CHRISTINA MICHEL
Egyptian Colloquial Arabic for Beginers Course
Document Author
Christina Michel
Executive Summary
Purpose
Egyptian colloquial Arabic language is the spoken language (dialect) of the people of Egypt. It sounds a lot different than the standard Arabic that is only used in official manner like in books, press, news, education and so on because it contains so many terms and words from the ancient Egyptian language and other foreign languages besides Arabic that is spoken in a different way from the standard form. As a result, non-Arabic speakers need a beginner course to push them into the main basic life activities if they already live or plan to live in Egypt and to encourage them to deal with Egyptians because this will be the main field of practice as books and traditional language studying means will not help here.
Why an online course?
Since the learning of this language will depend mostly on listening and speaking, a beginner student will need a source that is:
-
available whenever they need to review or revise
-
a handy reference to pronunciation techniques
-
a content with exercises that can be reviewed and practiced on demand
An online course provides also an easier way to several and various resources like video and audio content that can be saved or downloaded for further practice.
Target Audience
Adult non-Arabic speakers from any background with very limited or no knowledge about the language who:
-
reside in Egypt
-
plan to live in Egypt in the future for any reasons (studying, entertainment, work, etc…)
-
are assigned or in contract within a corporate or an organization in Egypt and wish to learn the language for personal or professional reasons
Instructional Strategies
This course will cover the following:
-
Basic conversation expressions and important terms and vocabulary for daily life.
-
Communicative functions and grammatical rules
Learners who will join this course are expected to underdo different tasks and activities to ensure they gain the adequate knowledge required to start applying it in daily life. Throughout the course, learners will be given activities for formative assessment considered as “assessment for learning” as well as graded quizzes, summative and formative assessments and a signature assignment to assess performance.
Learning Gap
Egyptian colloquial Arabic language is the spoken language (dialect) of the people of Egypt. It sounds a lot different than the standard Arabic that is only used in official manner like in books, press, news, education and so on because it contains so many terms and words from the ancient Egyptian language and other foreign languages besides Arabic that is spoken in a different way from the standard form.
As a result, non-Arabic speakers need a beginner course to push them into the main basic life activities if they already live or plan to live in Egypt and to encourage them to deal with Egyptians because this will be the main field of practice as books and traditional language studying means will not help here.
Since the learning of this language will depend mostly on listening and speaking, a beginner student will need a source that is:
-
available whenever they need to review or revise
-
a handy reference to pronunciation techniques
-
a content with exercises that can be reviewed and practiced on demand
An online course provides also an easier way to several and various resources like video and audio content that can be saved or downloaded for further practice.
This beginner course is useful for expatriates in the corporates or NGOs in Egypt as well since it is for daily life use and not official. It will time because it can be taken anywhere and at any time without interrupting the office hours and the daily work flow which was an issue we faced when teaching onsite during the office hours.
Terminal Objective
By the end of the course, the learner will be able to participate in basic conversations involving shopping, numbers, money, date, time, seasons, weather, introducing oneself, possession and existence by identifying and relating the terms and expressions learnt through listening as well as to use those expressions and vocabulary to ask and answer basic questions with acceptable pronunciation of most of the alphabet sounds with close pronunciation to the unfamiliar ones to the learners’ spoken languages.
Course Outline
Introduction:
-
Course overview and purpose
-
Types of assessments required from learners to pass to next level