The British Council currently promotes Arabic language teaching and learning in schools in Britain. This is one of the eight projects started by the British Council, based on the result of their research that revealed Arabic, next to Spanish, is the most important language for future workers to learn. Based on the current data available, 242 million people in 60 countries are native speakers of the language. The initiative of the British Council considered the country’s security priorities, diplomatic relations, trade priorities by the government and the country’s export links and popular destinations for holidays when they made the study.
Initial project in eight school groups
Currently there are eight school clusters around Britain, with about 1,000 students, who are studying Arabic as part of their regular curriculum. An additional 500 pupils are learning the language in their after-school clubs and during lunchtime in Bradford, Blackburn, Barnstaple in Devon, two schools in London, Manchester, Sheffield and Belfast.
At Bradford’s Horton Park primary school, young pupils have already been studying Arabic for three years. Saleh Patel, one of the few full-time Arabic teachers working in a primary school in Britain, was showing his students how to link the pictures shown on flash cards with the correct Arabic words. He is also teaching his students to write sentences in the language. Although the pupils are finding it difficult, they are still very enthusiastic to master Arabic. Since Sarah Dawson became the head teacher in Horton Park, enrolment had doubled and they now have about 400 pupils who speak 36 languages at home.
The Manchester Grammar School on the other hand asked the help of some of their pupils from Syria to find a teacher who can teach Arabic. They were able to find one who was born in Iraq. The school now has Arabic GCSE provision starting from 2016.
While some schools in Britain were exercising segregation of pupils due to their ethnicity for some years, Horton Park has a policy for ethnic tolerance, accepting pupils from different religious and racial groups. In recent years, there had been in increase of Eastern European students at Horton Park. Mrs. Dawson says that their school expands annually because of the increase in enrolment. They are serving the city’s most disadvantaged community, Bradford’s Canterbury Estate
Mr. Patel said the pupils are about 50/50 in terms of pupils who have previous contact with the Arabic language and those that are completely new to Arabic. Pupils could either have had exposure to the language when they are taught the Koran by their parents, but will still be considered newcomers when it comes to Arabic phrases used in everyday life. Still the future of Arabic language learning is not that clearly defined at the moment, as there is still a lack of secondary schools offering the language. Mrs. Dawson on the other hand thinks that even if they could not continue learning Arabic in secondary school, their experience with learning another language early will be a good foundation when they choose to learn a third language in the future.
Stepping up the drive
The British Council is geared to step up its drive for Arabic instruction when they send the language and culture pack in September to 5,000 primary schools around the country to persuade them to implement the initiative and give their students a clear perception of Arabic culture.