Designing Distance Instruction for the Arab World: Linguistic and Cultural Considerations Free

The job of the instructional designer is to create sound instruction that will lead to appropriate learning. However, the instruction design process has, traditionally, not taken into consideration the variables of language and culture and their impact on learning outcomes. Prior to the demands of today’s global marketplace, this approach did not prove problematic. Today, however, the need for sound global instruction in English is on the rise—especially in the Arab world—with no end in sight.

What, then, is the job of the instructional designer? Should it be to continue with business as usual? Or should demand prompt changes in how the design of global instruction is undertaken? What is the marketplace demanding, and what should be the response of those who are responsible for creating these learning modules? This article discuss the rise of distance and/or virtual higher education in the Arab world, will look at their modes on instruction and at linguistic and cultural interference and, finally, will examine the necessity of including culture and diversity in the design of global instruction if we are to affect positively learning outcomes and completion rates in the Arab world.

Before beginning this discussion, it is necessary to define the terms culture and language as they will be used in this context. Culture here is defined as “whatever it is one has to know or believe in order to operate in a manner acceptable to its members, and to do so in any role that they accept for any one of themselves” (Wardhaugh, 2002, p. 19). Language is defined as “what the members of a particular society speak” (Wardhaugh, 2002, p. 1).

Over the past 20 years, Arab higher education institutions have made large strides in the area of distance education. As a result, several distance education institutions have been established. Their modes of delivery vary from being completely stand-alone virtual universities, to being off-shoots of traditional universities. The Arab world has adopted the worldwide trend of having traditional universities provide conventional and distance education simultaneously. One example of this is the Open Learning Centers in Egypt (Mohamed, 2005). There are also examples of single mode distance education universities, where the purpose is solely distance education. One example of this model is the Arab Open University, which was established in 1999, with the main campus in Kuwait and branch campuses in Bahrain, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia (Mohamed, 2005). In terms of virtual universities, the Syrian Virtual University is the first, and only, online university in the Arab world using this model (Mohamed, 2005).

Although the delivery methods differ, the one common denominator between all these types of distance learning institutions in the Arab world is that the language of instruction is almost unanimously English. Whether the mode of delivery is printed materials, videos, audio lectures, or interactive user interfaces, the language of instruction is English. This is especially true in the areas of technology and science (Findlow, 2006). The reasons for choosing English over Arabic are varied: lack of instructional materials in Arabic, the need to fit into a global learning environment, the need to appear modern and forward, the lure of economic and social prestige, as well as need to suppress Islamists and Islamist rhetoric within higher education. To this end, Arabic language in higher educational institutions in the Arab world is routinely relegated to areas of cultural and religious studies (Findlow, 2006).

At the first stage of the instructional design process, analysis, instructional designers are encouraged to take into consideration the learners for which a piece of instruction is being designed. Traditionally, this has meant knowing such things as: age, gender, level of education, socioeconomic status, and learning style and preferences. At no time have language and culture variables been considered in the makeup of the learner. Maybe that was due to lack of demand, but that no longer is the case. With more and more companies going global, and the rise of distance education as the preferred method of instruction for many learning communities, language and culture must become a part of the equation if the goal is to produce sound instructional materials that meet the needs of every learner.

Traditionally, instructional technology has taken a linguistic and culturally neutral position in the creation of instructional materials (Thomas, Mitchell, & Joseph, 2002). However, theorists have now begun to consider that culture (and language) may play a greater role in the conveyance of knowledge than previously thought. Because knowledge is socially mediated, and socialization is grounded in culture (and language), it follows that education is seen not as a process of conveying knowledge, but rather as a coconstruction of education within sociocultural (and sociolinguistic) contexts (Thomas, Mitchell, & Joseph, 2002).

In the Arab world, instructional materials are not produced by Arab instructional designers within the countries of instructional delivery, or even by external instructional designers with knowledge of the language and/or culture of the Arab learner. Rather, the trend thus far has been to import instructional modules “as is” from abroad—usually from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain (Mohamed, 2005). This has resulted in instructional modules that have a decidedly Western worldview, and do not take into consideration linguistic and cultural interferences that may impede the transfer of knowledge and result in learner dissatisfaction, high attrition rates, and low learning outcomes.

Language has significant roles in the way learning occurs in the Arab world, where English is not the primary language. The Internet is the center of e-learning, with most of its resources in English. One way to address this issue is to accelerate the conversion of online and instructional materials into the Arabic language, but many find this approach impractical (Akinyemi, 2002). The other answer would be to address the problem during the analysis, design, and development stages of instructional preparation. Linguistic considerations within these stages could include: the reading and comprehension level of the learner in English, paying attention to text density, and ensuring that sentence complexity matches the level of the learner for whom the material is designed (Akinyemi, 2002).

What counts as “learning” from one situation to another depends largely on cultural, socioeconomic, and political factors. The process begins with what each society deems desirable knowledge, and indeed what counts as knowledge at all. This leads to the society producing an educational system in its image, whether this is in the form of an informal situated learning system or one that models more the Western model of dedicated educational institutions (Atherton, 2005).

Because culture is a part of the social fabric of a society, it therefore cannot be excluded from one of society’s most important institutions—education. Arabic linguistic and cultural variables are often at odds with traditional Western approaches to teaching and learning. Without due consideration to culture and cultural learning style, distance education designed from a completely Western worldview may handicap non-Western learners’ adaptation to the distance, virtual, and/or online learning experience (McGee, 2002).

With regard to Web-based instruction, there are five cultural dimensions that must be addressed: power distance, collectivist/individualist, masculine/feminine, uncertainty avoidance, and time orientation (McGee, 2002). Power distance (PD) addresses the extent to which less-powerful members expect and accept unequal power distribution within a culture. Low-PD cultures have less hierarchical difference in authority, while high-PD cultures place higher emphasis on leader and expert rather than user. Traditional Arabic education relies on the expert model; therefore, introducing collaborative learning, active learning or constructional learning strategies in these environments may prove problematic for these learners (McGee, 2002, p. 6). Collectivism vs. Individualism refers to the degree to which individuals relate to society or values their own achievement and status (McGee, 2002, p. 7). Masculinity versus femininity addresses gender roles and their variability from culture to culture. Feminine cultures tend to allow cross-gender behavior, while masculine cultures are more likely to maintain strictly defined gender roles. In highly masculine cultures like Arabic, employing learning strategies that included feminine qualities such as role-playing and collaboration may not be successful (McGee, 2002, p. 7). Uncertainty avoidance states that certain cultures vary in their avoidance of uncertainty. In such cultures it is imperative, for instance, to make sure that learner interfaces are structured in such a way that they prevent learners from getting “lost” and that they contain consistent and repetitive visual cues (McGee, 2002, p. 8). Long versus short-term time orientation refers to the fact that cultures with long-term time orientation believe that stability requires hierarchical relationships and view the family as the model for all organizations with elders and males having more authority (McGee, 2002, p. 8).

Culture, traditions, and conventions of a society go a long way in dictating its educational practices. Cultural values play a large role in the way different societies teach and learn in schools. It therefore seems incongruent to design instruction from a Western worldview, superimpose it on Arab learners, and then to insist that cultural interference does not occur.

In Arab countries, in particular, religion is held in high esteem. In many Arab countries there is separation between the sexes all levels of the society, which includes institutions of learning (Akinyemi, 2003). This is a phenomenon that is not experienced in the West. Therefore, Western instructional designers would not take this cultural variable into consideration when developing learning strategies. This separation of the sexes in higher education is threatened with the advent of Western-designed e-learning modules. A cultural conflict may thus emerge as the interaction patterns cannot be easily controlled between the male and female students. Also, religious barriers tend to dissolve in the virtual realm (Akinyemi, 2003).

Web-based learning is usually social and collaborative in nature. The social and interactive process of virtual learning, according to the Western model, often oversteps the cultural and religious boundaries that exist in most Arab countries (Akinyemi, 2003). For many students, these interactions (e-mail, discussions, chats, and bulletin boards) offer them the first opportunities of interacting with counterparts of the opposite sex. Because the cultural, social, and religious practice of the Arabs and, indeed, the Muslim/Islamic world forbid gender interactions or socialization, this is seen as a major cultural interference (Akinyemi, 2003).

There are inherently different ways of looking at the world depending of linguistic and cultural variables. By taking into account these variables, instructional designers may reduce the cognitive load and stress for English second-language learners, thereby contributing to positive learning outcomes (McGee, 2002).

It seems clear that if language and culture are at the heart of meaning-making and cognition, then instructional designers must use a design process that is linguistically and culturally grounded. Instructional design cannot stand outside of language and culture. Attention to linguistic and cultural variables will no doubt lead to improved designs and designers as well. Moving forward, instructional designers must critically analyze the linguistic and cultural dimensions of learners in order to strengthen the instructional design process (Thomas et al., 2002).

In an effort to provide flexible enrollment and lifelong learning availability, Arab higher educational institutions have joined in the global frenzy of providing distance and/or virtual higher education learning environments for their learners. The trend has been to import learning units from abroad, mainly from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Unfortunately, these instructional models have a decidedly Western worldview, and do not take into account linguistic and cultural variables that my cause interference and thus decrease learning outcomes and increase attrition. Going forward, instructional designers must design instruction with diversity in mind. The marketplace is a global one. In order to accomplish the job of creating sound instruction that will lead to appropriate learning, instructional designers must take linguistic and cultural variables into consideration. This is the only way to meet the learning needs of all learners in the growing global classroom.