Empirical directions in the future of Arabic second language acquisition and second language pedagogy

This chapter offers a brief overview of areas which have been investigated in Arabic second language acquisition research, discusses areas which have only recently received some attention, and then points to roads not taken in light of well-established and emerging models and trends in both second language acquisition research and teaching. For SLA research and second language pedagogy interface to be practically effective, SLA research needs to be relevant to the classroom as well as accessible to language teachers. This would help bridge the divide observed between SLA researchers and classroom teachers and allow more research findings to inform classroom practices than has been attested thus far. Much of Arabic SLA research has been conducted in the domain of morphosyntax. Among significant findings (for classroom teaching and learning) of studies on morphosyntax is development of Arabic verbal negation within a certain developmental sequence and interaction with its presentation in the instructional input.