Issues faced by Arabic Students in an EFL Context Ahu Burcu Hayır – Istanbul Şehir University

Overview Purpose of the study Setting Participants Methods Results Implications Limitations Suggestions for further study

Purpose of the study To raise awareness of the problems of Arabic background students Give insight as to what we teachers can do to help them overcome these problems

Setting English Preparatory program at a foundation University in Turkey Large number of international students Predominantly Arabic students

Participants Four low-level Arabic background students From Jordan and Palestine Had been living in Turkey for about two months Only one could understand a little bit of Turkish

Methods Observations Semi-structured interview Documentaion of assessment results

Method: Observations Observed over a 7-week period Classroom: behaviour, participation, interaction with other students Tutorial: one-on-one support Outside classroom: interaction with other students

Method: Semi-structured interview End of the 7- week module Translated by Arabic speaking English teacher Recorded Listened, transcribed and analyzed

Method: Documentation of assessment results In-module assessments Various exams

Results According to the findings, four major themes were identified: Academic Improvement Social Improvement Assessment Issues Institutional Issues

Academic Improvement Improved academically Especially in writing Resulted from factors such as the teacher, the content of the program and self- studying Teaching methods different from their country and was helpful Intergrated skills was a positive thing Weakest skill: grammar Biggest problem: need to start from zero at the beginning of the module because they didn’t know anything

Writing Scores (Improvement) Student Mid-term (20) MET (20) A 5.5 10 B 4 10.50 C 0 (wrote in Arabic) 11 D 1.5 9.50 - All students scores increased

Use of English (Weakest skill) Student Mid-term (40) MET (40) A 16.50 B 19.50 20.50 C 17.50 11 D 20 18 - Generally all of the students scores decreased

Final Course Total Student Course Total A 43.13 B 56.36 C 51.58 D 54.84 - Minimum 60 required to pass the level - All the students failed and had to repeat the level

Social Improvement Evident in their interactions with classmates in and outside of the classroom At the beginning less communication with other students – towards the end of the module more social Not being in the same class as Arabic friends was a positive – helped to force them to interact with the Turkish students

Assessment Issues Struggled with exam formats as it was new to them Placement exam – very problematic - misinformed – didn’t understand format and thought they had to answer all the quetions so they guessed a lot of them One student: not given sufficient feedback regarding PW VP: gave self- confidence and improved reading and speking skills Problems with mid-term: transferring confusing, not enough time Not used to this exam format – needed to be informed better before the exam and do real mock exams – practicing timing and answer transfer

Institutional Issues Most common problem was regarding orientation and administrative issues Orientation: needed more help and informed in Arabic Mentor: an Arabic speaking student would have helped Many problems with residence permit, bank accounts, student card, dormitory procedures – didn’t get enough help from the institution Seeked help themselves – found someone who could speak Arabic in studnet affairs office and he helped

Other important issues Tutorials: very helpful, tutorials with Arabic speaking teacher extra helpful Teachers: one teacher speaks too much Turkish one always tries to speak English one was an Arabic speaking teacher (helpful) one teacher would specifically make sure he understood everything and always gave extra tutorials one student had extra tutorials with another teacher sometimes teachers are too fast in class so it is difficult to follow Student handbook: some didn’t know about it – others useful

Implications The findings of this study can aid us in understanding the needs of international, especially Arabic, students The results can provide us with a perspective of what these students go through Can be useful in guiding us to help these students when teaching them

Limitations Number of participants Short period of time Limited to one institution

Suggestions for further study Further research could be conducted: with a larger group of participants over a longer period of time between different institutions and be compared