Preparing students for Native–Non-native Arabic Conversations: Lessons from Cairo's Streets

Introduction: Street-level struggles and surprises

When I first arrived in Egypt in 2017 as a student of Arabic, I quickly discovered that my formal education had not prepared me for the bustling streets of Cairo. I could read a newspaper and conjugate verbs in fuṣḥā (Modern Standard Arabic, MSA), but I could not understand the shopkeeper across the street or the taxi driver taking me home. The disconnect between classroom Arabic and lived Arabic was immediately clear and created unsettling and frustrating feelings.

Throughout my successive experiences in the country, including the one-year  CASA@AUC program at the American University in Cairo (AUC) in 2023–2024 through which I could reach a near-native level proficiency and now continuing as a graduate student in the Master’s program in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language, street-level conversations in Cairo have consistently proven to be challenging encounters. Despite my linguistic proficiency, these interactions are still marked by unexpected dynamics, surprising turns and subtle negotiations of culture and identity, where language proficiency is only one of many factors shaping the exchange.

This is not just my experience: it is a common remark shared by many fellow learners of Arabic who, upon arriving in an Arabic-speaking country, face the crucial unsettling moment of confronting real-life communication. Like me, many students are drawn to Arabic by a deep desire to engage in meaningful, everyday interactions -a motivation that, as Al-Batal (2018) and others have noted, is consistently reflected in studies conducted in the United States, which identify communicative motivation as a primary driver for learners of Arabic.

Yet, these everyday interactions are far from straightforward. As Long (1983) notes, native–non-native conversations are complex socio-linguistic phenomena shaped by a range of features such as speech accommodation. In the case of Arabic, these dynamics are further complicated by its inherently diglossic, and arguably multiglossic, structure (Ferguson, 1959; Bassiouney, 2020). Given this multi-layered complexity, there is a pressing need for research that investigates the lived linguistic realities of learners, especially at the intersection where native and non-native speakers meet and try to communicate. 

Diglossia and Its Real Life Implications

To understand this gap, we must revisit the concept of diglossia, which was first systematically defined by Ferguson (1959) as a “relatively stable language situation” in which a high variety (H) is used in formal, institutional and literary contexts, while a low variety (L) is reserved for informal, everyday interactions. While Ferguson’s binary model has provided the theoretical foundations to study this general linguistic phenomenon, the specific case of Arabic diglossia presents unique complexities that challenge this dichotomy (Bassiouney, 2020). Notably, Bassiouney (2020) highlights that Arabic diglossia is not merely vertical (between H and L), but also horizontal, encompassing a wide spectrum of regional dialects. Furthermore, the distinction between Classical Arabic and Modern Standard Arabic complicates the notion of a unified high variety (Bassiouney, 2020). In response to these specificities, alternative models have emerged, most importantly Badawi’s (1973) level-based classification of Egyptian Arabic, which identifies five linguistic levels ranging from the lowest ‘colloquial of the illiterates’ (‘ʕa:mmiyyat al-ʔummiyi:n’) to the highest  ‘heritage classical’ (‘fuṣḥa: al-tura:θ’) (as cited in Bassiouney, 2020). This model reflects the fluid and dynamic nature of language use in Arabic-speaking contexts, where speakers constantly flow along different linguistic levels depending on a number of factors.

This diglossic reality poses a major challenge for the TAFL field. Students may become proficient in reading news or writing essays in MSA but remain hesitant and not adequately prepared when engaging in complex, multi-layered and fluid everyday interactions, where each interlocutor and context defines different interactional patterns and language use. Such moments are not just linguistic hurdles; they are sociocultural tests that influence learners’ sense of meaningful engagement and communicative confidence.

A small research project from the field

To better understand these dynamics, I conducted a small-scale study for the course “Arabic sociolinguistics” taught by Dr. Zeinab Taha in the framework of my TAFL master’s program at AUC. The study occurred in Downtown Cairo, where I observed street-level interactions between native Arabic speakers and non-native learners. The study focused on whether the age of the native speaker influenced the language variety, between Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), Egyptian Colloquial Arabic(ECA) and a foreign language like English, used in conversation, choosing the age of the native speaker as one of the several variables that can affect language choice in native-non-native speakers interactions in Arabic.

Methodology

Over several weeks, I conducted an observational study of eight spontaneous interactions between native Arabic speakers (NSs) and myself as a non-native speaker (NNS) in Downtown Cairo kiosks. Each exchange followed a consistent structure: greeting, purchase and final request for directions to allow for more accurate comparison.

NSs were categorized by age: Adolescents (AN) (11–19 years), Young Adults (YA) (20–30 years), Middle Adults (MA) (30–45 years), Adults (A) (45–64 years) and Late Adults (LA) (65 and above).

I recorded which language variety was used between Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA), Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), or a foreign language like English, noting code-switching, accommodation strategies and non-verbal cues. Discourse analysis was applied to transcribed audio and follow-up interviews with a number of participants explored their views on speaking with foreigners.

Key findings

• ECA dominated all interactions, regardless of age. MSA was never used deliberately.
• Code-switching to English occurred only among older speakers, often based on assumptions that the NNS wouldn’t understand Arabic. In some cases, they returned to ECA after learning about the NNS’s proficiency but still relied on gestures and hesitated.
• Younger speakers used ECA comfortably, simplifying speech without switching languages. They used informal speech markers like wallahi and Allahu aʿlam, indicating ease and solidarity.
• Accommodation strategies varied by age: older NSs used gestures and repetition, while younger ones exhibited less accommodation strategies without leaving ECA, while still using shorter sentences and slowing down the speech speed.
• Repetition of NNS speech was common across all age groups, helping with confirmation and alignment.
• Non-verbal communication increased with age, often replacing full sentences, especially among older speakers.
• Linguistic assumptions influenced language choice. Interviews revealed that many NSs presumed foreigners do not know Arabic, which drove their use of English or simplified Arabic, even when the NNS showed fluency and expressed her proficiency and love for the Arabic language.
• One middle-aged speaker expressed surprise at the use of colloquial terms like fakka (“change”), highlighting how rare such usage by foreigners still seems.

These results highlight ECA’s centrality in informal contexts and show how age and assumptions about the NNS shape linguistic behavior. While younger speakers tend to maintain ECA and adapt within it, older speakers are more likely to switch languages or rely on gestures, revealing differing views of linguistic distance.

Why this matters for Arabic education

First, these encounters highlight an evolving but still incomplete area in Arabic language instruction. While there has been notable progress in moving toward a more integrative approach that includes dialect alongside fuṣḥā (MSA), students shall be better informed and prepared for the nuance of everyday interactions beyond correct use of the language, extending to communicative and pragmatic competences.

While integrating dialects into curricula marks an important step forward, it is equally necessary to conduct further research into how real-life interactions between native and non-native speakers actually unfold, shedding the light on the fluid and dynamic choice of language variety and communicative strategies in real-life interactions. Although researching and integrating into the teaching these spontaneous, context-dependent exchanges can be challenging, it is essential to deepen learners' communicative and pragmatic competence by anticipating the dynamics they will face, whether it is navigating code-switching, managing misunderstandings, or inviting native speakers to engage in the target language.

Therefore, these results highlight the importance of first inform learners and then expose them to the variety and dynamic sets of authentic, spontaneous speech situations through interaction-based pedagogies that involve role-play, community engagement and the analysis of real conversations. Learners should be taught not just which words are “correct,” but which words and sociolinguistic behaviours are appropriate in a particular context.

Conclusion: A call for contextualized, real-life research on the “living” Arabic

“The Arabic language is a very flexible and athletic language [...], and its possibilities are as many as the Arabs are many,” Edward Said noted in an interview with Bill Moyers (Poetic.com, 2015), a reflection highly relevant here. Remarkably, educators must prepare students from the early stages to understand how Arabic flows into real life: how it is lived, spoken and dynamically, or rather athletically, unfolds in everyday interactions. This extends to recognize how linguistic variation, code-switching and accommodation strategies occur in real-life conversations in the particular case of communication between native and non-native speakers, mirroring the vibrant, living nature of spoken Arabic as it echoes through the streets.

Therefore, this work invites researchers and educators to further explore the complexities of native–non-native Arabic conversations. It calls for an approach to language teaching that prepares learners for more than exams or formal interviews, but also for spontaneous greetings, laughter in the market and the small, everyday moments that make Arabic not just a subject of study, but a lived experience.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Qatar Foundation International (QFI). While QFI reviews guest contributions for clarity and to ensure the content is valuable for our audience, the accuracy and completeness of the information are the responsibility of the author.

References

• Al-Batal, M. (2018). Arabic as One Language: Integrating Dialect in the Arabic Language Curriculum. Georgetown University Press.
• Bassiouney, R. (2020). Arabic Sociolinguistics: Topics in Diglossia, Gender, Identity, and Politics (2nd ed.). Georgetown University Press.
• Ferguson, C. A. (1959). Diglossia. Word, 15(2), 325–340.
• Long, M. H. (1983). Native speaker/non-native speaker conversation and the negotiation of comprehensible input. Applied Linguistics, 4(2), 126–141.
• Poetic.com. (2015, October 1). Edward Said conversation with Bill Moyers: The Arab world, part 1 – The Arabs: Who they are, who they are not [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI6mjFL80xE