to change the traditional peda-gogical skills. It ascertained that people shifted their traditional perspective of the Arabic learning for religious purposes to the “living language”, the language of everyday conversation. The students of the course ranked the “Modern Standard Arabic” high as compared to the traditional methods of teaching. However, they also had trouble and these were highlighted in the dissertation. This research gleaned that Madrasas (religious schools) in Pakistan were the major source of the Arabic-language teaching in Pakistan. These Madrasas teach with traditional methods and imparted a vested interest-based interpretation of the religion. In this way, the Arabic language as it existed in Pakistan did not give real linguistic meaning to the students but rather give a single-dimension perspective of the religion to the students. This inadequate teaching of the language has simultaneously promoted less tolerance and has expanded the extremist point of view in Pakistan. The language, in other words, seems to be a breeding ground of the extremism that appears to prevalent in Pakistan and thereby gives a misguided version of the language to the members of the society. The second source of Arabic-language teaching in Pakistan was the public-sector universities. These universities were training students to become religious scholars rather than linguistics or translators/interpreters of the Arabic language. The focus of the syllabi of the universities promoted Islamic Arabic literature and the Middle-Eastern perspective of Islam. However, a few of the universities were promoting some level of standard Arabic and Arabic language. Nevertheless, linguistic Arabic as such was virtually non-existent and people regard the language of English as a linguistic subject. Theoretically, ‘Arabic’ has not been treated as a living language in Pakistan. On the one hand, even native-Arabic societies did not take into account the importance of the Arabic language and they hardly emphasize the standardization of it. Native-speaking Arabic scholars have rarely developed theoretical perspectives of the Arabic language or have contributed to its linguistic theory, on the other hand. This state of affairs has developed pedagogical illusions regarding language and linguistics. This dissertation argues that Arabic is a ‘living language’ and that to incorporate it as such a lot of work needs to be done. A standardization of both the language itself and the systems of teaching and testing it needs to be developped. This language re-quires a modernized perspective, both pedagogically as well as linguistically. Theatrically, Arabic requires linguistic perspectives in order to address the pedagogical illusion. Generally, these scientific developments are lacking in the Arabic language. The result is the misinterpretation, confusion and vagueness that have left space for Arabic to be regarded simply as a symbolic language. This symbolic perspective has promoted a single dimension of the language, i.e. the ideological construct, but has also reduced the role as a language of translation and linguistic vigour