Mr Nadim Ben Mohamed Mahjoub

This is a non-credit bearing course available to all LSE students, staff and alumni.

Assumed prior knowledge:

Students should demonstrate command (at both written and oral level) of the "Communicative Content" and "Structural Content" of LN703: Arabic Level 2 (Standard). Please see the course description of LN703: Arabic Level 2 (Standard) online.

Additional requisites:

• For admission into the course, students must complete a level test and obtain the tutor's approval.
• Students should demonstrate commitment to regular attendance and to the completion of homework, and assessments.
• Students should expect to dedicate at least two hours per week to independent study (homework, vocabulary review, reading, and listening practice) in addition to classroom contact hours. 

Course Aims

• To develop the use of Arabic
• To offer an insight into one major dialect of the Arabic language
• To establish the skills, language, and attitudes required to promote and facilitate further study of Arabic
• To bring students to Level A2 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)

Communicative Content

• Talking about present events and experiences
• Talking about past events and experiences
• Describing people, places, and objects
• Talking about habits, hobbies, and daily routine
• Making comparisons between people, things, and places
• Using both the past and the present
• Talking about future plans (further details)
• Giving opinions
• Expressing agreement
• Expressing wishes and plans for the future
• Writing a biography

Structural Content

• Revision of the past tense
• Revision of the present tense
• Revision of negative phrases
• Prepositions with pronoun suffixes
• Forms of the Arabic verb (Forms 1–4)
• Comparatives
• Adverbs of frequency
• Maṣdar (verbal noun)
• Time expressions
• The verb kāna ('to be') and introduction to hollow verbs
• Plurals (broken plurals 1–5)
• Future tense
• Numbers
• Adjective–noun agreement (human/non-human)
• Use of the accusative
• Declension (nominative, genitive, accusative)

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

Resources

Students will be provided with a study pack designed and prepared for LSE students by Nadim Ben Mohamed Mahjoub.

Other useful materials

• Al-Batal, M. (Ed.). (2018). Arabic as one language: Integrating dialect in the Arabic language curriculum. Georgetown University Press.
• Brustad, K., Al-Batal, M., & Al-Tonsi, A. (2011). Al-Kitāb fī taʿallum al-ʿArabiyya, Part 1: A textbook for beginning Arabic. Georgetown University Press.
• Wightwick, J., & Gaafar, M. (2009). Mastering Arabic 2. Palgrave Macmillan.

Dictionary

• Doniach, N. S. (Ed.). (1983). The Oxford English-Arabic dictionary of current usage. Oxford University Press.

Oral examination (30%).

Continuous assessment (70%).