Teaching science subjects in Arabic: Arab university scientists ’ perspectives

Munassir Alhamami

Teaching science subjects in Arabic: Arabuniversity scientists’ perspectives

Abstract: This study investigates Arab university scientists’ views of the status ofEnglish and Arabic in the 21st century, and their attitudes towards using Englishand Arabic as media of instruction in science faculties in the Arab world.Twenty-seven science instructors at a Saudi University coming from differentbackgrounds responded to a written survey, and the data were analyzed quan-titatively and qualitatively. The findings reveal that the majority of the scienceinstructors preferred to use the students’ mother tongue (Arabic) to teachscience, even though the current policy is to use English as the medium ofinstruction. The results indicate that, from the perspective of Arab scientists,English as medium of instruction in Saudi universities presents academic andsocial challenges in science education at university undergraduate level.

Keywords: English as medium of instruction (EMI), Arabic as medium of instruc-tion (AMI), language policy, mother tongue in higher education

DOI 10.1515/cercles-2015-0006

1 Introduction

Nowadays, English is the dominant language of communication among scien-tists around the globe. It is also the medium of instruction in most sciencesubjects at all levels of education. Although proficiency in English opens educa-tional doors for science teachers and learners, relatively few non-English-speak-ing science students achieve a high level of proficiency in English. Scientistsmight prefer to teach and learn their subject in their mother tongue. In thisarticle Arabic is the mother tongue of the participants and English is a foreignlanguage.

Munassir Alhamami, Faculty of Languages and Translation, King Khalid University (KKU), Abha,The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, New Campus at Greger, Abha POB 9100; Department of SecondLanguage Studies, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Moore Hall 570, 1890 East-West Road,Honolulu, Hawaiʻi 96822, E-mail: [email protected]

CercleS 2015; 5(1): 105–123

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Citation: Alhamami, M. (2015). Teaching science subjects in Arabic: Arab university scientists’ perspectives. Language Learning in Higher Education, 5(1), 105-123

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The use of the students’ mother tongue in education promotes the status oftheir language. However, the mother tongue may not have the resources neededto be the language of science at university level, so governments and educa-tional institutions use a foreign language as the medium of instruction instead.This practice has its advantages and disadvantages, which scientists and scienceinstructors are in the best position to judge because they are the ones who teachscience subjects in classes and laboratories. This article investigates the use ofthe students’ mother language to teach science subjects, and the positive andnegative effects of using a foreign language to teach science subjects from theperspective of university science instructors.

2 Arabic and science education: Historicalperspectives

Arabic is one of the most important languages in the world, spoken by morethan 235 million people. It is one of the six official languages of the UnitedNations, together with Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Arabic isalso the official language of 25 countries in two continents: 13 countries in Asiaand 12 countries in Africa. It has been taught worldwide in many schools,especially Muslim schools, because classical Arabic is the language of theQur’an, and it is closely associated with Islam (Mahboob 2003). Different uni-versities around the globe also teach Arabic as a foreign language and as part oftheir Middle Eastern studies. However, Arabic might not attract as much atten-tion in countries where it is the native language, such as Egypt, Jordan, SaudiArabia and Yemen, because it is not used to teach science subjects at universitylevel, for reasons that will be explored in this article.

Long ago Arabic was the medium of instruction in famous schools likeAl-Qarawiyyin (859), Al-Azhar (970) and Cordoba (8th century), which werelike Oxford and Cambridge in medieval times. Famous Arab scientists learnedscience through Arabic and wrote well-known treatises in Arabic. For example,Al-Battani (850–928), also known as Albategnius, showed that the distance fromthe earth to the sun changes during the year. Using the methods of Ptolemy, hecreated astronomical tables of the positions of the stars and calculated thelength of the solar year. Six hundred years before Galileo Galilei (1564–1642),Al-Biruni (973–1050) discussed the theory of the earth rotating on its own axis.Another famous Arab scientist, Al-Razi (865–925), laid the foundations of mod-ern chemistry by setting up the first laboratory in the modern sense, designing,describing and using more than twenty instruments, some of which are still used

106 Munassir Alhamami


today. Al-Razi discovered numerous compounds and chemicals, among themalcohol and kerosene.

Arab mathematicians invented the arithmetical decimal system and thefundamental operations connected with it such as addition and division, aswell as the concept of zero. Al-Khwarizmi’s (780–850) book Hisab al-jabr w’al-muqabala, written in Arabic, was used as the main textbook in many universi-ties. In this book, which gave us the word algebra, Al-Khwarizmi gives acomplete solution to all possible types of quadratic equations. More examplesof famous Arabic scientists include Avicenna (980–1037), Al-Farabi (872–951),and Al-Kindi (801–873). All of these scientists learned science through Arabic,taught science through Arabic, and published their works in Arabic. Becausescience was taught through Arabic in the past, many English words that occurfrequently in science derive from Arabic, such as chemistry, camphor, alcohol,alkali, amber, benzene, elixir, zircon, algebra, cipher, zero, etc. These examplesshow us that Arabic was well able to cope with science in the past.

The Arab world used Arabic as the medium of instruction until it wascolonized by foreign countries such as Britain and France around a hundredyears ago. In the colonial period, the colonizers’ languages replaced Arabic asthe language of teaching. For example, French was used in Algeria, Tunisia, andMorocco, while English was used in Egypt, Iraq, Oman, and Yemen, and Italianwas used in Libya. In 1889, the British colonizers issued a resolution to makeEnglish the language of science teaching in Egyptian schools and colleges, aresolution which is still effective even now. However, some countries such asSyria returned to Arabic as the medium of instruction after their period ofcolonization came to an end. Most Syrian universities now teach science subjectsin Arabic. At Damascus University Arabic is also used to teach medicine, andone of the requirements to attend the College of Medicine is proficiency inArabic. Meanwhile, in Saudi higher education English is the medium of instruc-tion for science subjects and medicine even though Saudi Arabia was nevercolonized by a foreign country. This might be due to the influence of English asan international language and the language of science and medicine. Saudiscience faculties prefer English as the medium of instruction rather than thestudents’ mother tongue (Arabic).

3 Literature review

The English language has become the world’s dominant language for medicine,science, business and technology (Crystal 2003; Hoffman 2000). This has caused

Teaching science subjects in Arabic 107


English to be adopted as the language of instruction in various settings, includ-ing universities and companies. Many countries around the world have adoptedEnglish as the medium of instruction in order to facilitate links between theireducational institutions and those in other countries, even when English has noofficial status, as in Saudi Arabia. This use of a foreign language as medium ofinstruction is as old as education itself, however (Coyle et al. 2010). For example,the expansion of the Roman Empire spread Latin throughout Europe centuriesago, and Latin became the language of education in most European countriesdue to the empire’s influence.

A foreign or second language is used as medium of instruction for a variety ofpurposes. For example, English-speaking children in Canada are taught historythrough French because French is one of Canada’s official languages (Day &Shapson 1996). Portuguese is used as the language of education in Mozambiqueas a result of the Portuguese government’s colonization of Mozambique. English isused as the language of higher education in former British colonies like India andPakistan (Mahboob 2003). It is also used as the medium of instruction for purposesof mobility and globalization (Coleman 2006; Maiworm and Wächter 2002); forexample, Saudi Arabia uses English as the medium of instruction in its universitiesso that its university science departments can connect with universities around theworld in terms of research, publications and textbooks. Kachru (1985) writes that inSaudi Arabia, English has no official status and has traditionally been learned as aforeign language for international communication rather than for intra-nationalcommunication purposes.

Various factors are usually taken into account when deciding which lan-guage should be the medium of education. Troudi (2007) stresses that educa-tional language policy is more than a pedagogical matter; it has socio-culturalimplications because it gives out messages about the cultural values of aparticular society. Political and economic motives also come into play(Whiteley1983) and tend to expand the role of English in higher education.Pennycook and Sohail (2005) argue that the political motives behind theWest’s moves to change curricula in Muslim countries arose from the desire toreplace anti-Western ideas with more Western views through the use of English,which could be represented as a symbol of modernity, secularization, andparticular cultural and political formulations. They write: “English is deeplyembedded in a set of social, cultural, political and economic relations. Theyaren’t so much part of the language as intertwined with it, and thus to advocate,for example, a more secular curriculum with greater access through English tocertain jobs, economies and cultural forms, is to advocate a set of changes thatmay have profound effects on families, religious affiliations, social movementsand so on” (Pennycook & Sohail: 158).



Governments and policy makers may not take into account the views ofscientists and science students regarding the language of instruction at univer-sity level. In Turkey, Kilickaya (2006) and Kirkgöz (2005) found that Turkishinstructors tended to favour the idea of adopting Turkish as an instructionalmedium rather than English; instructors agreed that using Turkish could pro-mote better student learning. Some Turkish educators opposed English-mediuminstruction on the ground that it reduced students’ ability to understand con-cepts and made the study of science subjects excessively time-consuming. In thePhilippines, the majority of the respondents to Vizconde’s (2006) surveyreported that they taught in Filipino because they thought this was the onlyway that students would be able to understand the lesson, despite the fact thatEnglish is the official medium of instruction. The instructors argued that theirstudents understood the lesson better, or only, when they used Filipino. In HongKong, Evans and Morrison (2011) found that a gap had opened up betweenpolicy and practice in the previous decade in consequence of the increasinginternationalization of the student body and institutional initiatives to enforcethe medium-of-instruction policy. Finally, in the Arab world, Amin (2009)stressed that science education was carried out in the Arab region in the absenceof research-based policies and recommended practices.

Graddol (1997: 45) writes: “one of the most significant educational trendsworld-wide is the teaching of a growing number of courses in universitiesthrough the medium of English”. It is impossible to ignore the fact that adoptingEnglish as the medium of instruction has a number of advantages for govern-ments, universities, researchers and students. For example, English facilitatesinternationalization, student exchange, staff mobility and graduate employabil-ity, increases the availability of teaching and research materials, and givesaccess to the market in international students (Coleman 2006: 4–6). In Iran,where English is used as the medium of instruction, Zare-ee and Gholami (2013)surveyed 60 professors of different ranks in different Iranian universities. Therespondents’ most commonly cited reasons for preferring English as medium ofinstruction were a) the status of English as the international language of scienceand technology, b) the loss of meaning and content in translated scientific texts,c) greater understanding of internationally published books and articles, and d)the possibility of sharing their own scientific and technological achievementswith the world.

Language is a complex issue in Arab educational contexts. As Amin(2009: 1) explains, “the complexity in the Arab region derives in part from thediglossic nature of the Arabic language – where distinct national dialects areused for informal purposes alongside Modern Standard Arabic, the pan-Arablanguage of literacy – and from the widespread use of international languages



such as English and French, reflecting the region’s colonial history and thegrowing dominance of such languages, especially English, in the domains ofscience and technology”. Karmani (2005) stresses that the rise of English as alingua franca, especially in the Arabian Gulf, has diminished the role of Arabicin society. This might lead to fears for the survival of native Arabic culture, sincelanguage is a carrier of culture and ideology.

4 Research questions

What are Arab scientists’ views concerning the teaching of science subjects inArabic and English in science faculties?

What is Arab scientists’ experience as regards pedagogical and social issueswhen they teach their subject in the students’ mother tongue and in a foreignlanguage?

5 Context and participants

This study was carried out in a Saudi public university which has two languagesof instruction: Arabic is used in theoretical faculties such as Islamic Studies,Arabic Language, and Education, while English is used in the scientific collegessuch as the College of Engineering, the College of Sciences and the College ofMedicine. The College of Sciences has four departments: Biology, Chemistry,Mathematics, and Physics. In order to attend the College of Sciences studentsmust pass their high school exams and the Saudi National Exam (GEYAS) withacceptable grades. Although English is the medium of instruction, students arenot required to confirm their proficiency in English by taking a test such asTOEFL or IELTS. However, they have been learning English since the 7th grade.Since elementary school they have also been studying science subjects inArabic. The university provides them with an intensive English language pro-gram for one semester, during which they take four courses: Reading, Writing,Listening and Grammar. This program tries to meet the students’ needs, likecommunicating with instructors in the College of Sciences who cannot speakArabic, reading textbooks, writing assignments and exams in English, andbecoming familiar with the academic environment.

The instructors come from different countries, including: Algeria, Canada,Egypt, India, Jordan, Pakistan, Palestine, Saudi, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen; andthey completed their postgraduate studies in a variety of institutions in differentcountries: Algeria, Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, India, Jordan, Saudi Arabia,



Sudan, Syria, and the United States. They have taught science subjects indifferent institutions around the globe, and have different first languages.They include full professors, associate professors, assistant professors and lec-turers. The twenty-seven instructors who participated in the study all spokeArabic as their mother tongue, though they came from various Arab countries:Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Yemen.

6 Methods

This is a mixed-methods study that used a written questionnaire to elicit quanti-tative and qualitative data. Written in Arabic to ensure that the respondents couldthemselves write Arabic, the questionnaire contained thirteen questions, some ofwhich invited respondents to express their views in detail. For example, the firstfour questions asked the instructors to specify the advantages and disadvantagesof teaching science subjects in Arabic and in English based on their experience inhigher education. Other questions were quantitative, allowing the researcher tocompare the participants’ answers. For example, one question asked about theinstructors’ beliefs concerning the influence of English and Arabic on students’academic achievement in science subjects. The questionnaire, reproduced in theappendix, was distributed to the Arabic-speaking instructors in the departments ofBiology, Chemistry, Mathematics, and Physics.

7 Results and discussion

Question 1: What are the advantages of teaching sciencesubjects in Arabic?

The first advantage reported by the instructors is that teaching in Arabic enablesthem to teach science subjects more efficiently because they do not need totranslate the meanings of difficult English words into Arabic. When teachingthrough English, instructors have found that they end up playing the role ofboth science teacher and translator since most students do not have a high levelof proficiency in English. The instructors believe that their students find it easierto understand science subjects in their mother tongue.

The instructors stress that teaching science in Arabic helps students to be morecreative in their learning. If they depend on memorizing English terms because they



do not understand Englishwell, rote learning tends to become the dominant learningstyle in the College of Sciences, which leads to a lack of deep understanding.

Another advantage of using Arabic as the medium of instruction is that itpromotes communication between instructors and students. Science studentscan discuss and negotiate with their instructors more effectively in Arabic thanin English; when there is a language barrier they avoid communicating withthem – they cannot express their thoughts and ideas clearly in a foreignlanguage they have not mastered. Studies conducted in Korea, although limitedin number, have revealed similar problems: professors and students experiencedlittle or no interaction when English was the medium of instruction in class-rooms (Kang et al. 2007, cited in Byun et al. 2011).

The instructors also thought that teaching science subjects in Arabic wouldimprove the pass rate in exams. In their experience some students failed becauseof their low proficiency in English rather than inadequate understanding of thesubject matter.

The instructors also mentioned that teaching science subjects in Arabic mightencourage Arabic-speaking scientists to write textbooks in Arabic because it wouldgive them a larger target population. In addition, the instructors noted that sciencetextbooks in Arabic are cheaper than foreign-language textbooks, so producingmorein Arabic would increase the number of science books in libraries. Furthermore,scientific translators would be motivated to translate science textbooks into Arabic.

In Figure 1, a biology instructor stresses that teaching science subjects inArabic helps to break down the barriers between students from educated andless well educated backgrounds – the majority of Saudis do not have anadvanced level of proficiency in English. In addition, the use of Arabic shouldgive students a sense of cultural heritage and of belonging to their mothertongue. Also, science classes should be more interesting if students are able tosee how their own language deals with scientific subjects.

Another advantage that the instructors mentioned is helping students who wantto teach science in Saudi primary and secondary schools, where the medium ofinstruction is Arabic. Such students will find it easier to teach science in Arabic

Figure 1: A biology instructor’s perspective.



if that is the language in which they have themselves been taught at university,so that they are familiar with Arabic scientific terms and registers. Finally, theinstructors thought that teaching science in Arabic would help to promoteArabic as a language of science at international level.

Question 2: What are the disadvantages of teaching sciencesubjects in Arabic?

The instructors mentioned that they have difficulty finding enough scienceresources – textbooks and academic journals – in Arabic. Most scientific researchis published in English, which is also the language used at international confer-ences, so Arab scientists find it difficult to keep up to date in their field if theycannot understand English. Another challenge is the lack of accurate Arabictranslations of science textbooks written in English, which may be because thetranslators lack scientific knowledge or proficiency in Arabic and/or English.

Science instructors also reported that Arabic countries use different terms forthe same scientific concepts, which gives rise to terminological problems if theywant to teach in Arabic or translate from English into Arabic. In Figure 2 a scienceprofessor states that teaching science subjects in Arabic creates difficulties forstudents who want to continue their higher education in a foreign country orwork for international companies and organizations, which tend to use Englishas their working language. Lack of proficiency in English also creates a barrier forArab science students when they want to participate in international conferences.

Question 3: What are the advantages of teaching sciencesubjects in English?

The instructors noted that most scientific resources are written in English, so ifthey teach science subjects in English, they and their students can keep up to

Figure 2: Disadvantages of teaching science subjects in Arabic: a science professor’sperspective.



date with research. In addition, teaching science subjects in English helpsstudents who want to take their studies further, since proficiency in scientificEnglish allows them to study and in due course work almost anywhere in theworld. On the other hand, Airey and Linder (2006) noted that the use of Englishin Swedish universities makes it possible to accommodate overseas students andforeign academics, and this consideration is also applicable to Arab countries.

Another advantage that the instructors mentioned was that teachingscience subjects in English helps students to become more proficiency inEnglish. This coincides with Rogier’s (2012) finding that students who havebeen taught in English at United Arab Emirates universities show a statisti-cally significant gain in all four language skills tested in the IELTS exam afterfour years of study.

Question 4: What are the disadvantages of teaching sciencesubjects in English?

In Figure 3 a physics teacher stresses that students do not gain a deep under-standing of science subjects because they tend to concentrate on memorizingEnglish terms and their spelling and pronunciation. Teachers devote much timeand effort to repeating information because they are teaching language andscience at the same time, which prevents them from covering all of the requiredscientific topics during the semester. Consequently, students graduate withinsufficient scientific knowledge. Mouhanna (2010) likewise reports that tea-chers believed that use of English serves as a barrier to students’ comprehensionof course content, and that much time must be spent translating informationinto Arabic. English and Arabic belong to different language families and havedifferent structures, and this creates problems of comprehension for Arab stu-dents. As Hewson has pointed out, “learning a subject in a second language isparticularly difficult when the first language is inherently very different fromWestern-based languages. Specialized terminology, which is not necessarilycongruent between the two languages, poses considerable problems for teachersand significant learning difficulties for students” (Hewson 1988: 318).

The instructors reported that the use of English prevents students fromgaining sufficient knowledge in their majors because they cannot read Englishfluently; and students’ lack of proficiency in English means that they cannot gethigh grades for their assignments and exams. The instructors also felt that usingEnglish to teach science subjects to Arab students promotes the hegemony ofEnglish. Students may fail to appreciate their mother language, concluding thatit is not good enough to be used as a medium of instruction in higher education.



Pennycook (2001) has argued that the spread of English as the language ofeducation and the economy serves the interests of big countries like the USA andthe UK. It is a politically and economically motivated expansion that contributesto the marginalization of indigenous cultures and languages.

Question 5: Have you taught science subjects in Arabic? If so,what do you think about it?

All the Arab science instructors who answered the questionnaire had taughtscience in Arabic and expressed positive attitudes towards doing so. Oneinstructor mentioned that he had supervised masters and doctoral dissertationsin Arabic at another university, and that the dissertations were successfullinguistically and scientifically (Figure 5).

100%

0%

5 = Have you taught science subjects in Arabic?

YesNo

Figure 4: Question 5 Results.

Figure 5: Supervising M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in Arabic.

Figure 3: Disadvantages of teaching science subjects in English: a physics instructor’sperspective.



Question 6: Do you think that teaching science subjects inEnglish increases the difficulty of those subjects forArabic-speaking students?

Twenty-one of the participating instructors thought that teaching science sub-jects in English increases the difficulty of the subjects for the students and thuscreates educational barriers. This might be due to the fact that students do nothave high levels of proficiency in English. Maleki and Zangani (2007) carried outa study in Iran where English was taught as a foreign language. They found asignificant connection between proficiency in English and grade point averages.

Question 7: Do you think that students fail in science subjectsbecause of their low level of proficiency in English?

Twenty-two instructors believed that students fail in science because they do nothave sufficient proficiency in English, and the same number believed that usingEnglish as a medium of instruction can become a barrier to effective learningand graduation. Graham (1987) found a strong correlation between Englishlanguage proficiency and academic success in universities and colleges inwhich English was the language of instruction; she stressed that there is “aminimum level below which lack of sufficient proficiency in English contributessignificantly to lack of academic success” (Graham 1987: 505).

78%

22%

6 = Do you think that teaching sciences in English increases thesubject difficulity for Arabic native students

YesNo


81%

19%

7 = Do you think that students might fail in sciences becausethey do not have enough English profeciency

Yes

No




Question 8: In your major, do you think that there are enoughArabic references for students who are studying for a B.Sc.?

Nineteen instructors believed that there were enough scientific materials inArabic to meet the needs of students working for a B.Sc., though some materialsmight be out of date. This number might be lower if the question focused onM.Sc. or Ph.D. students, because they need more up-to-date resources. Graddol(2000) argues that the ease of finding up-to-date materials in English has led toan increase in the number of courses taught through the medium of English.

Question 9: Do you sometimes use Arabic in your classes?When? Why?

All the instructors reported that they used Arabic in their teaching, even thoughEnglish is the official medium of instruction. They used Arabic for variouspurposes, which included: translating new scientific terms; translating examquestions to make sure that the students understood them; and explainingdifficult equations, theories and cases. The instructors found that studentsfound it easier to concentrate when they used Arabic because it was easier to

70%

30%

8: In your major, do you think that there are enough Arabicreferences for the students who are studying for a B.Sc.?

Yes

No


100%

0%

9: Do you sometimes use Arabic in your classes?

YesNo




understand than English. In general the instructors said that they used Arabicbecause the students’ level of proficiency in English was not high.

Question 10: What is better for the students as medium ofinstruction, English or Arabic?

Twenty-three of the 27 instructors thought that it is preferable to teach sciencesubjects to Saudi students in Arabic, though 3 of them thought that Arabic andEnglish are equally effective mediums of instruction. Only one instructorthought that science subjects should be taught in English.

Question 11: How do you rate the students’ proficiency inEnglish, strong, average or weak?

Based on their experience of teaching science subjects, none of the instructorsthought that the students’ English proficiency was “strong”. Most thought thatthe students had insufficient proficiency in English, 5 of the 27 instructors ratingit as “average”, and 22 rating it as “weak”.

85%

4%

11%

10: What is better for the students as medium ofinstruction, English or Arabic?

ArabicEnglishBoth


0%

11: How do you rate the students’ proficiency in English,strong, average or weak?

19%

81%

StrongMediumWeak




Question 12: Are you in favour of teaching science subjects inArabic?

Twenty of the instructors were in favour of teaching science subjects in Arabic,5 were against, and 2 expressed no opinion.

Question 13: Do you have any final comments, information, orsuggestions regarding the teaching of science subjects inArabic?

The instructors argued that organizations and governments should providefinancial support to enable Arab scientists to publish textbooks and articles inArabic, and that educational institutions should establish science translationprograms in order to create a supply of better qualified science translators. Theyalso argued that educational institutions should develop a standard scientificterminology for Arabic, which should be adopted by all Arabic-speaking coun-tries. They thought that Arabic countries should learn from the experience ofother countries that use their national language as the language of instruction inhigher education, such as Russia and France. These comments and suggestionsmatch Al Jarf’s (2008) finding that Arabic is facing a serious threat from thedominance of English in Saudi universities. The inferior role of Arabic as amedium of instruction is heightened by a lack of language planning and lan-guage policy. Increased attention is needed to protect, develop and promote theArabic language and compensate for inadequate Arabicization efforts and theinadequacy of technical books translated into and published in Arabic. It seemsthat there is a particular need to develop more effective scientific translationservices. In addition, Arabic translation organizations such as the ArabOrganization for Translation (AOT), the Arabization of Health SciencesNetwork (AHSN), and World Arab Translators’ Association (WATA) need toplay a more active role in providing scientific materials in Arabic.

74%

19%

7%

12: Are you in favour of teaching science subjects in Arabic?

In FavourDo NotNot in Favour




8 Conclusion

This study has highlighted the complexity of current debates about English asmedium of instruction (see Doiz et al. 2013). It is important to stress that EMI isnot a black and white choice between English and students’ native language; asthe responses to the survey questions show, it is an issue that requires delicatenegotiation, and in some cases the adoption of English as medium of instructioncan be an appropriate policy. The results of the survey reveal interesting per-spectives on teaching science subjects in Arabic at undergraduate level in SaudiArabia. The majority of the scientists who responded to the survey expressed anegative attitude towards the use of English as the medium of instruction,favouring the use of the students’ mother tongue at B.Sc. level. They stressedthat governments and educational organizations should take a major role inimplementing Arabic as the medium of instruction, which would mean depart-ing from current policy. Without the help of policy makers, teaching sciencesubjects in Arabic might not be effective or even possible. At present, however,policy makers in Saudi Arabia do not take the perspective of science instructorsin Saudi universities into account. According to the instructors, the currentpolicy of using English as the medium of instruction needs to be revised becauseit creates obstacles to the effective learning of science subjects. Students’ level ofEnglish is a major problem, so one alternative to teaching in Arabic would be toprovide students with more effective English language support.

Science instructors are important stakeholders in deciding the educationalcurriculum in the College of Sciences, and sharing their perspectives and experi-ences will enhance the teaching of science subjects in Saudi Arabia. Theinstructors stressed that the adoption of Arabic, the students’ mother tongue,as the language of instruction offers the best way of overcoming language andcommunication barriers in the College of Sciences. From their perspective, thiswould help to solve many of the problems in science education in Saudiuniversities.

This study focused exclusively on the Saudi higher education context.Although the instructors who responded to the survey come from a variety ofmainly Arabic-speaking countries, the findings cannot be generalized beyondSaudi Arabia (the students in focus are mainly Saudi males). In Saudi Arabiathe level of English amongst students is a major problem. This may not bethe case in other Arab countries, and comparison with other Arab contextscould be instructive. Another limitation of the study is the perspective of theparticipants. While it is important to give a voice to scientists, the argumentsthat emerge from their responses to the survey imply the need to involve a wider



cross-section of stakeholders such as policy makers, university administrators,parents, and students.

Acknowledgement: The author would like to extend his appreciation and grati-tude to Dr Mohamed Salah El Din Mahgoub at King Khalid University for hisinstructions and feedback on the data collection process, Dr Graham Crookes atthe University of Hawaii for his encouragement and support in preparing thearticle for publication, and the editors and anonymous reviewers for theircomments and suggestions.

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Appendix: English translation of instructors’survey questions:

1. What are the advantages of teaching science subjects in Arabic?2. What are the disadvantages of teaching science subjects in Arabic?3. What are the advantages of teaching science subjects in English?4. What are the disadvantages of teaching science subjects in English?5. Have you taught science subjects in Arabic? If so, what do you think about it?6. Do you think that teaching science subjects in English increases the

difficulty of those subjects for Arabic-speaking students?7. Do you think that students fail in science subjects because of their low

level of proficiency in English?8. In your major, do you think that there are enough Arabic references for

students who are studying for a B.Sc.?9. Do you sometimes use Arabic in your classes? When? Why?10. What is better for the students as medium of instruction, English or Arabic?11. How do you rate the students’ proficiency in English, strong, average or weak?12. Are you in favour of teaching science subjects in Arabic?13. Do you have any final comments, information, or suggestions regarding

the teaching of science subjects in Arabic?

Bionote

Munassir Alhamami

Munassir Alhamami is an instructor at King Khalid University, Faculty of Languages and Translationand a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Hawaii, Second Language Studies Department.



Teaching science subjects in Arabic: Arab university scientists ’ perspectives

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