Arabic-L:PEDA:query responses

[Dilworth B. Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Tue 09 Nov 1999
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject: Access to Arabic response
2) Subject: Access to Arabic response

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1)
Date: 09 Nov 1999
From: Andrew Freeman <andyf at umich.edu>
Subject: Access to Arabic response

Hi,

  Yes, I used it.  I liked it. I recommend the Arabic Script "Speak
Arabic" version as a good vehicle for introducing the script and a very
high-register Gulfi dialect.  It will get someone off the ground in a
pretty short period of time.  I think you could probably work through it
in about 40-50 contact hours.  It has all the right vocabulary for
shopping and setting up an apartment.  It is also really strong on getting
the student used to the idea that Arabic has a lot of regional varieties.

   So much other stuff that I have seen waters down the Arabic so much or
teaches such a "middle" variety nowadays that I think students spend more
time learning the new variety every time they change contexts, than they
would have spent if you had just taught them the separate varieties as
separate varieties in the first place.  In the end they still have to
learn all of the separate varieties and in addition to the "middle"
variety. I think the question to ask is: does the time spent learning a
hypothetical middle variety actually decrease the acquisition of genuine
varieties by more time than it took to learn the middle variety?  I have
seen Arabs who speak a dialect, but know no FuSHa, pick up a new dialect
faster than I can, and faster than they can pick up FuSHa.  This would
seem to indicate to me, that as far as verbal proficiency goes, we should
be teaching a solid, stable and genuine form of some dialect, with just
enough FuSHa to get by with, in the early stages if we really want to
shorten a learner's acquisition time later on when they want to branch out
and learn new varieties.

  The "Speak Arabic" materials by Tim Franklin come pretty close to
accomplishing this.  The other set of materials that are strong
on this approach are the materials by Munther Younes.  However, Younes'
materials start the learner out with a Levantine variety, which might not
be so useful in the UAE context.

  Karen Ryding (spelling?) has also done some interesting stuff, with
"mapping" your knowledge of FuSHA into one dialect or another, but she
assumes a high intermediate skill level with FuSHa first.

  Something that I did when I was learning Arabic
with Nabila Mango in SF, was to use Levantine Arabic as the language of
instruction in the classroom for learning the i9raab, NaHw l-FuSHa,
reading out loud and discussing readings from the literature.  It was good
for me.

 cheers
Andy

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2)
Date: 09 Nov 1999
From: "Rahawi, Mohammed" <RahawiM at state.gov>
Subject: Access to Arabic response

 I use the full script version for students going to the peninsula. I found
the transliterated version confusing. It take the students just little more
time to learn Arabic script.

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End of Arabic-L: 09 Nov 1999