English abstract
The Problem of this study was stated in the following questions:
1- What are the learning disabilities of prosody which are experienced by
students of Omani Secondary Schools as viewed by Arabic supervisors and teachers?
2- To what extent do the students experience such disabilities?
3- What are the possible reasons for such disabilities?
4- What is the proposed remedy for these disabilities?
To answer these questions the researcher adopted the following procedures:
A- Presenting a theoretical framework, containing a discussion of prosody which included: concept, reasons of disability, renewal attempts, integration with other branches of Arabic language, integration with music education, and basic skills of learning. In this framework the researcher also discussed the present status of teaching prosody in Omani Secondary Schools.
B- Designing a questionnaire for Arabic teachers and supervisors, aimed to survey their opinions about: Learning disabilities of prosody for the Secondary Stage Students in Oman. The researcher established the validity of the questionnaire by a panel of Judges.
Designing a diagnostic test for learning disabilities of prosody to diagnose these disabilities for the secondary stage students in Oman. The validity of the test was established by a panel of Judges. The reliability of the test was Calculated using the split-half method (reliability Coefficient = 0.88).
D- Offering suggestion to remedy the learning disabilities associated with prosody in the Omani Secondary Schools. The Sample of the study was made up of (39) Arabic supervisors constituting 88.6% of total population from seven regions in the Sultanate, (153) Arabic teachers constituting 20% of total population from the same regions, and (205) students constituting 15.2% of all the third secondary students in the Muscat region, in the 1995-1996 academic year.
Frequencies, and percentages were used for the statistical analysis required for the questions of study.
The Important Results were:
1- There are several disabilities in learning of prosody for the secondary stage students such as: perception of meters of free verse, identification of the dissonance in a line of poetry, distinction among several meters of poetry, and stating the name of the meter.
2- There are several reasons which may explain such disabilities. Based on the Arabic supervisors' and teachers' opinions, the main reasons were students' weaknesses in Arabic in general, that causes reading disability in poetry, and lack of poetic appreciation skills.
3- Attainment of a proposed program in prosody that may remedy learning disabilities of prosody for the Secondary stage students in the Sultanate.
They Study offered the following recommendations:
1- The necessity to review the present curriculum of prosody in the Sultanate in the areas of: aims, content, methods of teaching, time, and evaluation.
2- Training students on the prosody learning disabilities which were found by this study.
3 More field studies are needed in prosody such as: A proposed remedial program in prosody for the learning disabilities which were highlighted in this study, and evaluation of Arabic teachers performance in teaching prosody in the Sultanate.
