The pragmatics of Arabic literature in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers: The short story as an example

Language Teaching, including teaching Arabic to non-native speakers, has achieved considerable progress in merging cultures and civilizations into each other. The interest in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers has recently increased, resulting in the proliferation of various colleges, academies and centers specialized in teaching languages, in the Arab world. However, there is still a need to maximize these efforts, to improve both strategies of teaching Arabic to non-native speakers, and the content provided which covers various literary genres.
This research aims to employ literature in teaching foreign languages, and sheds light on short story as the most popular literary genre today, due to the literary features in its form and content. This calls on employing it in the teaching process, to revive interest and pleasure in the learning process, enhance students’ understanding, strengthen their comprehension of abstract ideas as well as theoretical concepts, and to improve their language learning skills.
This research stems from a theoretical vision which confirms the ability to use the short story as a literary subject in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers. It aims to show the importance of literature in teaching foreign languages, define the paramount status of short story educationally and academically, and show its features, along with exploiting it in teaching Arabic to non-native speakers.