Text classification and gradation in Arabic textbooks

“Such ‘ readability studies ’ examine the linguistic features of a text to determine its ‘ ease of comprehension ’ score (Graesser et al. 2004; Crossley et al. 2007).”

“Tomlinson (2012, 162) explains that ‘ an authentic text is one that is produced in order to communicate rather than to teach ’ .”

“…simpli fi ed texts provides ideal comprehensible input that aids understanding and long-term language acquisition and matches the linguistic and communicative needs of learners, especially at the beginning and intermediate levels (Crossley et al. 2007; Guariento and Morley 2001; Sung et al. 2015).”

“Research shows that this slows reading and word processing at early levels even for native speakers, let alone for non-native speaking readers of Arabic (Daniels and Share 2018; Yassin, Share, and Shalhoub-Awwad 2020).”

“This is also con fi rmed by readability studies (Barrot 2015; Sung et al. 2015).”

“…e ff ect on students ’ learning, the use of too complex demanding texts for learners ’ current pro fi ciency level can be linguistically, cognitively and culturally overwhelming and demoralising for students, which can negatively a ff ect their progression (Crossley et al. 2007; Renandya 2015).”

“The current paper builds on the work in Mohamed (2021b) and assesses the reading texts ’ di ffi culty in four popular Arabic textbook series generically classi fi ed as (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, etc.).”

“Research shows that this slows reading and word processing at early levels even for native speakers, let alone for non-native speaking readers of Arabic (Daniels and Share 2018; Yassin, Share, and Shalhoub-Awwad 2020).”

“In other words, texts aimed at lower levels should be characterised by high-frequency, simple, familiar every-day vocabulary, whereas higher level texts are characterised by less frequent and diverse vocabulary (Barrot 2015; Graesser, McNamara, and Kulikowich 2011; Hong et al. 2020).”

“Discourse type refers to the text genre, which is believed to a ff ect ‘ structural complexity ’ (Barrot 2015, 73).”

“Gutierrez Bermudez (2014) and Athanasiou et al. (2016) agree that authenticity is not just about real-life materials, but also real-life situations and the vocabulary needed in such contexts.”

“The problem with the Grid as it is was that it focused more on textual than linguistic features; besides, the linguistic categories were not speci fi ed enough to enable accurate assessment of text di ffi culty (Natova 2019).”

“Authenticity has multiple dimensions such as authenticity of text, authenticity of task, including purpose, activities, interaction, suitability and relevance of the language to the target students (Guariento and Morley 2001; Beatty 2015).”

“Ahlan wa Sahlan (henceforth AwS) (Alosh 2006, 2010a, 2010b) In this section, I will fi rst give an overview of the main tool of analysis (the adapted Dutch CEFR Grid) and the textual and linguistic features included in it, quantitative analysis and qualitative analyses.”

“…purpose of this section is to raise teachers ’ awareness of the role of these features rather than employing statistical measurements of target linguistic and textual characteristics, which are typical in readability studies (e.g. Sung et al. 2015; Uchida and Negishi 2018; Uri and Abd Aziz 2018).”

“The current paper builds on the work in Mohamed (2021b) and assesses the reading texts ’ di ffi culty in four popular Arabic textbook series generically classi fi ed as (Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced, etc.).”

“A), book 1-third edition, book 2-fi rst edition (Wightwick and Gaafar 2009, 2015).”

“A), book 1-third edition, book 2-fi rst edition (Wightwick and Gaafar 2009, 2015).”