Guest Author - Julie L Baumler
Arab Academy provides a versatile and effective set of programs for learning Arabic. They offer lessons online, speaking lessons via Skype, and in person classes in Cairo, Egypt. They offer classes for children, high school, and adult learners. Their high school level classes were designed around the standards of Fairfax County, Virginia and have been successfully accepted for credit by many high schools in the US. Their college level courses follow the standards of the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and have been accepted for credit at several US colleges and universities. Both the high school and college level courses are also used by a number of US schools as all or part of their Arabic curriculum.
When you choose to study at Arab Academy, you have a number of curriculum choices. In addition to courses for different age levels, you can choose between studying contemporary or Koranic Arabic. If you choose contemporary Arabic, you can choose between the Egyptian dialect or Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Adult students of Koranic Arabic can choose between the standard curriculum based on the study of various verses from the Koran or a simpler curriculum called "Stories from the Prophets" that teaches Arabic using stories of different prophets. The later is also used by many students as a supplement to the contemporary curriculum. You can also choose to take a speaking course to go with your online course. Speaking courses consist of a scheduled hour a week of conversation via Skype (an Internet phone service) with your assigned instructor. The speaking component is based on what you are studying online. They also have a curriculum for native speakers that is approved by Egypt's Ministry of Education.
The online courses are much more than a piece of assigned reading and written exercises. They use Java and Flash to provide an interactive learning environment combining pictures, text, and sound to teach the concepts and follow with interactively scored exercises. Like the instructional components, the exercises are suitable for visual and auditory learners and include components to support kinesthetic learners as well. Each lesson also includes a graded composition (text to copy at the lowest levels) and a test. For further interactivity, the course includes several forums. Students are required to post once per lesson in the Arabic forum and at least once per course in English in the student forum. The Arabic posts are answered by the teachers in a manner that illustrates correct usage (if necessary) and continues the conversation. There are also forums for help from the teacher and with technical problems. The online and speaking courses are at your own pace, but they recommend spending at least five hours a week on the online course. Tuition is by the month, so the faster you progress, the less you pay per class and vice versa.
A third option is to study in person at their location in the Garden City neighborhood of Cairo. I only have personal experience with their online courses, but I have heard great things about both the classroom courses in Cairo and the speaking courses from other students on the student forum. I hope to be able to take advantage of both these opportunities in the future.
All curriculum tracks start with learning the Arabic alphabet and Arab Academy has the best instruction I've seen for learning the Arabic alphabet in their Arab 100 course. I would highly recommend this course as a first step for anyone who wants to learn Arabic – it is also a good way to check out how Arab Academy's online courses work. If you have already studied Arabic, Arab Academy offers the Arabic Language Proficiency Test (ALPT) to help place you in the correct course.
Not only is Arab Academy's curriculum effective, it is fun!
