The Psychological Language Reflections of Remote Learning; Speaking Skill: A Case Study of Students of the Academy of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at An-Najah University

Abstract:

        In spite of the limitless efforts which educational institutions, professionals in the field, linguists and pedagogues have offered under the circumstances of remote learning, still there is a number of obstacles which require much attention. One of which is the psychological aspect that is deemed to be one of the most complex process with respect to language teaching. Ironically, how would that work well if learning was remote via e-platforms?  This has urged to reconstruct the psychological language outputs. Thus, this study mainly presents a detailed case about the educational aspect for foreigners who learn Arabic; the aspect presented is speaking skill in terms of Psycholinguistics. The methodology used here is observation of students of the Academy of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at An-Najah University in the academic year of 2020/21. This study case has been done so as to specifically determine students' potential for acquiring, understanding and producing the Arabic language remotely. The study is divided into three main thresholds, as follows:

1. The relationship between Linguistics and Psychology; the concept of Psycholinguistic and the psychological-linguistic studies.

2. Psycholinguistics VS learning a second language: Speaking skill.

3. The effect of remote learning on the psychological aspect regarding teaching Arabic for non-natives.

              This study deploys the inductive approach's lines to examine students' potential for learning Arabic, especially speaking skill practically whereby a number of interviews including specific questions were conducted. The study has shown that Psycholinguistics is a novel linguistic study which focuses on how people acquire a language and thus is able to perform it well from a psychological viewpoint. However difficult teaching a foreign language remotely is, the students still could acquire new vocabulary items. Besides, voice recordings, conversation seminars and group discussions with Arabic native speakers are all considered factors which contributed to developing the speaking skill, understanding the Palestinian culture and the political matters. Nevertheless, the students confirm that to construct the absolute image of the situation, one has to visit the country and experience its lives. Meanwhile, they give credits to their linguistic Palestinian fellows who helped lower their stress, as they mention it had been demanding to differentiate the accents and the tones via e-learning. These disturbing factors, according to them, are due to networks, the surrounding environment and time difference. They finally shed the light on the impact of their daily mode on studying, especially when staying home all the time, since this results in laziness. Yet, their perseverance and motivation are the reasons which helped them invest their time well, and pass such difficulties.

Keywords: Applied Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Teaching Arabic for non-natives, and speaking skill.

Conference Title

The Psychological Language Reflections of Remote Learning; Speaking Skill: A Case Study of Students of the Academy of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at An-Najah University

Conference Country

United Arab Emirates

Conference Date

Jan. 25, 2022 - Jan. 31, 2022

Conference Sponsor

المركز التربوي للغة العربية لدول الخليج