Arabic Improvers 1

Entry Requirements

This course is aimed at students who have attended Arabic Beginners 2 or similar or have a basic knowledge of Arabic. It will introduce students to contemporary Arabic, developing all four skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Overview

The module will equip students with a very basic knowledge of the countries where Arabic is spoken and encourage their curiosity about the language, the country, the people, their environment, society, traditions and culture. It will enable the student to reach a level of very basic competence in the four main areas of listening, speaking, reading and writing.

The student will acquire basic language skills, to enable students to:

• Expand upon daily routines
• Describe houses, buildings and places
• Discuss social events: going to the cinema, theatre…
• Compare and contrast things
• Using Arabic dictionary
• Talk about cultural issues: hospitality, Arabic names and countries
• Discuss issues of differences and similarities in different Arabic countries

Teaching and Learning 

You will be working in groups or pairs with the emphasis of the course being on participation and practice. Our aim is to develop student skills using communicative language and you will be encouraged to actively participate in class through various friendly activities designed to stimulate communication.

We recommend that you spend time between the lessons, revising and practising what has been done in class.

Learning Outcomes

On completion of this module, students should be able to: 

1. Demonstrate that they can cope at a basic level in face-to-face exchanges in Arabic, for example: meeting and greeting, giving personal information, introducing self and others, functioning in commonplace situations;
2. Extract specific information from short texts such as literacies, newspapers, advertisements;
3. Translate specific information from short texts such as literacies, newspapers, advertisements;
4. Write basic Arabic, with a basic linguistic accuracy.

Assessments

The assessment of this course is divided into four parts to assess each of the following skills: speaking, listening, reading and writing. It is designed to enhance what you have learnt during the course.

Speaking: Recording of a short speaking exercise.

Listening: Answering questions in English on a short recording, lasting no more than five minutes.

Reading: Comprehension exercise based on text such as novels, newspapers, advertisements etc. Questions will be asked in English.

Writing: A written task.

To award credits we need to have evidence of the knowledge and skills you have gained or improved. Some of this has to be in a form that can be shown to external examiners so that we can be absolutely sure that standards are met across all courses and subjects. 

Reading Suggestions

A full reading list can be found via the following link:

Arabic Improvers 1

Route Progression

Students who successfully complete the module should feel that they have a good introductory command of Arabic and should be able to proceed to Improvers 2 or equivalent.

What Do I Need? 

As this is a face-to-face course, you will need the following:

• Pen and paper/notebook or access to digital equipment to take notes.