Contemporary Arab World – Literary and Linguistic Issues

Publication entitled The Contemporary Arab World. Literary and Linguistic Issues was designed and written by the members of staff of the Department of Arabic Studies of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. It shows results of the research linked to their scholarly and didactic interests. It is a collection of six papers dealing with selected issues in the field of Arabic language and literature, focused on phenomena and processes taking place in contemporary Arab world. Teaching Arabic as a foreign language faces many methodological challenges connected with the specificity and complexity of the sociolinguistic situation in the Arabic world. They mostly concern the necessity for considering different types (registers) of the language, distinguishing, understanding and using which makes it possible for learners to achieve full communication skills. The end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century brought above all a new look at the didactic process, forcing revision of the traditional grammar–translation method in teaching foreign languages. Higher education schools must cope with new problems connected with their functioning on the broad market of formal and informal education, which is determined by the term "success on the job market". Needs and expectations of learners change. Which direction will development of Arabic Studies take then? How to bring together the mission of higher education institutions and pragmatic needs of the market, or current needs of "consumers" and guidelines of central curricula. Is such compromise possible?