Teaching and Learning second language : A comparison of teaching and learning Arabic and Dari languages in Secondary Schools of Kabul.

Abstract: Afghan languages are, influenced by Arabic in the field of academic terms. Also, several Arabic words need to be learnt for daily conversation in Afghanistan. This study is about students and teachers’ views about learning and teaching Arabic and Dari as two second languages in the areas of Kabul where the residents’ native language as well as the language of instruction is Pashto. The aim of the study is to explore similarities and differences between teaching and learning Arabic and Dari in secondary schools of Kabul. The data for this quantitative study was collected from 9 schools in the eastern part of Kabul, Information was gathered through separate questionnaires for teachers and students as well as textbook analysis. The schools were selected via purposive sampling. A total of 60 students and 50 teachers (25 Dari and 25 Arabic) participated in this study. The main findings of the study included that all students are interested in learning both Arabic and Dari for various reasons. However, learning language helps students to understand the context of the textbooks and get knowledge about this is true about learning Arabic as it is a foreign language too. While teaching the languages, teachers only help students improve listening and reading skills as the teachers do most of the talking in class only sometime ask the students to repeat the lesson from textbook. The remaining two important skills i.e. writing and speaking are widely ignored because the teachers ask the students to do the writing at home and provide little time for verbal conversations inside class due to limited time. Likewise, the teachers thought it is important to focus on developing reading skills among students and very little or no attention is given to improving writing skills. In addition, memorization and recalling of information when required is the dominant feature of teaching in the schools I studied in this study. Arabic and Dari languages have lot of similarities, from having same alphabets to lot of common words. In my study most of students’ were interested to learn both Dari and Arabic, but the obstacle they faced during learning Arabic was, that there was not enough qualified Arabic language teachers but number of qualified teachers in Dari language was a lot and that made learning Dari easier for students who were interested. Generally, the results of this research confirm many previous results. However, a lot need to be done by teachers, school management and education authorities to improve the learning and teaching situations.