A Trilingual Teaching Model for Developing Academic Literacy Skills in Classical Arabic (L1), Hebrew (L2) and English (L3) in Southern Israel

摘要

Developing academic literacy skills in Classical Arabic (L1), Hebrew (L2) and English (FL) among 10th-grade Bedouin students in Southern Israel is of central importance, in light of the country's policies regarding trilingual education for this sector. This paper presents the findings of research which examined the impact of a teaching model where identical strategies of reading comprehension and writing skills are taught simultaneously by the Arabic, Hebrew and English teachers in order to promote academic mastery in all three languages. The method is based on the theoretical connection between languages relating to literacy and the potential of transfer of strategies between languages, as put forth by Cummins, McLaughlin and Kecses & Papp. It is also based on the perception that the trilingual learning environment is dynamic and allows cross-linguistic interactions. The results show that the programme has significantly contributed to improving the overall level of achievement by the students in all three languages by an average of 15.32% in Arabic, 6.95% in Hebrew and 10.36% in English. The results also point to an improvement in the specific skills tested in the areas of reading comprehension and composition writing in all three languages.