Description
Offered: 2021 Term 2, 2021 Term 4.
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 meets in 2021 Term 2 on Mondays in the 5:00-6:30pm time slot. While the rest of our Term 2 courses begin the week starting on Monday 10 May, our Arabic courses will be delayed by one week this year due to the end of the Holy Month of Ramadan. Our Term 2 course therefore begins on Monday 17 May 2021 and meets for eight consecutive weeks. The last day of our Arabic 102 course is Monday 5 July 2021.
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.
Our new Arabic & French language instructor, Mohamed, was born and grew up in Tunisia. Raised in an educational environment, his parents are both French teachers. Mohamed speaks three languages fluently: Arabic, French and English. He is also fond of art, music and travelling. As a teenager, he used to teach programming and published a programming exercise book to help students in their baccalaureate exam preparation. Mohamed holds an Engineering degree from the National Institute of Applied Sciences & Technology of Tunis with Honours. He worked in Oil & Gas for 5 years and then for 7 years in the dairy industry. His work trips allowed him to discover amazing places such as Sudan, Algerian Sahara and Andalucia. Since he came to Hamilton in 2019, Mohamed has been working as Senior Materials Handling Engineer & Project Manager. He participated in building huge dairy factories around New Zealand. Mohamed has a lot to share through EarthDiverse, and you have the choice to learn it in French or Arabic.
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: $125 (includes GST and online registration fee)
- Unwaged (unemployed, students, seniors): $105 (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 Arabic classes are held at Artmakers Trust, Norris Ward Park Arts Centre, 2 Seddon Road, Hamilton, located on the corner of Ward Street and Seddon Road in downtown Hamilton. The carpark entrance is off Seddon Road at the back of Norris Ward Park. The classroom is immediately to the left of the Waikato Society of Potters studio. There is plenty of free parking available in the carpark just outside the classroom. Bikes are also welcomed!
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
