Hicham Maged's blog Inquisitive curiosity paves knowledge path

Reading Arabic: is it that Hard!

I came across a recently published report at the BBC News’ Health section entitled Reading Arabic ‘hard for brain’ by its Science reporter Katie Alock. I felt curious for the scientific news in general and the subject of this report in particular, so I went through reading that made me wonders for what is being presented there.

Brain Hemispheres (Left/Right)

My wonderment isn’t for the news itself at the first glance, since it refers to a scientific research that I am not qualified for discussing by any mean. I am rather concerned about the way of presenting the research’s results over the BBC.

In this blog entry, I would like to share you with my analytic criticism after doing my wondering and pondering research about this topic.

• Note #1: On one hand, please make sure to read the article at first, so I suggest that you open it in another browser tab/window in parallel with reading my post.
• Note#2: On the other hand, this is a lenthy post, so I appreciate the time you spent while reading it.

Brain Hemisphere Functions

Let me start by placing a simple intro in case you are not familiar with this issue. Our brain is a complex organ that is considered as the core (center) of the human nervous system. Aside from its complexity, I am focusing on what is related to my post which is the brain hemisphere.

A normal human brain consists of two sides called hemisphere: the left brain and the right brain. Both are connected by thick band of 200-250 million nerve fibers called corpus callosum. The function of brain’s left/right sides are as follows:

• Left cerebral hemisphere of the brain: It physically controls the right side functions of our human body in parallel with being responsible for the verbal functions like words, logic and numbers.
• Right cerebral hemisphere of the brain: It physically controls the left side functions of our human body in parallel with being responsible for the non-verbal functions like colors, dimensions and imagination.

The two hemispheres (left/right) brain cooperate for the physical/mental human activity. This explains why you can find people who have disabilities due to the malfunction of one of these sides. You can check the Neuroscience for Kids page for more information.

Critique for BBC’s Presentation

My 1st wonder about this report is that it discuss the Arabic language among children in Palestine/Israel, so why the readers like me see two photos with captions: the first from Lebanon while the other from Gaza? What has this to do with the subject of the report?

My 2nd wonder that the report starts by two sentences: “Israeli scientists believe they have identified why Arabic is particularly hard to learn to read.
The University of Haifa team say people use both sides of their brain when they begin reading a language – but when learning Arabic this is wasting effort.”

This is what caught my attention. I wonder about the accuracy of the second sentence that mentions ‘[…] but when learning Arabic this is wasting effort […]’ My wonder took me through reading the third paragraph that mentions: “The detail of Arabic characters means students should use only the left side of their brain because that side is better at distinguishing detail.”

Here is another 3rd wonder about how ‘[…] students should use only the left side […]’! You can’t intentionally decide what side of brain you use, thus my wonder reflected on the previous second sentence that tells ‘[…] but when learning Arabic this is wasting effort […]’, and logically the first sentence that tells about ‘[…] why Arabic is particularly hard to learn […]’ since this sense of absoluteness isn’t familiar in science to use a word like is practically.

Anyway, I completed the rest of the report but since it made me wonders about these points, I thought about searching for the original source of news; the scientists and their research. It’s mentioned that they are from University of Haifa, so I went there to find the official press release under the following topic: Reading Arabic ain’t easy (http://newmedia-eng.haifa.ac.il/?p=3464) which is based on the work of both Prof. Zohar Eviatar and Dr. Raphiq Ibrahim. Now if you check the press release, you shall find it starts as follows:

“The brain’s right hemisphere is not involved in the initial processes of reading in Arabic, due to the graphic complexity of Arabic script. Therefore reading acquisition in Arabic is much harder in comparison to English. This has been shown in a series of studies that were carried out at the Department of Psychology and the Edmond J. Safra Brain Research Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities at the University of Haifa. These studies have been published in the prestigious journal Neuropsychology.”

Notice the term ‘[…] initial process of reading in Arabic […]’ which in my perception holds a different scientific meaning than that presented in the BBC reports ‘[…] why Arabic is particularly […]’ Hereby, I went through the rest of the press release where it ends with what the researchers concluded:

“This means that children acquiring languages other than Arabic draw on the use of both hemispheres in the first stages of learning to read, while children learning to read Arabic do not have the participation of the right brain. Hence, it may be the case that reading processes take longer to be automatized in Arabic. The native Arabic-speaking child is faced with more of a challenge, requiring more practice and particular pedagogic effort – which demonstrates the need for systematic professional involvement in the teaching of Arabic reading, especially for those who have learning difficulties,”

Moreover, you can compare the BBC report with the Haifa press release plus what was published in other online resources like the two articles at ScienceDaily & PhysOrg plus other online resources that represented the about this research.

Maybe the BBC report tried to reach the conclusion presented in other online resources but the way seems misleading to me. On the other hand, there is an interview over the Jerusalem Post, where Eviatar tolds about her researches while the journal cites at the third paragraph from the end:

“Eviatar said she was not qualified to advise the Education Ministry on how to ease learning to read Arabic in schools. However, she noted that Arabic language teaching is changing for the better, thanks to advisers like Dr. Elinor Saiegh-Haddad in the English department of Bar- Ilan University, who is an expert member of ministry advisory committees.”

By reaching this paragraph of my post, you shall easily discover the reasons behind placing this criticism. There is something wrong about the misleading way that this report was published or there is a problem in the resources that it depends on. Hereby, I have this simple message for a reputable network:

Dear BBC and Katie Alock

Many people worldwide depend on the BBC as their credible source of the news. I respect your effort and like your way of presenting various issues; however if you follow up with the report’s impact, you shall find many forums/blogs/websites have cited it as evidence that Arabic language is hard and doesn’t worthy to learn because of the misleading way that it has presented the research results. Hereby, I wish that your anchor desk can take care more about the way of presenting scientific issues in a professional way that you used to follow over this credible news network.

Arabic Language

Arabic Language Studies

On the other hand, I would like to draw the attention for who don’t know. Arabic is field under the Semitic Language like Hebrew and Neo-Aramaic alike. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as the first language in the Middle East and North Africa as of 2006. Moreover, it has influenced the scripts of other languages such as Turkish, Persian and Urdu yet prolong differs among. You can check more over the internet yourself, so I won’t suggest WikiPedia only but I suggest taking a look over the following pages too:

• Arabic Language Study Programs – US and Overseas
• U.S. Arabic Distance Learning Network – Overview
• Arabic Language Study | The Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University

On the Scientists Research

Finally, I am neither linguistic specialist nor scientist, so evaluating the researches is none of my business but scientists like them who can debate over scientific magazines. Hereby, I would like to place a link for ScienceDirect which is a scientific database for journals, articles and book chapters. You can search for their work in case you’re a scientists and interested in following up with these journals (with subscription)

I am aware that it’s a long post, so thanks for the valuable time that you’ve spent while reading it and welcome comments that either disagree/agree with what is presented.

Related Quotes and Sayings

The more you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, the more credibility you will have. — Brian Koslow

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Tags: language
Categories: Critiques
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