It is well known that in the course of learning the main difficulties lie in the acquisition of a new linguistic inventory as well as the rules of its functioning and their application. Besides that foreign language study makes it necessary not only to rethink the vocabulary and its semantic fields, but, to some extent, to bring amendments to the existing system of measures and values, cross-cultural codes and behavior patterns. The current research examines of the balance between dialects and MSA in the curricula in state and private (religious) universities as well as recent publications dedicated to this problem. It also considers results of a survey conducted among teachers and students of universities and colleges in Russia and is focused on the effectiveness of various approaches to Arabic teaching. The authors developed questionnaires included queries related to teaching methods and their implementations in the course of studying mediaeval and modern texts, development of comprehension and reading skills. The current research tries to consider the pros and contras of existing attitudes towards studying Arabic with the focus on Islamic studies.