Methodology

Modern Standard Arabic Program

The Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) program is tailored to meet the abilities and needs of all students interested in learning or improving Standard Arabic. It provides them with the necessary knowledge and training needed to foster fast learning and acquire full and clear understanding of the Arabic language system. For this, students are introduced to graded texts from very simple to long authentic ones with gradually increasing vocabulary and meaningfully building up blocks of grammatical structures. The program also focuses on sharpening the students’ oral production and listening skills.

The MSA program consists of three levels of studies; each level is divided into three successive and progressive sublevels.

***Aware of the supreme importance of having students understand and adjust to different voice pitches and writings, we have made it our policy to assign a different teacher to a class at each level or more. This method
allows our student to experience our rich and diverse variety of teachers having different specialties within the Arabic language.

Introductory level course.

The foremost objective of the class is to enable students gain basic skills in writing and pronouncing the Arabic alphabet. In line with that, they gradually learn to read words and short sentences. Eventually, they learn the basic phrases and expressions to introduce themselves and know people, employing expressions of greetings and goodbye in addition to learning numbers, days, and the commonly used colors.

Those aims are achieved through implementing a thorough plan that relies on teaching the Arabic alphabet on a gradual basis. That is, a student learns the letter and the word that contains it along with the vowels that go with it, ensuring that these words don’t contain any new letters that learners haven’t been exposed to. At this stage of the course, the book Introduction to the Arabic language along with visual aids and pictures are used.

ELEM 1 (60 hours)

This is in fact the first level. After having been introduced to pronouncing and writing the
Arabic letters, students gain conversational skills in the following areas:

– Exchanging greetings, introducing oneself
– Getting information about other people and their addresses
– Possession
– Dealing with family members and friends
– Jobs
– Physical description
– Shopping and eating at restaurants
– Talking about food and taste, special occasions and feasts
– Offering and accepting invitations or refusing them
– Talking about the near future.

These functions are presented to students in short conversations and dialogues. Students are also introduced to some basic grammatical structures; such as tenses (present, future and imperatives) and adverbs of time and place.

ELEM 2 (60 hours)

This course focuses on reading comprehension and introducing more complex grammatical structures that allow students to further expand their vocabulary and develop the following skills: listening, reading, writing and speaking in the following subjects:

– Vacations, leisure time and daily activities
– Sickness and healing
– Weather forecast and the four seasons.
– Expressing the past and the future
– Talking about the present and daily activities
– Giving one’s opinion and advice
– Asking for help and instructions
– Expressing gratitude
– Describing a place (an apartment and city)
– Giving directions.

ELEM 3 (60 hours)

In this level, learners are given descriptive and functional texts to further expand and build their vocabulary in Arabic. These texts deal with topics related to nature, feelings, and entertainment. More complex grammatical structures are presented.
– Describing the city and the countryside
– Visiting family and friends
– Expressing personal feelings towards the others
– Expressing one’s relation to the others, places and things
– Confirming situations and actions.

INTER 1 (60 hours)

This course exposes students to new topics related to their daily needs presented to them through texts and short conversations. Such needs are related to shopping (grocery shops and markets) and going to the post office, the bank, the train station and buses and other public places.
By the end of the level, students will have achieved the following aims / skills:

– To improve their knowledge in the environment where they live and to enhance and facilitate their communication with other people.
– To improve the functional aspect of the Arabic language, as they move from one stage to a higher one.
– To fill out the various forms related to administrative facilities and write job requests and letters to different services.
– To set appointments in different times and places and to talk to employees and agents.

INTER 2 (60 hours)

This course introduces students to texts that cover a wide range of topics and vocabulary related to media and literature. Such topics are violence and sports; media role in society, hobbies and leisure time.
By the end of this course, students will be able to achieve the following objectives:

– To fluently and clearly express one’s ideas and thoughts
– To show one’s perspectives towards some social issues
– To use statements of imperatives and negation, confirmation and doubt etc.
– To write simple newspaper articles after examining some newspapers and listening to TV. and radio programs.

INTER 3 (60 hours)

Students are introduced to authentic texts dealing with literary and intellectual themes. They are exposed to texts related to Moroccan culture, including traditions, myths, and wedding customs and daily life. Afterwards, students are introduced to authentic texts dealing with poetry, theater, and movies in standard Arabic.
By the end of this course, students will be able to achieve the following objectives:

– To talk and discuss the cultural particularities of Arabic societies (Morocco as an example) in comparison to their own cultures.
– To enhance their writing skills through writing about topics related to culture and anthropology.
– To improve their speaking skills through learning and comprehending the different ways and methods of talking about a particular topic accurately and fluently.

Advanced courses

These courses focus on sharpening the students’ listening, speaking and writing skills in relation to themes of their interest. Students may choose to study:

– The Islamic Arab city: its particularities, components and its history. Examples include Granada, Damascus, Fez, Cairo, Tetouan, Cordoba, etc.
– Important intellectual scholars from the Islamic civilization: Ibn khaldoun, Ibn Rushd, Al-Ghazalai, Ibn Arabi, etc.
– Contemporary world problems: pollution, drugs, illegal immigration, globalization, desertification, etc.
– Authentic texts exempted from literary books: autobiography, novel, popular tales, poem, and short story.
– Issues of contemporary Arab thought: development, democracy, identity, etc.
– Texts related to Orientalism and Occidentalism.