Description
Offered: Term 2 and Term 4 each year
Our Introductory Arabic 104 course continues our study of the Arabic language and builds upon the knowledge of the Arabic script gained in our Arabic 101-103 courses. Over the eight weekly sessions during this Term, students will continue to gain reading and writing practice, continue their study of introductory Arabic grammar, learn new vocabulary, and gain additional conversational skills.
Subsequent term courses in our Intermediate Arabic series (i.e. our Arabic 201-204 courses) continue with reading and writing practice, intermediate grammar, vocabulary, and developing additional conversational skills.
Class day and time: This course is next offered in 2022 Term 2 on Monday evenings from 5:30-7:00pm, beginning Monday 9 May 2022, and will continue for eight consecutive weeks.
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.
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.
Dr Mahmood Arif has been a specialist dermatologist for over 30 years. He has continued in this profession as he is passionate about helping people overcome their medical challenges and takes joy in seeing people progress through their journeys. He has worked in both the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Interior (Police Medical Services) as part of his role, which has enhanced his communication skills with people from all backgrounds. Apart from work, he enjoys sports (particularly tennis, swimming, and jogging). Mahmood is also very family-oriented and takes pride in having raised 6 children and is a grandfather to 5. Ever since retiring and moving to New Zealand he has taken this time to give back to the community. He currently volunteers at Diversity Counseling New Zealand as an Ethnic Advisor as well as a Multilingual Facilitator at the Department of Ethnic Communities. In addition, he has been working for Decypher as an Arabic Interpreter. Offering his experience through these platforms has been very enjoyable and interesting. Mahmood joins the EarthDiverse team as one of our three Arabic instructors.
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 104 course
- Arabic 103, or
- knowledge of Arabic sufficient to warrant enrolment in this course.
Cost per person per Term (8 classes):
- Waged: NZ$150 (includes GST + online registration fee)
- Unwaged (unemployed, students, seniors): NZ$125 (includes GST + 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 temporarily located at 401 Grey Street, Hamilton East, Hamilton. Please enter via the Cook Street entrance (see map below). Those looking for parking for our evening classes can park just in front on the main entrance in any of the available car parks via the Cook Street entrance. On-street daytime parking can be found on Cook Street, Grey Street or around Steele Park. There is a single Disability car park located a few steps from the front door. Plenty of space for bicycles too!
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.
