Dr. Al-Batal is a specialist in language pedagogy and his research focuses in particular on the theories and practices of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL). He has published in the areas of Applied Linguistics, Discourse Analysis and Pragmatics, and is a co-author of Al-KitaabArabic textbook series. He has recently finished editing a volume titled Arabic as One Language: Integrating Dialect in the Arabic FL Curriculum. This volume will come out in Fall 2017 and will be published by Georgetown University Press. Dr. Al-Batal has contributed two chapters to this volume: “Dialect Integration in the Arabic Foreign Language Curriculum: Vision, Rationale, and Models,” and “Dialect Integration: Students’ Perspectives within an Integrated Program” with Christian Glakas. In addition, he has contributed a chapter on the theory and practice of teaching the listening skill in TAFL to a volume published by King Abdulla Center for Arabic in Riyadh, Saudi Arabic.Dr. Al-Batal is currently working on a research project aimed at analyzing the negative attitudes of college-level Arab students towards Arabic and the extent to which these attitudes could be reversed through alternative pedagogies of teaching Arabic t aligned with principles of learner-centered and content-based teaching.
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