Research on Learning Strategies in Arabic Language Education

The learning of Arabic language like any other foreign language contains four main aspects; reading, writing, speaking and understanding while listening.[i] This learning process can be enhanced if the most appropriate Learning Strategy is used. In this paper the most appropriate Learning Strategy of Arabic Language is suggested. The course outlines for Arabic language are thoroughly studied and several professors and experts of Arabic Language from Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan are interviewed. The author, who himself has vast experience in teaching Arabic language, also had the opportunity to sit in the Arabic language classes to observe various strategies and methodologies adopted by different professors while teaching Arabic. In this paper the time spent on teaching Arabic to the students is also discussed. The appropriate size of the class room i.e, the number of students in Arabic language class also matters in improving the quality of Arabic among the students. The matter of teaching Arabic in Arabic only or in the native language of the students will also be touched in here. As the time has changed and the world is moving ahead on a fast pace, it seems necessary to apply the “Direct Method” while teaching Arabic or any foreign language.[ii] This paper will shed light on what is meant by “Direct Method”. The idea of making the student sit and memorize the dry rules of grammar has become obsolete. The idea of telling the student what part of the phrase is subject or predicate, or what is object and what is a noun or verb, may come later. The idea of memorizing the bulk of new vocabulary in the beginning can also be postponed. Hence a paradigm shift is needed here while talking about the Methodology of Teaching Arabic Language, under the heading of “Direct Method”.   [i]     Muhammad Abdul Khaliq, Professor of Arabic and co-author of 'al-Arabia baina Yadaik'. The author of this research paper had a personal interview with him on 21.03.2014, in the Institute of Arabic Language, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. [ii]    This method is adopted roughly by some great scholars of Arabic language like Dr. V. Abdur Rahim who taught Arabic language for decades in the Islamic University of Madina, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The author was fortunate to meet with him many times and get benefitted from his experience. See for details: Abdurrahim, V. (1999), Arabic Course for English-Speaking Students, Leicester: UK Islamic Academy. See also: Abdullah, F. Ibrahim. (1999), Iqra Arabic Reader. Chicago: Iqra International Educational Foundation. Moreover see: Fawzan, Abdurrahman and others. (2004), Al-Arabia Baina Yadaik, Riyadh: Ministry of Education.

Physio-Molecular Evaluation of Selected Exotic Wheat Lines under Drought and Heat Stress

Genome-wide association mapping shows promise for identifying quantitative trait loci (QTL) for many traits including drought and heat stress tolerance. During first cropping season, seven International Maize and Wheat Improvement center (CIMMYT) bread wheat nurseries were screened under rain fed conditions and based on high 1000 kernel weight and parentage diversity 108 high yielding lines were selected further evaluation. Wheat performance was checked at two growth stages i.e. seedling and post anthesis, at seedling stage stress was imposed by using two different potentials (-3bar and -6 bar) of polyethylene glycol (PEG 6000) and heat stress 36Cº for 3hrs daily. At post anthesis, three stress treatments including individual drought, individual heat and combination of drought and heat stress were imposed in glass house and open field conditions. The data was recorded for seedling, yield traits, physio-biochemical traits and stress related traits for two consecutive cropping seasons (2014-2015 and 2015-2016) at the National Agriculture Research Center (NARC) Islamabad. The germplasm was genotyped with high-density Illumina 15k single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip to identify genomic regions associated with traits under drought, heat and combined stress. Total 9464 highly polymorphic markers were used for calculation linkage disequilibrium, population structure and marker trait associations. Structure analysis divided germplasm into 5 major clusters and highest rate of linkage disequilibrium was recorded for D genome due to its recent origin. Mixed linear model (MLM) with kinship matrix as covariant is used to calculated maker trait associations best linear unbiased estimates (BLUEs) values. For seedling traits significance threshold was log10(P)>3.0 while for pot and field experiment significant threshold was set by xxii using standard (1/n, n= no of markers) method and significance of an association was further checked by using FDR < 0.05 threshold. For seedling trait 1191 association significant beyond threshold were recorded most of these were concentrated on chromosome 7D. For traits studied in post and field experiment 300 and 105 significant associations (beyond p value threshold) were recorded while 128 associations in the pot experiment crossed FDR significance threshold and 35 MTAs were significant at FDR under field condition. Fifty-four and nineteen pleiotropic region associated with multiple traits were recorded under pot and field experiment respectively. Significant MTAs detected in the present study were similar as reported by the previous studies while some differ with respect to their chromosomal position. The MTAs detected in combination of drought and heat stress can be helpful in marker assisted selection to improve drought and heat tolerance of wheat.