ABSTRACT
As I write this chapter on teaching Arabic in the United States, enrollments in Arabic have leveled off the all-time high achieved in the years immediately following 2001; however, Arabic is now firmly established in the top ten foreign languages studied in U.S. institutions of higher education (ranking number eight). The most recent Modern Language Association (MLA) enrollment statistics indicate that many foreign languages have lost ground in terms of enrollment in the past decade (an average loss of 6.7%), but that Arabic enrollments—although they have lost some of their earlier momentum—have remained relatively robust. Arabic enrollments in 2013 dropped off slightly from 2009, when they were recorded at 34,908. In 2013 they were recorded at 32,286, a 7.5% drop. It is important to note, however, that at least part of this decrease results from a change in survey categories in 2013, with more detailed enumeration of enrollments in Arabic colloquial courses (e.g., Egyptian Arabic, Gulf Arabic) not included in the total “Arabic” score. MLA officials point out that if one adds in these courses for specific Arabic vernaculars, then the drop in enrollment since 2009 is only 4.8%, a number considerably below the national average decrease of 6.7% (Goldberg and Looney, 2015, pp. 9, 29). It is unfortunate that spoken Arabic course work was not automatically included in the overall enumeration of Arabic enrollments for 2013; it is to be hoped that this oversight will be remedied in the next MLA enrollment survey, due in 2017. It is of course very useful to have statistics on spoken Arabic enrollment as separate from statistics on Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), but I think just about everyone in our field would consider such enrollments part of Arabic enrollments overall. An encouraging statistic is reflected in the percentage of advanced undergraduate programs reporting stable or increasing enrollments in Arabic: 66.8%, indicating that learners are tending to pursue Arabic learning at more advanced levels (Goldberg and Looney, 2015, p. 79).
