Training kit on teaching Arabic to non-native speakers
Teaching Arabic to non-native speakers is an important and common topic, because Arabic is a language of great cultural and religious importance, and is used widely across the Arab world. Arabic is the language of the Holy Quran and the language of Islam, and therefore carries great importance for Muslims who wish to understand and recite the Quran and understand Islamic heritage.
Characteristics of the Arabic language:
The language is distinguished by its sound.
The language is distinguished by the association of letters and words with meanings.
The language is distinguished by the presence of synonymy and derivation.
The Arabic language is a derivational language.
The difference between teaching adults and children:
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The model of teaching children:
Teaching children is that activity in which full responsibility is placed in the hands of the teacher to decide who learns, and what and when they should learn. The role of the pupils in the child-teaching model is a receiving role, subject to the teacher's guidance and the information they are given.
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The adult learning model:
Adult learning is that activity dedicated to adults, or the effort an individual makes for purposeful self-growth, practised without formal pressures and not directly tied to a job. When adult learning began in an organised way in the first quarter of the twentieth century, the only model available to teachers of adults was the child-teaching model, and the result was that, until recently, adults were taught as if they were children.
Objectives of teaching the listening skill:
Recognising Arabic sounds and distinguishing between them.
Knowing short and long vowels.
Distinguishing between adjacent sounds that are similar in articulation and pronunciation.
Recognising the relationship between written symbols and their spoken names.
Understanding various phonetic phenomena such as nunation and gemination (tanwin and tashdid).
Teachers of Arabic to non-native speakers, language trainers, and curriculum designers.