a while / awhile are similar-sounding terms with different meanings (referred to as homophones). To better understand the differences, see below for definitions, pronunciation guides, and example sentences using each term. 👇
a while: NA
awhile: (adverb) for a short time.
a while: NA
awhile: ah·w·AY·l
(Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license. Definitions drawn from WordNet.)