LN701     
Arabic: Level One (Standard)

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Requisites

Additional requisites:

• No previous knowledge of Arabic.
• Students should demonstrate commitment to regular attendance, completion of homework, completion of the dossier and all assessments.
• Students should dedicate at least two hours per week for coursework in addition to classes.

Course aims

• To develop the use  of Arabic at survival level.
• To raise awareness about the two Arabic varieties (formal and colloquial).
• To learn the Arabic writing system.
• To introduce students to a major dialect of Arabic.
• To establish the skills, language and attitudes required to promote and facilitate further study of Arabic.
• To bring the students to level A1- of Common European Framework.

Communicative content

• Greetings
• Asking for and giving personal information
• Talking about your immediate family
• Talking about studies and jobs
• Talking about your city and country
• Talking about present actions
• Talking about hobbies

Structural content

• Alphabet
• Joining letters
• Pronunciation
• Feminine and masculine words
• Roots
• Present tense
• The definitive article
• Independent pronouns and pronoun suffixes
• Nouns-adjective phrases
• Numbers 0 to 100
• Plural
• Dual
• Word order
• Demonstrative: this (masc./fem.)
• Possessive pronouns
• Interrogatives (where, when, what, in which,etc.)
• Prepositions: in, between, etc
• Countries, nationality (nisba) and languages
• Idafa (genitive construction)
• Use of "also, where, in the same, etc."
• Use of some adverbs: a lot, a bit, well, etc.

22 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
16 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

Please refer to the LSE timetable for course teaching arrangements.

16 hours of classes in the AT. 22 hours of classes in the WT. 2 hours of group tutorial time, as arranged by the teacher during the AT, WT, ST. 

Students will be provided with a study pack.

Other useful materials

• Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic, Letters and Sounds by Brustad et all. Georgetown Univ. Press, Second or Third Editions
• Al-Kitaab fii Ta‘llum al-‘Arabiyya  Al-Kitaab Fii Ta Allum Al- Arabiyya: Pt. 1: A Textbook for Beginning Arabic by Brustad et al, Georgetown Univ.Press, 2011
• Arabiyyat al-Naas (Part 1). An introductiory course in Arabic by Munther Younes, Routledge, 2014
• Mastering Arabic Grammar, Jane Wightwick and Mahmoud Gaafar, Palgrave Macmillan, 2005
• Arabic as one language, Mahmoud Al-Batal (ed.), Georgetown Univeristy Press, 2018

Oral examination (30%)

Continuous assessment (70%)