Policy and Teaching English to Palestinian Students in Israel: An Ecological Perspective to Language Education Policies

Muhammad Amara

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

12 Scopus citations

Abstract

The chapter examines policy and teaching English among Palestinian schoolchildren in Israel, relating them to their complex linguistic repertoire, the Israeli context, and English as a global language. Today, Arabic is the language of instruction in Palestinian schools in Israel. Hebrew is learned as a second language by all the Palestinian pupils from the third grade on. English is then added on, a third language for the Arabic speaking pupils, or a fourth considering the spoken language used as the home language and for on-going communicative needs. Palestinian language education serves different purposes: Arabic is the language of personal, cultural and national identity; Hebrew is an important language for social mobility, for higher education, and for shared citizenship; English is a global language, and a window on the wider world. English is as important to Israeli Palestinians as to other Israelis because of its status as international language. Many English words have been borrowed into Arabic by way of Hebrew. There is no distinct English curriculum for the Palestinian students, and they study it like other Israelis in all streams of the Hebrew education.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEducational Linguistics
PublisherSpringer Science+Business Media B.V.
Pages105-118
Number of pages14
DOIs
StatePublished - 2014
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameEducational Linguistics
Volume18
ISSN (Print)1572-0292
ISSN (Electronic)2215-1656

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2014, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

Keywords

  • Arabic
  • Curriculum
  • Ecological perspective
  • English
  • Hebrew
  • Identity
  • Language education policy
  • Language policy
  • Linguistic repertoire

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