Modern Arabic (elementary level I) [ LARAB1100 ]

None (basic course). Taken together with the LARAB1102 course, this course corresponds to the elementary level of Arabic at the ILV. It is a prerequisite for all other Arabic courses offered at the UCL.

This course is a first introduction to Literary, or Standard Arabic in its modern variety, which is the language of the media and all official communication in the entire Arab world today.
It aims at learning and analyzing short texts and oral expressions in Modern Standard Arabic.
The course includes pronunciation drills and exercises in reading and writing.
The course covers the following aspects of learning the Arabic language:

• identification and reproduction of Arabic phonemes and a first training in classical pronunciation;
• introduction to the Arabic script and its phonetic transcription, as well as to reading and writing;
• acquisition of  a limited number of words that are easy to recognize and to memorize.

By the end of the course, the student should have acquired:

• a first basic knowledge of Arabic grammar
• basic vocabulary in Standard Arabic
• knowledge of the Arabic alphabet, with basic reading and writing skills
• the cognitive stragegies needed to understand very simple written texts and oral expressions in Modern Standard Arabic
• the skill to build very simple sentences (without subordinate) and to recognize the structure of such sentences.

1. Indicative continuous assessment based on systematic questioning in class.
2. Combined individual exam (oral and written), after the end of the course. The exams for LARAB1100 and LARAB1102 may be taken simultaneously.

This course includes classroom instruction sustained by the iCampus virtual teaching environment. It requires active involvement, with written excercises to be prepared for each class, as well as both written and oral excercises to be carried out in class.

This course is a first introduction to Literary, or Standard Arabic in its modern variety, which is the language of the media and all official communication in the entire Arab world today.
It emphasizes continued acquisition of immediately applicable basic vocabulary, as well as the main mechanisms of the language, through the study of morphology and syntax.
This training provides the first step towards a proficiency level that compares to level A1 of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages.

Note: the Arabic language has a range of characteristics that make its acquisition notoriously hard for French-speaking beginners. It has a set of consonants unknown to us, a distinct right-to-left script, and a complex grammar with declensions, with stronger gender marking than in French, and with a system of number distinction that goes beyond our mere distinction between singular and plural. Additionally, Arabic vocabulary shares few elements with French or other languages usually known to students. Thus, it is difficult, at least with respect to the first year, to apply the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages to the Arabic language acquisition.

Printed texts, photocopies, documents presented in digital format, sound recordings. The course provides E-learning activities, with compulsory registration on the i-Campus platform.
Textbook: Luc-Willy Deheuvels, Manuel d'arabe moderne, Paris : Langues et mondes/ L'Asiathèque, 2008 (ISBN 978-90-441-2185-8).

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