A comparative study of Arabic and English according to contrastive analysis methods and pedagogical factors

Learning Arabic, as the language of our religion and culture and one of the most enriched and applicable languages of the world, is grappling with numerous deficiencies and challenges in our society. Meanwhile, English is increasingly penetrating into all the layers of mind, thought, and social communications, and wittingly or unwittingly devastate all other languages and cultures employing all psychological, cultural, social, educational, and media forces and tools. Adopting a descriptive-analytic method, the present article comparatively criticizes the reasons behind the deprivation of Arabic in Iranian schools and universities from various linguistic and pedagogical perspectives, evaluates the status of Arabic compared with the prestige attributed to English as an international language, and identifies the effective features involved in an ideal pedagogy and the necessary strategies. The comparative study of the similarities and differences between the syntactic features of Arabic and English compared with Farsi based on the methods of contrastive linguistics and the moderate version developed by Aller and Zia Hosseini (1970) alludes to the fact that the syntax of Arabic as Sami language is extremely different from the Indo-European languages of English and Farsi, and consequently presents many difficulties to the students. Furthermore, the investigation of such factors as curriculum planning, language learner, teacher, textbooks, and other educational tools, and teaching methodologies reveals that unfortunately the planning and teaching of Arabic Iranian schools and universities are exerted quite far from the vast development taking place in teaching foreign languages all around the world.