Arabic Courses
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Arabic Courses
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The courses are designed for non-native speakers, that is, students who have not studied Arabic before and do not speak any Arabic. These courses provide students with the fundamental skills in: Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, as well as Culture.
The courses are proficiency-based, implying that all activities within the course are aimed at placing the learner in the context of the native-speaking environment from the very beginning.
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Three Arabic courses meet subject-e (Language Other than English or LOTE) requirement for high school graduation as well as admission to the University of California (UC) and the California State University (CSU): Arabic I for LOTE Year 1, Arabic II for LOTE Year 2, and Arabic III for LOTE Year 3.
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Arabic I
This course focuses on listening and speaking in a basic context so that students can learn to initiate a conversation. Students learn frequently used sentence patterns that allow them to communicate on a basic level, which supports their development in both reading and writing. The course will also compare Arabic and American cultures. These activities will help students understand the distinctive characteristics of the humanistic perspective; understand the historical and cultural factors of the Arab world in a global context. This humanistic perspective will be applied to values, experiences and meanings in one's own life. By the end of this course, successful students will be able to demonstrate their grounding in the receptive and productive modes of a variety of tasks. A list of the tasks will be distributed in class. Their listening and reading competencies will be expected to reach a level of Novice-High
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and their speaking and writing competencies will be expected to reach Novice-Mid
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Arabic II
This course provides students with the opportunity to bridge with the Arabic language and cultures from the Arab World. Through a varying spectrum of language tasks and cultural products and practices ranging from quotidian and customary practices to special celebratory events and festivities, inherent to Arab communities in the said regions, students will be actively engaged in learning about diverse facets of the life of teenagers in the Arab World. At the end of the year, students would have developed not only a simple and basic familiarity with some cultural concepts but would rather give a better proof of understanding of that very same culture from the inside. Arabic II connects language learning to other subjects (e.g., connections to nutrition, food pyramid, in health science).
Arabic III
One purpose of the Arabic III course is to continue to develop student proficiency in communication, building upon their learning in Arabic II, by using the Arabic language according to the cultural practices of the Arabic-speaking world. Arabic III takes students with Novice-Mid
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level to Intermediate-Low
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level across listening, speaking, reading, and writing, per ACTFL Performance Guidelines. Arabic III also serves to continue to develop an awareness of the history, geography, and cultural products of the Arabic-speaking world. Students deepen their investigation of community, festivities, cultural norms, practices, and traditions (e.g., gender roles). In addition, Arabic III continues to provide opportunities to compare linguistic similarities and differences between Arabic, English, and the student's home language, if applicable. Upon completion of Arabic III, students will be able to generate questions, use responses in Arabic and communicate with people within and beyond the school setting.
Arabic III Honors (coming soon)
As distinguished from Arabic III, Arabic III-Honors is an enriched two-semester course designed to provide students with additional opportunities to develop their linguistic and cultural proficiencies. Reading skills are enhanced by exposure to more sophisticated examples of literature, topics of culture, politics, and society (e.g Najeeb Mahfooz short novel Arabian Night and Days ). A primary objective of the course is the development of writing skill through free composition exercises in topics of interest to individual students. Students will learn to:
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Function in transactional settings and in some informal situations [contexts];
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Understand the overall meaning, key ideas, and some supporting details in transactional and
some informal texts (oral/written) [receptive functions];
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Break apart and recombine learned material to express personal meaning [productive
functions];
- Deal with topics related to self and the immediate environment [content];
- Comprehend and produce oral and written sentences and strings of sentences [text-types];
- Comprehend and be understood by sympathetic natives [accuracy].
Learners are provided opportunities to participate in interpersonal, interpretive, and
presentational communication; experience cultural products and practices and reflect on the perspectives that underlie them; acquire knowledge and new perspectives from target language sources; learn about the nature of language and culture and how each manifests itself in human communication; and take language beyond the classroom in real-world interactions.
Arabic IV (coming soon)
Arabic IV is an enriched two-semester course designed to provide students with additional opportunities to develop their linguistic and cultural proficiencies in Arabic. Students with intermediate-Low
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to Intermediate-Mid
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will be able to improve their listening, speaking, reading, and writing proficiencies to Intermediate-High*, or Advanced-Low*. Arabic IV also continues to develop an awareness of the history, geography, and cultural products of the Arabic-speaking world. Students deepen their investigation of community, festivities, cultural norms, practices, and traditions (e.g., gender roles). Moreover, the course will refine knowledge of sentence structure and Arabic verb system; will provide activities in more developed writing and more than thirty authentic texts by writers from across the Arab world; and will allow students to study different dialects (example Egyptian dialect).
Arabic IV Honors (coming soon)
As distinguished from Arabic IV, Arabic IV -Honors is an enriched two-semester course designed to provide students with additional opportunities to develop their linguistic and cultural proficiencies, build structural accuracy, expand on reading analysis, and introduction to advanced authentic literary work by famous writers, and poets. Reading skills are enhanced by exposure to more sophisticated examples of literature, culture, politics, and society (e.g. Najeeb Mahfooz short novel Arabian Night and Days). A primary objective of the course is the to develop reading, writing, and communicating skills through intensive study of topics related to history, economics, geography, sociology, politics, and theology of the Arabic-speaking world. Learners are provided opportunities to participate in interpersonal, interpretive, and presentational communication; experience cultural products and practices and reflect on the perspectives that underlie them; acquire knowledge and new perspectives from target language sources; learn about the nature of language and culture and how each manifests itself in human communication; and take language beyond the classroom in real-world interactions.
Arabic for Heritage Speakers
Saturdays only, offered by the support of Startalk
This program provides heritage students of Arabic with unique cultural and language use experiences that develop their ability to communicate. During the program, students have the opportunity to explore the nature and potential of being between worlds and develop increased proficiency in communicating orally, reading and in writing in Arabic, according to the cultural practices of the countries and regions where Arabic is spoken. Students will have the chance to practice grammatical rules needed to accomplish age and stage appropriate communicative tasks. This is accomplished by establishing reasonable receptive and productive objectives, presenting the core vocabulary and grammar through meaningful language, linking forms to communicative tasks, and providing multiple opportunities to process and produce language. The program teaches students to integrate their learning of Arabic to technology and arts. Students learn how to use photography to capture elements of their own culture, and be able to compare it to culture they live in. Also, students learn how to describe their experience and feel proud of their origins.
The first unit takes students through a self-search of the factors that shaped their personalities, Also, they explore the Arab perspectives on inheriting some characteristics from their family, and how friendship and environment affect people's personalities. In the second unit, students have the chance to examine their life between the two worlds. They would talk about their relationship with their day to day life in the United States and their connection to their Arab country. Then they move into a journey of exploration of their heritage countries. Finally they compare and contrast their heritage countries and identify the similarities and differences in traditions and values.
Arabic online
Funded by Startalk and QFI
This is the hybrid portion of the courses listed above. This is not a stand alone online course. Each course is composed of 6 units each, each unit contains 5 lessons. Units are thematic based, focuses on proficiency, and are totally based on authentic texts.
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Arabic I (funded by QFI) coming soon
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Arabic II (funded by QFI) coming soon
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Arabic III (funded by Startalk) coming soon
[*] ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines (Click to download a PDF)
The ACTFL (American Council in Teaching Foreign Language) Proficiency Guidelines are descriptions of what individuals can do with language in terms of speaking, writing, listening, and reading in real-world situations in a spontaneous and non-rehearsed context. For each skill, these guidelines identify levels of proficiency describing the continuum of proficiency from that of the highly articulate, well-educated language user to a level of little or no functional ability. ACTFL Proficiency levels are:
- Distinguished
- Superior
- Advanced
- High
- Mid
- Low
- Intermediate
- High
- Mid
- Low
- Novice
- High
- Mid
- Low
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