Students association offers free Arabic language course

| Amr Shaker

For the first time at University of Twente, an independent student association takes upon itself teaching a foreign language on campus. UT-Muslims Students Association has recently taken an initiative of offering Arabic language courses to interested members of the UT community.

Photo by: Stock.xchng| Meral Akbulut

Arabic is the native language of 25 nations. It is spoken by more than 400 million people worldwide making it the 5th most spoken language in the world. The spoken forms of Arabic vary widely; each Arab country has its own dialect. Dialects can be so strong that although people are speaking the same language, they find it difficult to communicate.

Whenever these situations occur, Arabic speakers revert back to speaking MSA (Modern Standard Arabic). MSA is the form of language used by the vast majority of politicians, formal documents, TV shows and academic lecturers. Hence, the Arabic Course offered at UT will be taught in the Modern Standard form and will be instructed by native Arab teachers.

The course will be delivered in 12 weekly sessions each Thursday. The association has introduced a smart scheme that makes the course practically free of charge provided that you have participated effectively. There is a nominal fee of 50 euro for enrolling in the course. This amount can be refunded in case the learner has attended at least 75% of the course sessions. At the end of the course, there will be a final exam covering the material taught in class. Participants who pass this exam will be awarded a certificate for attending the course.

Momen Abayazid, the activities manager of UT-Muslims said they were glad to see students’ responses from different cultural backgrounds interested in learning Arabic. Momen added that learning Arabic might not be an easy task therefore they have prepared adequate and effective teaching material that target listening, reading, writing and speaking. Diverse educational activities will also be introduced through the course sessions to help create an interesting learning plot.

The first course is Thursday 6 March.

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