Publication entitled The Contemporary Arab World. Literary and
Linguistic Issues was designed and written by the members of staff of
the Department of Arabic Studies of the Jagiellonian University in
Kraków. It shows results of the research linked to their scholarly and
didactic interests.
It is a collection of six papers dealing with selected issues in the
field of Arabic language and literature, focused on phenomena and
processes taking place in contemporary Arab world.
Teaching Arabic as a foreign language faces many methodological
challenges connected with the specificity and complexity of the
sociolinguistic situation in the Arabic world. They mostly concern the
necessity for considering different types (registers) of the language,
distinguishing, understanding and using which makes it possible for
learners to achieve full communication skills.
The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century brought above
all a new look at the didactic process, forcing revision of the
traditional grammar-translation method in teaching foreign languages.
Higher education schools must cope with new problems connected with
their functioning on the broad market of formal and informal education,
which is determined by the term "success on the job market". Needs and
expectations of learners change. Which direction will development of
Arabic Studies take then? How to bring together the mission of higher
education institutions and pragmatic needs of the market, or current
needs of "consumers" and guidelines of central curricula. Is such
compromise possible?
