I am a ‘false beginner’. The Collins dictionary describes a false beginner as “a language student who has some knowledge of a language, but who needs to start again from the beginning”. I have made many attempts over the last decade to learn Arabic. Yet, I cannot use Arabic. This prompted me to write this reflection on the common problems I encountered, which prevent Muslims progressing with Arabic.
I wrote a longer piece last year reflecting on that decade, highlighting significant personal and logistical roadblocks. It’s lengthy, God-willing this post will be more accessible. You can skip the prologue and reach the main discussion points here. Solutions, here.
A bit about me
I am a qualified TESOL teacher, with experience teaching English as a second language to native-Arabic speakers. My BA English Language focussed on Second Language Acquisition theory. I started learning Arabic at seventeen (I am now twenty eight). I’ve sat in every type of Arabic class available. Online, face to face, one to one, groups big and small, with and without a textbook, old school sat on the floor repeating vocab until you collapse. You name it, I’ve done it.
Whilst I’ve not taught for many years, language acquisition theories and linguistics are still a passion. I regularly read about both subjects for my own interest.
My initial intrigue in language acquisition and linguistics was broad (eastern culture/language fascinated me). Personal experiences revealed my real interest is the connection between native English speakers acquiring Arabic, and critical discourse analysis in media.
The UK Muslim attitude towards Learning Arabic
I’ve specified ‘Western’ Muslims in the title because I’m familiar with the demographic. Specifically UK Muslims. Through direct experience, or observations and interactions with UK Muslims, I’ve noticed common struggles.
I don’t have data or research, but I have experience, lots of it. From both sides being a language teacher, and language student. This piece is anecdotal but I am certain the realisations detailed will resonate with many.
My part of the UK does not have a significant Madrassah culture. Sending Muslim children to Islamic boarding schools is not the norm. It’s considered an exceptional decision.
In my locality, and across the UK, Muslim parents at a minimum ensured their children learned the Arabic alphabet and phonemes, to at least recite the Qur’an and perform Salah.
Makeshift Madrassahs in musallahs and living rooms pop up across the UK, the instructor often being a community elder as an Arabic phonemes teacher.
The makeshift attitude is virtuous and paid off for us UK born and raised Muslims. Without those community elders, many of us would not know how to read the Qur’an or perform the Salah.
Our elders instilled a key element of our religious identity, Arabic.
But, for the average UK Muslim, Arabic stops at phonemes. Many never learn a functional Arabic language.
Learning Arabic beyond phonemes is often considered an optional, religiously motivated pursuit or an academic ambition.
UK Muslims typically want to learn functional Arabic for multiple reasons: spiritual enrichment, cultural access, expanded opportunities, and strengthened identity.
Despite noble intentions and ample resources, why do so many Muslims struggle to learn Arabic?
The problems:
These points intertwine without a clear beginning or end between how they interact, but doing my best I can outline the following:
A grammar centric approach.
Oftentimes, Arabic programmes seek to emulate traditional Madrassah curriculums. Delving into Nahw and Sarf as key learning outcomes, or commonly using famous grammar books like ‘Al-Ajrumiyyah’ to structure the course.
This is for a two reasons. First is the convenience of an existing ‘template’ to adapt as a programme outline. The second is teachers, mistakenly, equate progressing through grammar to effective language acquisition.
As a result, grammar-centric Arabic classes unproductively incline towards learning about Arabic instead of learning how to use Arabic. Unbeknownst to the student, that is. As far as many students are concerned, they are ‘learning Arabic’.
Eventually, students become jaded upon realising they are not using Arabic meaningfully. Soon after this epiphany, students question why they are even trying to learn Arabic.
Grammar is important. But the aim of language lessons is producing or comprehending language. Not, merely knowing grammar.
In my experience, a lack of meaning and practicality makes sustaining language acquisition difficult. Learners who do persist through grammar-laden programmes typically make it to the end fuelled by religious devotion alone.
Grammar beyond the absolute basics of pronouns and bare-bones syntax is excessive for most Muslims. Students who decide to specialise can focus on advanced Nahw and Sarf. Advanced grammar isn’t necessary to begin experiencing enrichment through Arabic.
The nature of teaching grammar relies on lots of (new) rules and (new) terminology, in turn giving the learner double to manage (learning detailed concepts and practicing language application) obfuscating the purpose of their lessons.
This demands a significant amount of ‘busy’ time to remain on top of revision and homework, let alone producing/comprehending language, eventually it becomes too much to manage. The demotivation sets in, followed by quitting.
A final contention against grammar centric approaches. Grammar lessons focus on accuracy, which impedes a learners ability to relax, to be at ease is crucial when learning language skills as self-realisation through making mistakes is core to comprehension.
Uneven skill distribution.
Many Arabic lessons throw at students smatterings of speaking, writing, and reading exercises, all of which require different teaching methods and practice time to be at all worthwhile.
It’s not possible, unless in full-time study with ample time outside the classroom to practice, to develop all language skills evenly.
Students stretch thin as a result before hitting a roadblock. It becomes apparent their skills are too fractured for practical use.
If instead, a course focussed solely on one or two adjacent skills, students would achieve much more practical progress in a shorter space of time.
In my opinion, Western Muslims should primarily focus on reading comprehension before anything else.
Grassroot efforts.
What can I say, without sounding ungrateful? The most progress I’ve ever made understanding Arabic is with grassroot efforts from big to small, masjid to living room to online to a decrepit office.
Grassroot activities are vital to sustain the heartbeat of a community. They are magnificent initiatives for bonding whilst learning. Albeit you are at the mercy of the teacher’s and attendee’s dedication.
Countless classes pack in when the instructor either has a newborn, change work shifts, the weather is cold, or simply loses interest (realising, teaching language skills is harder than expected).
Many grassroot classes see a student exodus, depending on the demographic. School/University students reach exams, mothers can’t arrange childcare, Uncles realise their English isn’t good enough to learn Arabic through English etc. Everyone has their excuse ready to stop attending (I too am guilty of the University excuse).
Grassroot arrangements attract such a wide scope of well-meaning attendees in turn inflating the number of sign-ups. Naturally, many testing the water or singing up with a friend, before realising they’re not really interested.
Two further pinch-points impact grassroot efforts, one will roll into the next problem:
Grassroot teachers must charge a reasonable amount otherwise it becomes a corporate venture. Many grassroot teachers are unsure of their ability to provide a ‘professional’ service so ensure a humble fee, sometimes free.
Free, or low fee programmes don’t retain students, the financial investment is low, and learners will prefer to have their time back if they feel unengaged or see little progress.
Leading onto the next problem,
Poor teaching methods.
Many Arabic teachers are not professionally trained language teachers. It’s that simple.
A beard and thoub, or an overnight institute satisfies us to accept them as a language ‘teacher’.
Teaching a language requires a specific skill set on top of adequate language awareness.
I am not suggesting you must have professional training to be an effective language teacher. But, some have it naturally, others don’t.
Just because someone has completed religious studies, or even formal education does not means they are an effective language teacher.
Students, whether they’ve paid or not, are highly unlikely to tolerate a teacher they have little confidence in. Teachers who are not a natural or well trained, struggle to keep up an air of confidence, along with the resilience to support learners.
I’ve had non-native Arabic speakers as teachers, with no background in education, but excellent language teachers. Emulating how they learned with a good dash of life experience, on top of generous people skills.
Even if teaching methods are poor, if a teacher’s social skills and willingness to work with the student are good, there’s hopes of scavenging student retention. Students will at least attend for the sake of a good time with friendly company.
Course hopping.
Perhaps a result of all the above issues, students jump course to course hoping to remedy whatever plagued their previous programme.
This is, perhaps by far, worse than anything listed above. This, is exactly how you go a decade without making any worthwhile progress.
Course hopping is a recipe for long-term procrastination or worse, total burnout. The grief of wasted time and money on top of the guilt not making any/much progress is enough to turn you off for good.
Despite that, I do think it’s at a student’s discretion, in really bad situations it may be best to jump ship if the teacher/lessons are a total train wreck.
Whilst I admire the determined sentiment of sticking it through and just trusting the process, I’m wise enough to know truly awful teachers exist, not deserving of your time and/or money. Alas, the truly awful are very few.
No matter how lost you feel, if your teacher/institute is half decent, it’s better to stick it through, seeing class time as an accompaniment to self-studying time for areas you’re unsure of/most interested in.
The solution?
One of my teachers said it’s not befitting to highlight a problem without providing a solution.
Fixing the cycle of poor Arabic student success and retention is possible if we rethink our approach. Teacher, student alike. It’s a two way street, both have their responsibilities.
For teachers:
You do not need to be an expert (nor native) in Arabic, or language teaching to effectively deliver language lessons, enriching your community and students.
For practical teaching skills, familiarise yourself with the works of Jeremy Harmer and Jim Scrivener. Get their books on teaching, applying the principles to an Arabic language classroom.
If you buy only one book, I recommend How to Teach English by Harmer. It is a starting point for increasing awareness around contemporary language teaching theories and methods.
For language acquisition theory, Vivian Cook’s Second Language Learning and Teaching. Ensure to get the most up to date edition.
TEFL Lesson Plans for Dummies is a useful resource you can apply to teaching Arabic. ChatGPT can also help structure lesson plans if you instruct it clearly enough.
Lesson planning is a skill, you should not think having a textbook subverts the need to make a good lesson plan. Your focus each lesson should be making students see the results of their knowledge, being able to understand/use Arabic instead of merely knowing about Arabic rules.
For students:
Prioritise self-study as the cornerstone of learning Arabic.
Focus predominantly on your reading comprehension. This is the easiest skill to learn in your own time, and not reliant on anyone else to get good practice in. Prioritise familiarity before accuracy.
̶Y̶o̶u̶ ̶o̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶w̶o̶ ̶e̶x̶c̶e̶l̶l̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶s̶o̶u̶r̶c̶e̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶g̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶ ̶(̶I̶ ̶m̶e̶a̶n̶,̶ ̶a̶l̶l̶)̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶m̶m̶a̶r̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶n̶e̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶e̶g̶i̶n̶ ̶b̶u̶i̶l̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶d̶e̶p̶e̶n̶d̶e̶n̶t̶ ̶r̶e̶a̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶f̶i̶d̶e̶n̶c̶e̶.̶ ̶T̶h̶e̶ ̶T̶e̶n̶ ̶L̶e̶s̶s̶o̶n̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶A̶r̶a̶b̶i̶c̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶A̶b̶d̶ ̶a̶l̶-̶S̶a̶l̶a̶m̶ ̶K̶i̶d̶w̶a̶i̶ ̶N̶a̶d̶v̶i̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶F̶u̶n̶d̶a̶m̶e̶n̶t̶a̶l̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶C̶l̶a̶s̶s̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶A̶r̶a̶b̶i̶c̶ ̶(̶V̶o̶l̶u̶m̶e̶ ̶1̶)̶:̶ ̶C̶o̶n̶j̶u̶g̶a̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶R̶e̶g̶u̶l̶a̶r̶ ̶V̶e̶r̶b̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶D̶e̶r̶i̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶N̶o̶u̶n̶s̶ ̶b̶y̶ ̶H̶u̶s̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶A̶.̶ ̶S̶a̶t̶t̶a̶r̶.̶ (these are great books but the below does a better job).
You only need one book for grammar reference, Arabic Verbs & Essentials of Grammar by Wightwick and Ghaffar. That’s enough to get you started. I recommend reading it backwards, start at chapter 20 for basic grammar then back around to chapter 1.
To practice with a sense of progress, purchase a full set of either:
- Gateway to Arabic by Imran Alawiye (who has his own YouTube channel, which to this day at the time of writing he is still actively uploading).
- The Madinah Books by V. Abdur Rahim (Rahimullah) — I recommend the Madinah Arabic Reader variant, it’s much more colourful making it easier on the eyes, it’s also broken down into shorter books which helps pace your learning. You can find dedicated study aid materials here on the LQ Toronto website (literally, everything you’ll ever need). There’s a video series presented by the inspiring Asif Meherali (you can find channels who have split the series into shorter videos). Asif Meherali accepted Islam in his 50s, studied Arabic in Jordan in his 60s, from thereon taught his community.
Either series will (at the time of writing) cost around only £30 on eBay for the full set.
You’ve possibly heard of Al-Arabiya Baynah Yadayk by Muhammed ibn Abdul Rahman. Whilst it is very popular and a great book, ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶s̶o̶l̶u̶t̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶s̶u̶i̶t̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶s̶e̶l̶f̶-̶s̶t̶u̶d̶y̶ it’s harder to use for self-study. You typically find it used for programmes focussing on communicative skills.
But, if you want to use Al-Arabiya Baynah Yadayk, the YouTube channel Al-Lisan is a useful resource. As of writing, the books have not been completed and uploads seem slower for the more advanced books.
Get a good dictionary, the Hans Wehr is staple but the Oxford Essential Arabic Dictionary: English-Arabic is good for beginners too. Yes, translator apps are better than ever but flicking through a dictionary builds independence whilst familiarising yourself with word roots.
Loose-leaf paper with ring binders is easier to work with for language notes, it’ll pay off as you build a vocab folder (you should still write vocab by hand even if printed tables exist).
For some non-textbook reading, I recommend The Beginning of Guidance by Ghazali. Not only is it a worthwhile tazkiyah manual, it has both English and Arabic.
My final bit of advice, if you decide to sign up for a class, stick with it for as long as you can. No matter how many problems it may have. Completing a programme alongside your self-studying will take you further in a much shorter space of time (quicker than a decade, that’s for sure).
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The follow up article Breaking the ‘False Beginner’ Cycle Learning Arabic — How to Start Making Progress Again is available here.
I highly recommend reading Ustadh Sameer Hussain’s blog post How to Learn Arabic 2.0 alongside my own post.
As a bonus textbook suggestion, An Introduction to the Arabic Language Through Islamic Texts by Syed Iqbal Zaheer is an epic two volume course with everything you could ever need. Unfortunately, it’s out of print everyone I’ve looked so you’ll need to make do with a PDF, which is a shame. Whilst I’m very fond of this textbook, for 99% of learners I’d recommend the Gateway to Arabic or the Madinah books. Unless of course you have a keen interest on reading Islamic texts, you might want to skip even considering this one. It’s very dense and a lot to work through.
In an ideal world I’d promote purchasing the book. But, you can find pdf copies here and here which are a bit easier to navigate.
