Title Basic Arabic for advanced learners
Narrator
I was the tutor and facilitator for the course
Situation
The setting was a room in Bristol University, where a group of PhD students, each of whom is writing a thesis on Middle-East Social Politics, have come together with a desire to learn the basics of Arabic in order to further their studies. None of them had any previous knowledge of the language.
Task
I hoped that I would be able to teach them the rudiments of Arabic, as well as a few pre-fabricated phrases that would be useful in context. This should give the ability for the individual to at least begin to understand the meaning when a political broadcast is made. I would feel that I had been successful if the students were able to view a report from Aljazeera and then discuss it – even if the discussion was in English, they would have to have understood enough to talk about it afterwards.
Actions
The first step was an introduction to the spoken word in Arabic, learning basic greetings and respectful phrases. This produced no surprise results, but the PhD group did grasp the basics very quickly. The next step was to introduce the written word in Arabic. This is a more complex field, and required deep concentration from the students. I did not expect the group to be able to read after just one lesson about the alphabet, so I was not surprised when no-one was able to do so. The lessons gave the history of the language and the links to religion (Islam), we then moved on to pre-fabricated phrases related to social politics.
Results
The students all gained a good background of Arabic culture and language; the students used the target language for instruction very quickly, with a rapid grasp of basic religious and polite phrases. I am meeting objectives, but each day I check if progress has been made (through plenaries), and adjust lessons accordingly. The additional outcomes were that the students were very quickly able to respond to questions in Arabic, and to write from right to left,
Reflections
The main reflection is that I should make more use of audio-visual (VARK) resources, as I found that students learned more quickly using this method. I also discovered that prefabricated phrases can teach a lot if the students are willing and ready to learn.
