Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Arabic-English Bilingual Language Preference in Jordan Context

Saleh Shtayat, Ahmad Taufik Hidayah Abdullah

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v15-i3/24929

Open access

The study investigates how the concept of bilingualism is being perceived, adopted, incorporated, recognized and promoted in Jordan. The study attempts to identify how learning, speaking and writing of Arabic and English are monitored across the country. It explores the potential obstacle in preferring one language over the other as a bilingual. It analyses how day to day communication is being controlled by Jordanians; how academic achievement is being achieved through the prioritization of the concept of bilingualism; and how societal activities are being managed. To achieve these objectives, an analytical descriptive approach involving questionnaires was adopted. The study was administered on 50 males and 30 females students at Jordan. The study revealed that ESL learners prefer Arabic language at informal gatherings, but desire to use English language for formal events and academic purposes. The study demonstrated differences between the extent of usage between Arabic and English language in Jordan among EFL and ESL learners. The study recommended the necessity of encouraging Jordanian bilinguals toward adhering to the rules and regulations guiding bilingualism. The study similarly proposed principles of incorporating bilingual education in Jordan educational curriculum. Towards promoting second language proficiency, it suggested designing daily-mandatory English exercises and instructions for bilinguals in Jordan.

Abu Manshar, M. (2020). The effect of educational games on the achievement of third-grade primary school students in English vocabulary in Hebron Governorate. Journal of Psychological and Educational Studies, 13 (3), 309-319.
Al-Haddad, A. W. (2019). Contemporary challenges facing classical Arabic and the most prominent challenge of the opposite, 3 (1). 46-66.
Ahmad, M. (2023). The effect of using the learning-by-play strategy in teaching English in developing critical thinking skills among eighth-grade primary school students in the Directorate of Education in Jerash Governorate. The Scientific Journal of the Faculty of Education - University Assiut, 39 (2), 55-78.
Al-Shabool, M. (2021). The School and Its Role in Acquiring Language Skills from the Perspective of Arabic Language Teachers in Jordan. International Journal of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. (39) 51 - 76.
Al-Samirat, M. M. (2023). The effect of using the learning-by-play strategy in improving the level of scientific achievement in science among third-grade students in the Northern Jordan Valley Education Directorate. The Scientific Journal of the Faculty of Education, Assiut University, 39 (2), 30-53.
Al-Qaid, I., & Mujahid, M. A. (1995). “Education and Bilingualism”, Riyadh: King Saud University Press.
Musa, A. L., & Kattan, H. M. N. d. Bilingualism affects executive attention in preschool children, Faculty of Arts, 100.
Abdon. M., Maghanoy, J., Alieto, E., Buslon, J., Rillo, R., & Bacang, B. (2019). phonological awareness skills of english as second language (esl) learners: The case of first- grade Filipino bilinguals. Sci.Int.(Lahore), 31(5),647- 652.
Abu-Rabia, S., & Siegel, L. S. (2002). Reading, syntactic, orthographic, and working memory skills of bilingual Arabic-English speaking Canadian Children. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 31, 661-678. doi.org/10.1023/a:1021221206119
Bialystok, E., Craik, F., Green, D., & Gollan, T. (2009). Bilingual Minds. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 10(3), 89– 129. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100610387084
Bialystok, E., Craik, F., Luk, G. (2012). Bilingualism: consequences for mind and brain. Trends Cogn Sci, 16(4):240-50.
Brancaleoni, A. R., Bogoni, A. P., Silva, D. P., Giacchini, V. (2018). A comparative study on phonological acquisition and performance in phonological awareness by children exposed to a bilingual or monolingual family environment. CEFAC, 20(6), 703-714. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-021620182061018
Bruck, M., & Genesee, F. (1995). Phonological awareness in young second language learners. Journal of Child Language, 22, 307–324.
Catale, C., Willems, S., Lejeune, C., and Meulemans, T. (2012). Parental educational level influence on memory and executive performance in children. , 62(1), 161–171.
Cavallieri, R. (2015). Bilingualism and phonology: production, perception, and awareness in early bilinguals. International Journal of Innovation and Research in Educational Sciences, 2(4), 269-272. Chen. X., Li, J., Song, Z., Fan, T., Li, S., & Zhao, J. (2023). Cross Language Transfer of L1 Phonological Awareness to L2 Reading in Chinese Children Learning to Read English as a Second Language. DOI:10.31234/osf.io/n46gc
Cummins, J., & Swain, M. (1986). “Bilingualism in Education”, New York: Longman.
De Fontoura, H. A., & Siegel, L. S. (1995). Reading, syntactic and working memory skills of bilingual Portuguese-English Canadian children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 7, 139–153.
Deng, Q., Choi, W., & Tong, X. (2019). Bidirectional Cross-Linguistic Association of Phonological Skills and Reading Comprehension: Evidence from Hong Kong Chinese-English Bilingual Readers. J Learn Disabil, 52(4), 299-311. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219419842914
Grosjean, F. (2022). The Mysteries of Bilingualism. Unresolved Issues. Chichester UK: John Wiley & Sons.https://www.wiley.com/en-us/The+Mysteries+of+Bilingualism%3A+Unresolved+Issues-p9781119602378
Hakimi, H., & Abdul Rahman, A. (2019). The effect of using games in teaching and learning English grammar for learners of English as a foreign language. Journal of Educational and Psychological Sciences, 3 (26), 147-159.
Hsu, L., Ip, K., Arredondo, M., Tardif, T., & Kovelman, I. (2016). Simultaneous acquisition of English and Chinese impacts children’s reliance on vocabulary, morphological and phonological awareness for reading in English, Int J Biling Educ Biling, 22(2), 207-23. DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2016.1246515
Ijalba, E., Bustos, A., & Romero, S. (2020). Phonological-orthographic deficits in developmental dyslexia in three spanish-english bilingual students. American Speech Language Pathology. 29(3), 1133-1151. DOI: 10.1044/2020_AJSLP-19-00175
Istitieh, S. (2006). Communicative Linguistics Triads. National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. 3 (34), 7-41.
Kang, J. (2010) Do bilingual children possess better phonological awareness? Investigation of Korean monolingual and Korean-English bilingual children. Reading and Writing, 25(2), 411-431.
Kremin, L., Arredondo, M., Hsu, J., Satterfield, T., & Kovelman, I. (2016). The effects of Spanish heritage language literacy on English reading for Spanish–English bilingual children in the US. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 22(2), 192-206. DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2016.1239692
Lallier, M., Thierry, G., Barr, P., Carreiras, M., & Taniturier, M. (2018). Learning to read bilingually modu- lates the manifestations of dyslexia in adults. Scientific Studies of Reading, 22(4), 335-349. doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2018.1447942
Laurent, A., & Martinot, C. (2010). Bilingualism and phonological awareness: The case of bilingual (French–Occitan) children. Reading and Writing, 23(3–4), 435–452. doi:10.1007/s11145-009-9209-3
Mckay, K. (2012). Phonological awareness skill of segmenting in bilingual english/spanish speaking 4-and 5-year-old children [Internet]. Missoula. [Thesis Master of Science] Montana 5USA, University of Montana. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/748/
Melloni, C., & Vender, M. (2020). Phonological Processing and Nonword Repetition: A Critical Tool for the Identification of Dyslexia in Bilingualism. An Anthology of Bilingual Child Phonology. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Messias , B., Medeiros, A., Cunha, E., Azevedo, A., ocha, Alc ntara, H., & Azoni, C. (2022). Bibliometric analysis of the literature on phonological awareness in bilingual children. CEFAC, 24(1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1590/1982-0216/20222411321
Moawad, R. A., & Abdelgafar, G. M., (2015). Executive function differences between bilingual Arabic–English and monolingual Arabic children. J Psycholinguist Res 44, 651–667. DOI: 10.1007/s10936-014-9309-3
Nasrallah, L. (2022). Reading comprehension skills in English and its relationship to creative thinking among primary school students in the State of Kuwait. Scientific Journal of Research and Scientific Publishing Administration, 83 (12), 288- 309.
Novita, S., Lockl, K. & Gnambs, T. (2022). Reading comprehension of monolingual and bilingual children in primary school: the role of linguistic abilities and phonological processing skills. Eur J Psychol Educ, 37, 993– 1013. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-021-00587-5
Oz-Vecht, E., & Degani, T. (2023). Bilingual phonological awareness as a function of language proficiency. International Journal of Bilingualism, 27(5), 663- 697. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069221104671
Papastefanou, T., Marinis, T., & Powell, D. (2021). Development of Reading Comprehension in Bilingual and Monolingual Children Effects of Language Exposure. Languages, 6(4), 166. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages6040166
Roazzi, A. & Dowker A. A. (1989). consciência fonológica, rima e aprendizagem da leitura. Psic Teor Pesq, 5(1), 31-55.
Saiegh-Haddad, E. (2019). What is phonological awareness in L2?. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 50, 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2017.11.001
Souza, L. B. R., & Leite, A. G. C. (2014). Profile of phonological awareness in bilingual and monolingual children. CoDAS ,26(1), 61-67. https://doi.org/10.1590/S2317-17822014000100009
Vender, M., & Melloni, C. (2021). Phonological awareness across child populations: how bilingualism and dyslexia interact. Languages, 6(1), 39. doi.org/10.3390/languages6010039
Vender, M., Hu, S., Mantione, F., Savazzi, S., Delfitto, D., & Melloni, C. (2021). Inflectional morphology: Evidence for an advantage of bilingualism in dyslexia. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 24, 155–72.
Ziegler, J., & Goswami, U. (2005). Reading Acquisition, Developmental Dyslexia, and Skilled Rea- ding Across Languages: a psycholinguistic grain size theory. Psychological Bulletin, 131(1), 3-29. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.131.1.3

Shtayat, S., & Abdullah, A. T. H. (2025). Arabic-English Bilingual Language Preference in Jordan Context. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 15(3), 222–235.