ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book explores the complexity of language learning in the Middle East and North Africa region. It describes an innovative reading program, Quality Instruction Towards Access and Basic Education Improvement 2, which was designed to support initial literacy instruction in Arabic, English, and French. The book identifies the English reading levels of first- to sixth-grade public school students and those aspects of the program that were implemented, and finds out what factors led teachers to incorporate or reject components of the approach. It focuses on the pragmatic choices that language learners make when performing speech acts in their second language. The book examines different aspects of academic writing. Foreign language teaching and learning are popular within the school system, as well as in private language institutes in larger urban areas.
