For a Teaching of the Arabic Literature in the Global Age: Projects and Suggestions

  • Ramona Ciucani Ca' Foscari University - Venice
Keywords: Teaching, Literature, Arabic Language, Methodology, Renovation

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to raise some questions on the teaching of Arabic Literature in Italian high schools. This teaching is scheduled to be launched in the next years, although the courses’ organization are still far from being fully structured.

The Arabic literature teaching requires a profound renovation. The teachers have to cope with a variety of problems: which syllabus, which methods, which authors and texts to choose for courses? But, more importantly, which teaching approach is to be adopted in the global age, where literature has not only an aesthetic significance but is also of considerable importance from an intercultural and ethical point of view?

Through the presentation of two projects, the author offers some theoretical suggestions to create a learning environment which can be engaging and meaningful for students. The Arabic literature teaching needs to emancipate itself from its orientalistic tinge and become dynamic, student-oriented and up to the standards existing for other European foreign languages teaching.

The Arabic literature teacher cannot be only an arabist, he has to know how to teach literature – i.e. he has to be a 21th-century pedagogue, a literary critic of the global age, a cultural-linguistic mediator and a passionate reader. 

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Author Biography

Ramona Ciucani, Ca' Foscari University - Venice

Ramona Ciucani studied Arabic Language and Literature and Arabic Education at Ca’ Foscari University. She also worked as teacher of Italian language to Foreign students in Italian high and primary schools. She is a literary translator and has taught translation in the Arabic Literary Translation Master of Vicenza since 2009. She is member of the Laboratorio DAR (Didattica dell’Arabo in Ricerca) at Ca’ Foscari University. She translated from Arabic language some poems of ‘Ali Ja‘afar ‘Allaq and Sinan Antoon and three novels: Rapsodia irachena (2010), Dunyazad (2010) and Il gioco dell'oblio (2009). An excerpt of her Master ITALS dissertation “Il laboratorio di italiano L2 nelle scuole primarie e secondarie di primo grado: dalla teoria alla pratica quotidiana” was published in Bollettino Itals, anno IV, 15, Giugno 2006: http://venus.unive.it/italslab/modules.php?op=modload&name=ezcms&file=index&menu=79&page_id=289).

Her main research interests are Literary translation from Arabic Language and teaching of the Arabic language and literature.

ramona.ciucani@gmail.com


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Published
2013-12-09
How to Cite
Ciucani, R. (2013). For a Teaching of the Arabic Literature in the Global Age: Projects and Suggestions. Between, 3(6). https://doi.org/10.13125/2039-6597/1015
Section
Discussing and Experiencing Teaching