The Cultural Dimension in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL)

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of some cultural aspects on the learnability of US Peace Corps Volunteers who study Arabic language as a foreign language. The cultural aspect are: the relationship between the Jordanian Arabic culture and the Arabic language, the role played by learners' host families and local communities in language and culture learning, the role of language instructor in language learning, the role of the techniques used to introduce cultural topics in language learning and learners' attitudes towards the Jordanian Arabic culture. A questionnaire of sixty-seven items was designed and developed, then distributed to 65 US Peace Corps Volunteers serving in Jordan. The sample realizes that it is very important to have host families because their continuous input and assistance to the culture and language learning and volunteers are invaluable. The sample also recognizes that having expert language and cultural facilitators makes them better prepared for dealing with people of the Jordanian culture. The people surveyed view cultural presentation techniques as equal in importance as their contents, therefore; they should be varied to deal with different learning modalities.