Arabic-L:PEDA:Alatul! textbook

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 11 Jun 2012
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1) Subject:Alatul! textbook

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1)
Date: 11 Jun 2012
From: aguilar at UM.ES
Subject:Alatul! textbook

Dear Colleagues,
Relating with "Books with Script incorporated into First Book", I would
like to introduce/Alatul! ///////على طول/(V. Aguilar, M.A. Manzano & J.
Zanón), published in Spain, 2010 and reprinted in 2012. You can see the
first lesson, theacher's book and mp3 audios in the publisher webside:
http://www.herdereditorial.com/section/3857/

We have already adaptated Alatul into English andt It is our intention
to find a publisher for it. Any suggestion would be very welcomed.

We are happy with the results, because in just 45 up to 60 hours
students can read and write quite good. It is plenty of proper names and
international words that make the task of reading Arabic so funny.

I send to you some paragraphs from the presentation of the book.

Its principal objective is to familiarize students with reading and
writing in the Arabic language. We have used pedagogical criteria which
we believe to be both necessary and advantageous to begin to learn
Modern Standard Arabic / العربية الفصحى المعاصرة.This orientation can
and should commence with the very first phase of learning.Even the first
written and phonetic materials required for learning to read and write
in Arabic should cultivate students’ oral skills.These skills are
essential to the learner, because they permit him or her to acquire and
later consolidate the other abilities (grammatical, socio-linguistic,
discursive, strategic, etc.) required by the new linguistic code. //

/Alatul! /!////على طول/is conceived as a tool for English-speakers in a
learning environment with an instructor.The independent learner,
however, will also find recommendations and strategies for study, as
well as diverse materials and resources which will allow him or her to
get acquainted with the new system of written signs and sounds which he
or she hopes to learn.In any case, both instructors and independent
learners will find that the method is most effective if they follow the
detailed descriptions in /Alatul! Instructors’ Manual / /على طول! كتاب
الأستاذ/./The material provided in this book is equivalent to a level
A.1.1, as it represents between forty-five and sixty teaching hours,
depending upon a number of variables: the presence or absence of an
instructor, the ability and commitment of the students, the type of
educational center, etc.In a university context, it would be equivalent
to between four and six ECTS credits (European Credit Transfer System),
assuming that the student dedicates additional hours to studying at home.//

The system employed here for presenting the letters differs from the
traditional alphabetic order, and reflects justified pedagogical
criteria.The book starts with letters which are simpler both from a
calligraphic and a phonetic point of view, later moving on to other more
complex ones.Along the same lines, to facilitate reading strategies we
introduce easily recognized words, which make up more than 50% of the
seven hundred and fifty words which appear in the book.The auxiliary
signs used in the book have been limited to those strictly necessary so
that the student becomes accustomed to written Arabic language as it is
generally found.Once the initial difficulty caused by the absence of
these marks has been overcome, the student will be pleased to discover
that he or she can approach texts in Arabic without them.

In its external form, /Alatul! /!////على طول/is presented like an Arabic
book, that is, to be read from right to left, an order which the
presentation of content also reflects.The book is divided into eight
teaching units (plus one review unit), each one made up of the following
elements: an index of contents and goals, a table with letters and
written signs, instructions regarding how to write the letters,
auxiliary signs, grammatical, orthographic and phonetic questions,
general vocabulary, proper nouns, specific lexicon, reading exercises
(both mechanical and for comprehension) and writing exercises.These do
not have to be followed in a strict linear order; rather, the order is
flexible and open.The guidelines for work presented in /Alatul!
Instructors’ Book/ / على طول! كتاب الأستاذare helpful in this regard.

The book begins with an introductory unit which discusses some
theoretical aspects of the Arabic language and concludes with a review
unit including linguistic material appropriate for this phase of
learning.The idea is that sound, form and function should come together
in the same working space, as it is more effective to learn them
together than it is to learn them separately.In addition to these units,
there is an answer key to the exercises, classroom vocabulary, some
brief notes on Arabic calligraphy, and two glossaries: Arabic – English
and English – Arabic, with all the terms presented in /Alatul! ///!
//على طول//./All of this is accompanied by mp3 audio tracks as well as
graphic animations which describe how each letter should be written.This
material may be downloaded free of charge from the Herder Editorial
webpage: www.herdereditorial.com/arabe
<http://www.herdereditorial.com/arabe>.

In closing, we would like to offer a few reflections on writing in
Arabic.The process of writing well and of developing a calligraphic
handwriting which is correct and adequate to any circumstance requires
systematic and prolonged training.Greater skill and agility require more
hours of work and calligraphy exercises.Our objective in this section is
to offer examples which may encourage the development of precise and
elegant forms, without losing sight of their real and practical
character.To this end, the tables for introducing the letters of
calligraphy appear here with two types of writing.The first is closer to
print type (/naskh/) and is obtained through digital typography.The
other, however, follows the kind of handwritten letters used in the
Orient (/ruq’a/) and has been prepared for this purpose by Paula
Santillán.We recommend imitating both models, as this will help students
understand the letters better and improve their reading skills.Students
will improve notably if they pronounce each word as they copy it –
preferably with a pencil, which will allow them to erase.Reading and
writing are complementary processes, tightly linked.

Victoria Aguilar
Área de Estudios Árabes
Universidad de Murcia
34 868 883041
aguilar at um.es


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End of Arabic-L: 11 Jun 2012