HARVARD UNIVERSITY DIVISION OF CONTINUING EDUCATION Extension

SCHOOL PROGRAM E-1  

Fall 2015  Course instructor Feryal Hijazi  E-mail: fhijazi@fas.harvard.edu  Office: 38 Kirkland. Cambridge MA 02138

COURSE OUTLINE

Required Textbooks: a) Brustad, Kristen. Alif baa with DVDs: introduction to Arabic letters and

sounds (Book & DVDs) (2nd Edition) : (2004) b) Al-Batal, Mahmoud, Kristen Brustad, and Abbas al-Tonsi. Al-Kitaab fii Ta ‘allum al-‘Arabiyya with DVDS: Part One. 2nd ed. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press.

Recommended Arabic-English Dictionary c) Wehr, Hans. The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. Ed. J.M. Cowan (5th Edition).

Elementary Arabic: The  course  introduces  students  to  the  phonology  and  script  of  Modern  Standard  Arabic  and  covers  the  basic  morphology  and  syntax  of  the  written  language.  Emphasis  is  placed  on  the  development  of  the  four  (reading,  listening,  speaking  and  writing)  skills  at  the  earliest  stages.  The  various  aspects  of  modern  Arab  culture  and  society  will  provide  contexts  for  the  language  learning  process.  

Lesson Plans:

Lesson  plans  will  be  given  to  you  on  weekly  basis,  detailing  all  of  the  in-­‐class  and  homework  assignments,  which  will  be  covered.  Hopefully  every  Saturday.  

General Objective: d) The goal of this course is to develop proficiency and ability to

communicate in Modern Standard Arabic using all language-related skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing).

Speaking:    

e) - introduce yourself and talk about your background and your future plans using a wide range of vocabulary and different grammatical structures,

f) - describe a third person, and hold a conversation with a native speaker about basic topics such (your city, your trips, your interests, your study, your family).

Writing:  

- One long essay (About any Arab personality or Arab country, Family, summer holiday, to be assigned by the instructor……) is due on TBA.

Listening:  Please  make  sure  you  have  the  audio  CD.    

Method  and  Approach:  

The teaching/learning method in this course is communicative, which requires that students engage fully in all classroom activities. Arabic as a medium of instruction and classroom tasks will be emphasized as students progress throughout the semester. This approach requires students to apply grammatical theory and vocabulary to real-life language tasks. By the end of the course, students will be able to:  

g) introduce themselves and talk about their background and future plans using a wide range of vocabulary and different grammatical structures,

b) talk about and describe a third person, c) read various styles of connected prose from journalism and other

general cultural media, d) engage in conversation with a native speaker about basic topics, such as

the student’s hometown, trips, interests, studies, family, e) compose essays on similar topics of immediate concern and interest, as

well as on aspects of contemporary Arab society, f) achieve a command of the fundamentals of Arabic grammar and build a

solid working vocabulary.

Requirements:    

1- Regular and punctual attendance is required. Students who miss class for any reason are fully responsible for learning materials covered in class, without the instructor. 2- All unexcused absences will affect your attendance and participation grade. Students who exceed more than two unexcused absences will fail the course. The only excused absences are: (1) illness with documentation from UHS (2) religious holidays (3) absences with a letter from your dean. Homework must be submitted on time for full credit, except in the case of an excused absence. Late homework may be accepted, at the discretion of the instructor, for half credit. Because homework is a way to learn and practice skills that you are responsible for on the quizzes and exams, it is graded primarily on effort. Before submitting an assignment, students will usually be required to check and correct their work with an answer key on the course website. Homework that has not been checked or that shows signs of insufficient effort will not be accepted. Students are expected to come to class prepared and to participate in all class activities.

 2- Students will be tested and quizzed regularly. There will be a weekly or biweekly a 15-minute quiz, a test following the completion of the phonology and script, and a test after approximately every two lessons. There are no make-ups for tests and

quizzes for unexcused absence 3-Students are advised to read the instructions in the textbooks carefully and to follow the suggestions made in them.  

Collaboration  Guide  line:    2 Students are encouraged to work together on homework assignments and

projects. It is also permitted to consult instructors, more advanced students, and native speakers. However, students must write out their own submissions, and they are responsible for understanding all content they submit.

3 When writing essays, students may also collaborate in these ways, but they must be able to reproduce independently everything they submit, and all collaboration must be described in a footnote.

4 For all written exams and quizzes (both take-home and in-class), students must work independently and without books or notes, unless the instructor explicitly permits otherwise. Please  Note  the  following  important  notes:  In  class: Students are expected to attend class on time and to participate fully in all class activities. Class participation is a very important factor in determining the final grade. Arabic is the primary language of communication in class, and students should try their best to have questions and comments be in Arabic as much as possible. After couple weeks when doing group work in class, only Arabic should be used. the more you push yourself to express yourself entirely in Arabic, the more your confidence speaking in Arabic will increase.

                         Homework: Students should come to class every day fully prepared and having carefully completed all homework assignments. Students are expected to keep all handouts and organize them so that they can use them again in the future. Remember that your homework is a very important part of your grade –  one missed assignment on average will bring down your semester grade roughly 1 point. Homework assignments which are turned in late can receive at most half-credit if one day late, and will not be accepted later than that. Each homework submitted should be stapled, if it includes multiple pages you should assume that you are required to copy out the entire sentence, not just the answer.

                       Attendance  and  Participation:                      As we have only seven weeks to cover a year’s worth of Arabic, attendance is

extremely important. Every unexcused absence will lower your grade by one point (e.g. from 87 to 86). The only excused absences are: illness (confirmed by a letter from your doctor/hospital), religious holidays (the instructor should be informed at least one week prior to the holiday), and family emergencies (confirmed by a letter from your dean). Every tardiness of five minutes or more (entering class at 12 minutes past the hour) counts as ¼  of an unexcused absence.

(The attendance and participation grade will be determined by punctuality and participation in both lectures and sections.)

 Tests:  Make-up quizzes and tests are given only in exceptional cases to be decided by the instructor. Should you have an anticipated absence on a test day, you should email the instructor beforehand to ask about the possibility of arranging a makeup test.

 Grading system:

Quizzes and tests: 30% Attendance and participation. 20% Homework. 20% Final exam (written and Oral) 30%

EVALUATION  SYSTEM  

GRADING  SCALE:  

A,  A-­‐  :  Earned by work whose excellent quality indicates a full mastery of the subject and, in the case of the grade of A, is of extraordinary distinction.  B+,  B,  B-­‐:  Earned by work that indicates a good comprehension of course material, a good command of the skills needed to work with the course material, and the student’s full engagement with the course requirements and activities. C+,  C,  C-­‐  :  Earned by work that indicates an adequate and satisfactory comprehension of the course material and skills needed to work with the course material and that indicates the student has met the basic requirements for completing assigned work and participating in class activities. D+,  D,  D-­‐:  Earned by work that is unsatisfactory but that indicates some minimal command of the course materials and some minimal participation in class activities that is worthy of course credit toward the degree.  

A=  95  -­‐  100  

 

 

B+=  87  –  89  

 

B-­‐=  80  -­‐    82  

 

C=  73  –  76  

 

D/D+=  65  –  69  

 

A-­‐  =  90  –  94  

 

B=    83  –  86  

 

C+=  77  -­‐  79  

 

C-­‐  =  70-­‐  72  

 

D-­‐  =  60  –  64