Little research has been conducted on Arab American students at universities (Shoman 2016) and specifically in the heritage language studies field. The experiences of Arab American heritage language (AAHL) students are significantly less examined than those of other heritage language students (Hillman 2019). Arabic language curricula and instructional practices in universities tend to privilege the teaching of Modern Standard Arabic over dialects (Al-Batal 2018; Younes 2018) which marginalizes heritage learners’ prior knowledge of the Arabic culture and its language specifically Arabic dialects used in their home communities. These phenomena can create a non-affirming learning experience for these students. As such in this study I address two questions: ●To what extent do the Arabic language practices in course curricula and instructional practices match those of AAHL students in their home communities? ●How do AAHL students perceive the impact of teaching Modern Standard Arabic on their development of linguistic skills and their identities as Arab American multilingual speakers?In this study I use multiple lenses of translanguaging practice theory and the framework of culturally responsive teaching employing in-depth interviews (Seidman 2019) together with classroom artifacts and language samples to answer the research questions above.

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