Kalima wa Nagham
Kalima wa Nagham
A Textbook for Teaching Arabic, Volume 1
Presenting a new Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language (TAFL) curriculum that can be used in secondary and postsecondary educational settings, Kalima wa Nagham (Volume I) is a textbook that uniquely and simultaneously introduces Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and salient aspects of Educated Spoken Arabic (ESA) to beginning language students. Students who fully utilize this book should be able to develop the different language skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and expressing deep cultural knowledge.
Written by Arabic language teaching practitioners and experienced educators who are certified language testers, Volume I of Kalima wa Nagham employs a threaded story that introduces language concepts along with music to enhance vocabulary retention and recall. At the core of the textbook are dialogues that present students and teachers with examples of Arabic grammatical concepts and important cultural aspects, as well as related vocabulary. These are supplemented by drills and activities that can be used in a classroom setting or pursued individually. Dialogues, pronunciation and listening drills, and charts to accompany the lessons are available on the UT Press website. This volume is student-centered in content and methodology, which will enable learners to meet and exceed linguistic and cultural proficiency expectations.
Learners are provoked to be creative with Arabic usage, to communicate with each other, and to write songs and dialogues making use of the vocabulary and grammar learned with each chapter.
This is an excellent volume for learners of Arabic. It provides real-life learning experiences through rich materials and abundant exercises covering all four skills, with very valuable exposure to different aspects of Arab culture.
Nasser M. Isleem is a senior lecturer at New York University at Abu Dhabi. Ghazi M. Abuhakema is an associate professor of Arabic and the director of the Arabic Program at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.
