Dr Nesrin Alrefaai

This is a non-credit bearing course available to all LSE students, staff, alumni and external clients.

• No previous knowledge of Levantine Arabic colloquial required but knowledge of Modern Standard Arabic is suitable.

• All students welcome but they should demonstrate commitment to regular attendance, completion of homework, completion of the dossier and all assessments.

• Students should dedicate at least one/two hours per week for coursework in addition to classes.

• This course is suitable for students wanting to learn Levantine Arabic colloquial.

• Admission into the course upon tutor’s approval during the information sessions or needs analysis meeting.

Course aims

• To develop the ability to use Arabic Levantine dialect effectively for purposes of practical communication at survival level.

• To deal with a range of predictable simple language tasks using a limited range of language.

• To establish the skills, language and attitudes required to promote and facilitate further study of Arabic.

Communicative content

• Greetings

• Asking for and giving personal information

• Talking about your immediate family

• Talking about studies and jobs

• Say where you live

• Talking about your city and country

• Talking about present and past actions/events

• Describing people, places and objects

• Talking about daily habits/routine

• Making comparisons

• Talking about future plans (basic)

• Expressing likes/dislikes

Structural content

• Pronunciation

• Feminine and masculine words

• Present tense

• The definitive article

• Independent pronouns and pronoun suffixes

• Nouns-adjective phrases

• Numbers

• Plural

• Word order

• Demonstrative

• Possessive pronouns

• Interrogatives (where, when, what, in which,etc.)

• Prepositions: in, between, etc

• Nisba (nationality)

• Idafa (genitive construction)

• Past Tense

• Use of "also, where, in the same, etc."

16 hours of classes in the MT. 22 hours of classes in the LT. 2 hours of classes in the ST.

• This is a 40 hour-course.

• Please refer to the LSE timetable for course teaching arrangements.

Weekly exercises featuring interactive work and oral practise; grammar exercises; reading and listening comprehension.

Study Pack to be provided at the beginning of the course

Other useful materials for this level

• Arabiyyat al-Naas (Part 1). An introductiory course in Arabic by Munther Younes, Routledge, 2014

• Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic, Letters and Sounds by Brustad et all. Georgetown Univ. Press, Second or Third Editions

• Al-Kitaab fii Ta‘llum al-‘Arabiyya  Al-Kitaab Fii Ta Allum Al- Arabiyya: Pt. 1: A Textbook for Beginning Arabic by Brustad et al, Georgetown Univ.Press, 2011

• Syrian colloquial Arabic, by Mary-Jane Liddicoat, Richard Lenanne and  Dr Iman Abdul Rahim in http://www.syrianarabic.com/

• A reference grammar on Syrian Arabic by Marc W. Cowell , Georgetown Univ.Press, 2005

Continuous assessment (70%) in the MT and LT.
Oral examination (30%) in the LT.