In order to examine the relationship between the teaching of dialect and the teaching of culture, it is necessary to compare the participants’ attitudes towards language with their beliefs on the teaching of culture. However, there are difficulties in exploring whether teachers’ language ideology affects their beliefs on the teaching of culture due to some reasons: 1) Most of the teachers indicated that they incorporate the teaching of dialects into their first and second year Arabic classrooms, while only a few teachers reported that they do not teach dialects in their Arabic classrooms. This imbalance in the sample size made direct comparisons between the two groups more difficult; 2) Furthermore, none of the teachers who do not teach dialects chose to conduct a follow-up interview, therefore it was difficult to investigate similarities and differences between the teachers who support the teaching of dialects and the teachers who do not agree with teaching dialects. This low level (or no level) of participation or interest in the follow-up interview may reflect either discomfort with the topic of teaching culture, or the realization that culture cannot be taught appropriately without teaching dialects.
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Since no detractors of dialect education participated in the follow-up interviews, I examined their views on the teaching of culture based on their responses to the survey questions and comments in the survey questionnaires. Even though they do not teach dialects in their classrooms, all of them except for only one participant disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement that cultural understanding can be developed using only Modern Standard Arabic in an Arabic curriculum in the U.S., which means that they support using both Modern Standard Arabic and Colloquial Arabic for cultural instruction. However, almost half of them (3 out of 7) disagreed or strongly disagreed with incorporating Colloquial Arabic words and expressions with cultural connotations into first and second year classes. These results are in agreement with the Lampe’s Cultural Proficiency Guidelines, which encourage language and cultural competence in both Modern Standard Arabic and Colloquial Arabic, but emphasize that Colloquial forms of speech and behaviors should only be taught for more advanced levels of language proficiency. That means the teachers believe that cultural instruction using Modern Standard Arabic should be emphasized more heavily for first and second year Arabic classes, while cultural instruction using Colloquial Arabic can be delayed until more advanced classes. It is noteworthy that one of the teachers in this group strongly disagreed with the statement that culture should be an integral part of language teaching. This teacher indicated that her responses to the survey questions were based on the fact that her department offers a separate Arabic culture courses for students.
On the other hand, the rest of the teachers (4 out of 7) agreed or strongly agreed with incorporating cultural instruction using Colloquial Arabic into first and second year classes, and believed that culture should be taught using both Modern Standard Arabic and Colloquial Arabic from the very beginning of language instruction. These teachers’ views
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on teaching culture are not very different from those of teachers who support teaching dialects for cultural instruction.
In addition, it is worth mentioning the view of one teacher, who supports the teaching of dialects and teaches a dialect occasionally in his first and second year classes, but believes that the final goal of teaching Arabic is to promote the four language skills and grammar in Modern Standard Arabic. According to him, students need to first focus on developing their language skills in lower level classes before enhancing cultural competence in more advanced classes when they are able to deal with authentic materials more effectively. He did not oppose using Colloquial Arabic, but placed higher priority on using Modern Standard Arabic for cultural instruction. In particular, according to him, teachers should attach a larger significance to teaching the four language skills and grammar than teaching culture for first and second year classes, and should delay cultural instruction until more advanced classes when students can cope with authentic materials more quickly. According to him, studying abroad in the Arab world and literature or culture in translation courses are better options than the language class for first and second year students who are enthusiastic about learning culture. He claimed that cultural competence for first and second year students should be achieved not in a classroom, but in a natural environment, such as during their studies abroad. Furthermore, he emphasized that cultural topics should be dealt with in content-based courses, such as literature or translation courses as opposed to teaching language and culture in an integrated way. This opinion is in line with one of the survey participants who strongly disagreed with incorporating culture into a language classroom.
Another teacher, who supports the teaching of dialects, mentioned that even though he teaches dialects in his classes very often, he sometimes teaches a course, in which he
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exclusively uses Modern Standard Arabic. However, he felt that the Modern Standard Arabic course is devoid of cultural practices.
Consequently, whether or not the teachers are supporters or detractors of dialect education in terms of cultural instruction, they indicated that meaningful cultural learning can be developed using both Modern Standard Arabic and Colloquial Arabic. However, among the teachers who do not teach dialects, there are differences in their views on whether the teaching of dialects should be incorporated into first and second year classes for cultural instruction. A prominent point made by one of the survey participants who disagreed with teaching dialects, is that language and culture should not be taught in an integrated way, which significantly differs from the view of most of the teachers who support the teaching of dialects.
Broadly speaking, it can be said that teachers’ attitudes towards language and their language ideology are inevitably reflected in their cultural instruction and there is a strong relationship between the teaching of culture and the teaching of dialects. Due to the small sample size of participants who do not support the teaching of dialects, it was difficult to obtain generalizable results in the issue of the relationship between the teaching of dialects and the teaching of culture. Therefore, future studies will need to focus on overcoming this limitation to draw more valid conclusions.