My name is Abdulwdood Bahhari (or Wadood), a PhD student at Monash University in the Linguistics and Applied Linguistics program since 2019. My PhD explores issues teachers and students face while teaching and learning Arabic as a second language.

I have been teaching Arabic for a few years and have been always curious to learn about the approach and experience of my fellow Arabic teachers. I understand that Arabic may not be the easiest language to teach because of the different varieties (dialects) it consists of.

In my PhD study, I want to explore how teachers manage the different language proficiencies students bring to the classroom – e.g. in Fus-ha (the formal variety in Arabic), Ammyyia (the informal variety in Arabic), English or other languages, and how language learning connects with culture and identity. My research is supervised by Dr. Louisa Willoughby and Dr. Howard Manns.