ABSTRACT
Foreign language teachers, especially those who are new or with limited experience to various approaches, tend to be overly concerned with methodology. Too many are obsessed with the pursuit or promotion of what they believe to be the best method for learning Arabic. Scores of controlled studies have failed to establish that one method is significantly better than another (Long, 1980; Doughty, 2003). Such studies have typically shown that the differences within a group (those due to individual learner differences) are consistently greater than the differences between groups (differences resulting from the “treatment,” the methodology). This is not to say that method does not matter, only that it is not the all-important factor. Language is such a complex phenomenon that manipulating a single factor (such as method) cannot decisively determine the outcome of the entire language learning process.
