Description
Offered: Term 2 and Term 4 each year
Our Introductory Arabic 102 course for beginners continues our study of the Arabic language and builds upon the knowledge of the Arabic script gained in the Arabic 101 course. Over the eight weekly sessions during this Term, students will continue to gain reading and writing practice, continue their study of elementary Arabic grammar, learn new vocabulary, and gain additional conversational skills.
New students who may already be familiar with the Arabic script (e.g. may currently speak or may have previously studied a related language like Persian or Urdu) but do not know any Arabic, are eligible to enrol in our Arabic 102 course.
Students have three options for attending our courses once they have registered:
- attend in-person classes in our Hamilton classrooms at the regular scheduled day and time,
- attend our live on-line classroom sessions via Zoom at the regular scheduled day and time,
- watch the live-recorded class sessions at you leisure at a time, day and place more suited to your schedule.
These options can be mixed and matched throughout the course to suit your own availability and location.
Our Introductory Arabic 102 class continues with our study of the Arabic language and builds upon the knowledge of the Arabic script gained in the Arabic 101 course. Over the eight weekly sessions during this Term, students will continue to gain reading and writing practice, continue their study of elementary Arabic grammar, learn new vocabulary, and gain additional conversational skills.
Subsequent term courses in our Introductory Arabic series (i.e. our Arabic 103-104 courses) continue with reading and writing practice, introductory grammar, vocabulary, and developing conversational skills.
Class day and time: This course next meets in 2022 Term 2 on Tuesdays in the 6:00-7:30pm time slot and meets for eight consecutive weeks. The first day of our Arabic 102 course is on Tuesday 10 May and the last day is on Tuesday 28 June 2022.
Location: EarthDiverse, 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (see map below under Location tab), on-line via Zoom, or through video recordings of our live-streamed sessions posted 1-2 days after each class.
Note: Those who cannot make the class meeting day and time either in-person or via live Zoom sessions may consider accessing this course through the weekly recorded video sessions. Class videos are posted within 24 hours of each live class session and are available for your own personal learning session on a day and time of your choosing.
My name is Esraa Abdelmaksoud. I was born and raised in Egypt, and I graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmaceutical Studies. I worked as a pharmacist for many years in the Alexandria University Hospital before moving with my husband to Doha, Qatar. After eight years of living in Qatar, my family and I moved to New Zealand. I lived in Auckland for six months before settling in Hamilton. I have been in Hamilton for four years. I studied business in 2019 followed by a Health & Wellbeing course at Wintec in 2020.vI have participated in a Flourish leadership program for ethnic women for one year. I am currently doing a Diploma in Health and Community Support. I have volunteered with the Refugee Orientation Centre as an HR coordinator. I am currently teaching an Arabic course for non-Arabic-speaking children at RICC. I enjoy reading novels, walking, trying multicultural recipes, and travelling. I have been to Lebanon, Turkey, South Korea, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia. I have explored multiple regions in New Zealand with my family. In my spare time, I try to learn new languages. So far, I have studied basic French and Spanish conversational skills and I am now trying to pick up the Turkish language. I am excited to join the EarthDiverse team and I am looking forward to sharing Arabic language and culture.

DISTANCE-LEARNING OPTIONS:
In addition to our in-person classes in Hamilton, our Arabic language courses offer distance learning options for those unable to attend classes in-person. Live-streamed Hamilton classes are available via free Zoom software for those living outside the Waikato. Live-streaming allows you to participate fully in your own learning, ask questions of the instructor and participate fully in the same way as if you were in the physical classroom.
Those unable to attend the scheduled date and time of the actual class sessions, or those who need to miss a class or two due to previous engagements or unexpected illness, can watch any or all of the live-recorded video sessions on their computers, laptops, tablets or mobile devices and study at their own pace and in their own time.
Detailed instructions on how to access our distance learning components will be sent after completing your registration. There are no additional fees for this service. However, distance learners will need access to a desktop or laptop computer with a good quality web-camera (tablet devices and mobile phones can also access our live-streamed classes), a built-in microphone (most modern laptops have built-in microphones) or a headset with a microphone. You will also need to download and install the free Zoom software on your computer or device. Those accessing the video recordings will be able to do so with a simple web browser on any device.
Prerequisites for this Arabic 102 course are:
- Arabic 101
Students already familiar with the Arabic script (e.g. those who can read and write in another similar language like Persian or Urdu), but who cannot speak Arabic or who do not know any Arabic grammar, are also eligible to enrol in this course.
Cost per person per Term (8 classes):
- Waged: NZ$150 (includes GST and online registration fee)
- Unwaged (unemployed, students, seniors): NZ$125 (includes GST and online registration fee)
Prices for Waged and Unwaged registrants remain the same regardless of your chosen method for accessing our courses. This means that you have the option to mix and match access between attending our regularly-scheduled live class sessions in our Hamilton classrooms, accessing our live class sessions on-line via Zoom at the regularly scheduled class meeting time (no matter where you are located), or watching the video-recorded sessions anywhere at a time and date of your choosing. This allows you to study at your own pace and in your own time.
Once registered, you have three choices for attending your course:
- attend our in-person class sessions in our Hamilton classrooms,
- Zoom in to our live classroom sessions and participate in discussions,
- access the live-recorded class sessions each week. This allows you to register for an entire course, even though the scheduled class session day/time may not be suitable to your schedule. You may also use this option to watch any recorded session for review, or in case you may miss a class session due to prior engagement, being away, or due to illness. This allows you to catch up with any “missed” sessions at a more suitable time.
Once registered, you will receive detailed instructions on how to access our courses via either of the distance-learning options, i.e. live access via Zoom, or watching the video-recorded sessions.
Course materials are provided to all registered students in the form of handouts, PDF attachments emailed to students, or digital materials made available to you for download. There is no need to purchase any additional Arabic textbooks for this course, although you may choose to do so to supplement your learning.
You will only require a pen or pencil and a notebook for taking your own class notes. Any notes that our instructor writes on the class whiteboard will be emailed to you as a digital PDF file so that you can print these out at home and add them to your own notebook.
LOCATION: All in-person classes are held at the EarthDiverse offices and classrooms located at 401 Anglesea Street, Hamilton Central, Hamilton (located just north of the Hamilton Central Bus Station) (entrance is located on the side of the building, see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front of the building in any of the available car parks. Daytime parking can be found in our dedicated car parks, or free 2-hour on-street daytime parking can be found just in front on Anglesea Street.

DISTANCE-LEARNING: You get to chose your location when you Zoom in to our live classroom sessions, or access our classes at your leisure and at a time and day of your choosing by watching the video recorded sessions from each class. This allows you to study at your own pace.
“I wanted to learn Arabic however with work was unable to stick to the class room schedule. The classes with EarthDiverse were emailed to me each week with a link to the Zoom video of each class along with copy of the class notes. This allowed me to complete the lessons in my own time (and be able to pause and review) and still have the ability to contact tutors if necessary. I would definitely recommend this format which is informative, easy to follow and understand with ability to go over previous lessons if needed”. —Scott Percy, Tauranga, January 2021