Pedagogy - High School

The Arab Academy offers a program for middle level and high school students that are based on US national standards for learning a Foreign Language. The program is composed of four language levels: zero, one, two and three. Students who are not familiar with the Arabic sound system and script should start at level zero. Those who are already familiar with the Arabic alphabet should skip it. With the exception of level zero, which is a short one that should be each of the three language levels is divided into 4 or 5 parts. Each part revolves around a theme such as Family Life at level one and Future Plans at level three. For more information on the course content, visit the appendix related to the curriculum. One of the powerful features of the Arab Academy's courses is that it provides the translation and sound files of every word and sentence used. It is also important to note that the all waves are recorded in two vanities: formal and informal. The formal variety provides full 'tashkill' or case endings and the informal variety does not offer the 'tashkiil'. The idea is to familiarize learners with the different ways they can be exposed to Modern Standard Arabic. Students are also given an option to listen to the same same words and sentences in colloquial. This important feature prepares students from the very beginning to deal with diglossia (two varieties of the same language used). The phonetic rules that are followed to transfer sounds from Standard Arabic to Egyptian Colloquial are given (more dialects to be added). This has proven to be very useful tool that assists students at envisioning the similarities and differences between the two varieties and develop a familiarity with them. As previously indicated, a language level is composed of a number of parts. Each part is composed of a number of sessions. With a session, all sessions are organized in a similar fashion. They are composed of the following: 1. Presentation The main objective of the Arab Academy's programs is to teach students how to communicate. Communication is the focal point of our courses. Hence, we begin by introducing sentences within a situation. We follow the global method, which enables students to learn words and expressions in the context of the story. Topics are chosen to correspond to national US standards for learning a Foreign Language. 2. Vocabulary For each situation a number of semantic groups of words are given. This enables students to talk about the same situation but personalize it to his or her needs. For example, if the situation was related to accommodation, and the main story was about a visit to a beautiful apartment, then other relevant words are needed to enable students to talk about apartments they did not like. 3. Functional Expressions Every unit introduces a number of functional expressions such as greetings, apologies, etc. Those expressions are used in the situation. However, variants of the expressions are presented. So if the story presents "good morning", then under 'greetings' students learn other variants such as "good evening", etc. 4. Questions & Answers This is found in level one only. It presents questions and answers in order to train learners on asking and responding to questions. 5. Activities or Games Over twenty activities are given per session to help students re-enforce and retain all elements studied. The tests are similar to the activities. So students should only move forward to take the end of session online test, when they are fairly comfortable working on the activities. Below is a sample on the types of activities available on each session Presentation: Comprehension   Dialogue Comprehension   Vocabulary Word Recognition Correct Order of Letters Arranging Letters to form a word Identifying correct form of letter Matching Words Word Recognition - extra word Meanings of Words Spelling   Group Games Tic Tac Toe (A game for 2 players) Cards Pot Luck (Play against the computer) Knowledge Bank (A Game for 2 teams)   Grammar Definite & Indefinite Nouns Gender: masculine & feminine Number Case Ending Root Spelling Verb Conjugation - Past Tense Verb Conjugation - Present Tense and much more ....

Teaching Methods: Tips and Tricks (For Teachers and Self Study)