Social Aspects and Reading, Writing, and Working Memory Skills in Arabic, Hebrew, English, and Circassian: The Quadrilingual Case of Circassians

Abstract

The case of Israeli Circassian students is unique because they study four languages which they require for daily life: Arabic is for reading the Koran; Hebrew is the language of the dominant group; English is an international language and is needed for academic purposes; and Circassian is their mother tongue. This study investigated the attitudes of 40 ninth-grade students from the two Circassian villages in Israel toward each language. They were tested in the four languages on word identification, word attack, spelling, working memory, oral cloze, orthography, and phonological awareness. The results indicated that the Circassian students possessed integrative attitudes to their own language and sensed its low vitality. Generally they possessed positive attitudes to all four languages. The reading results indicated poor reading in Circassian. However, all working memory and language skills were related within and across languages. The regression analysis procedures indicated that word recognition and spelling skills in the first, second, and third language were the best predictors for the mother tongue Circassian, which was studied as a fourth language. The results are discussed in light of multilingual education.

Keywords:

• Circassians
• quadrilingual case
• attitudes
• foreign languages
• reading
• writing