Arabicization in high education : the case of medical colleges in the Sudan

This thesis explores language policies, language conflict and language-user attitudes toward arabicization which refers to the use of Arabic as a medium of instruction in teaching medicine in universities in the Sudan. It follows up these objectives: (1) To highlight the roots of arabicization and implemented language planning activities through document analysis. (2) To report on the advantages and disadvantages of both Arabic and English as media of instruction in teaching medicine in the Sudan. (3) To survey the attitudes of students and their instructors in the colleges of Khartoum, Omdurman and Gezira universities towards arabicization using two similar developed questionnaires and an interview for faculty members. The questionnaires were distributed to the students and faculty members in the three colleges to probe six factors: (I) The extent of use of languages of instruction (2) Readiness of the students to receive medical studies in English (3) The difficulties they face (4) English as a medium of instruction in medical colleges (5) Arabic as a medium of instruction in medical colleges (6) Students' preference of a language of instruction. The study utilized tables, charts and chi square tests to illustrate the attitudes of students and their faculty members. The study has revealed that the attitude of most of the students and their faculty members were in favor of arabicization in principle. In fact, students showed support for the pedagogical benefits of Arabic like they can prepare and study in Arabic in less time than English. They can take more notes in Arabic than in English. The study has highlighted that Arabic as a native language of the students offers them a mighty and indispensable support for the ability to convey ideas, capacity for imaginative or creative thinking than the limited capacity given by the foreign language. Notwithstanding, English is reported to be very important for students' current medical studies and future career. The study emphasized that the language shift to Arabic should not lead to marginalize English in higher education in Sudan. A realization of the need of boosting the teaching of English in case of arabicization is fully implemented was present in the participants' responses. To conclude, the study has culminated in calling for benefiting from the successes of human resource development (HRD) in leading change in organizations in language planning and language policy implementation.