The Arabic Language major sequence enables students to acquire valuable skills pertaining to the use of Arabic in a communicative way as well as understanding of the Arabic culture. It trains students to achieve communicative competence in the four skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It also prepares students to function at different levels within the Arabic speaking societies and interacts with people.

In the first year students undertaking Introductory Arabic "A" and Introductory Arabic "B" develop abilities to understand and produce basic competence in both written and oral grammatical patterns both orally and in writing using Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), ability to interact in limited aspects of everyday life situations. Emphasis at this stage is on mastering the Arabic sound system and pronunciation.

This course assumes no previous knowledge of the language. It covers the Arabic script, sound system and basic grammar rules. The teaching uses a new method of audio-visual and audio-lingual approach and is designed to develop the four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing by the use of dialogues ,class interaction, oral and written drills. Language laboratory work may be incorporated into the course. On completion of the course, students will have acquired a spoken facility at a basic level in Modern Standard Arabic; the ability to read and understand a range of simple Arabic texts within a vocabulary range of 300-400 most commonly used words and some basic grammatical structures of Arabic language and familiarity with some Arabic cultural practice and tradition.

The course starts with some conversation in Arabic and the Arabic alphabet and aims at equipping the student with the principles of Arabic composition.  The course uses MSA through the audio-lingual approach and realistic dialogue in order to give students a sound training in both spoken and written Arabic.

At the conclusion of the course, students will have achieved language competency in the following skills:

Reading Proficiency:

(1) Recognize all of the characters of the Modern Standard Arabic alphabet

(2) Demonstrate ability to read very simple connected written material in a form

equivalent to usual printing or typescript

(3) Demonstrate ability to read either representations of familiar formulaic verbal

exchanges or simple language containing only the highest frequency structural

patterns and vocabulary

(4) Demonstrate ability to read and understand known language elements that have been recombined in new ways to achieve different meanings at a similar level of simplicity

Speaking Proficiency:

(1) Articulate minimum courtesy requirements and maintain very simple face-to-face conversations on familiar topics such as personal and accommodation needs,

introduction and identification of self, others, objects; exchange greetings, elicit

and provide predictable and skeletal biographical information

(2) Formulate and respond to simple questions

Writing Proficiency:

(1) Demonstrate sufficient control of the writing system to meet limited survival

needs and limited social demands

(2) Create sentences and short paragraphs related to most survival needs such as food, lodging, transportation, immediate surroundings, and some situations including limited social demands

(3) Express fairly accurate present and future time

(4) Identify and use some past verb forms

(5) Relate personal history, discuss topics such as daily life, preferences, and very

familiar material

(6) Demonstrate good control of elementary vocabulary and some control of basic

syntactic patterns

(7) Use a dictionary to advantage to express simple ideas

Listening Proficiency:

(1) Demonstrate sufficient comprehension to understand utterances about basic

survival needs and minimum courtesy and travel requirements in areas of immediate need or on very familiar topics.

(2) Understand simple questions and answers, simple statements and very simple

face-to-face conversations in the Modern Standard Arabic.

(3) Comprehend conversation about basic needs such as: meals, lodging,

transportation, time and simple directions.

(4) Demonstrate comprehension of main ideas.

Homework (10%), language lab (10%), quizzes (10%), attendance and class participation (10%), mid-semester exam (written 20%), final exam (oral 10% and written 30%).

Four class hours and one hour of autonomous work in the language laboratory per week

Nil

Alosh, M., Ahlan wa Sahlan, Functional Modern Standard Arabic for Beginners, New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2000.