Foreign Language Study

Volume one of Taha Hussein's classic work, unabridged, and supported with robust comprehension, interpretation, and analytical exercises, for advanced learners of Arabic

Taha Hussein’s autobiographical novel The Days helped usher in the era of modern Arabic writing and remains one of the most influential and best-known works of Arabic literature. With this guided study, the complete first volume of the novel is accessible to students of Arabic in a way never previously available. While Arabic literature provides a vast body of texts as a window into diverse cultures and eras, the lack of useful teaching material has often forced teachers to spend much of their time creating supplemental material, rather than focusing on the exploration of literary art and themes. This study will walk Arabic students through the unabridged novel in manageable lessons, supported with robust comprehension, interpretation, and analytical exercises, focusing on the historical context, elements of literature, and social themes. This book is organized to mirror the way an experienced teacher of Arabic literature would structure the lessons, and is thus perfectly suited as a textbook for an advanced Arabic or Arabic literature class, or as an independent study package for learners.

GOURMAND AWARD WINNER 2023, BEST ILLUSTRATED

A delightfully illustrated selection of 100 commonly used Egyptian food expressions

Can you guess what Egyptians mean when they say that something is “a peeled banana” or that someone is “sleeping in honey” or has "turned the sea to tahini"? You may find the answers quite unexpected when you open the pages of this delightful giftbook featuring some one hundred popular food-inflected phrases and sayings used by native speakers of Egyptian Arabic.

Idiomatic expressions lend color, dynamism, and humor to everyday speech, and convey complex ideas and beliefs with an economy of words that also tell us something about the culture from which they spring. Each expression in Fish, Milk, Tamarind is given in Arabic script and English transliteration followed by its literal and intended meanings, while humorous color illustrations throughout help readers visualize and remember the expressions. Learners and native speakers of Arabic, as well as Egypt enthusiasts and language lovers will find much in this book to teach, entertain, and enthrall them.

A new comprehensive approach to teaching Arabic reading and writing skills to heritage students at the intermediate and advanced levels

From Reading to Writing, Volume 1 is a content- and task-based textbook for students of Arabic as a heritage language at the intermediate and advanced levels, aimed at developing learners’ basic language skills, especially reading and writing. Although heritage learners can often communicate in colloquial Arabic through exposure to the spoken language at home or in their country of residence, they equally as often face fundamental problems in reading and writing, as well as in speaking Modern Standard Arabic. Through authentic texts, carefully chosen to represent the lived realities of the language, supported by a range of tasks, this book seeks to develop heritage learners’ communication skills to meet the practical requirements of university study and the modern-day workplace. The topics covered also offer intellectually stimulating content to learners while connecting them in a meaningful way to Arab culture and society.

The authors developed the course content with their students for over a decade and have designed the tasks in this book with the notion that language acquisition is not just a set of rules but an interactive process that depends on performing different tasks in multiple contexts. The tasks include prereading and intensive reading activities; comprehension questions; writing, listening, and grammar exercises; and vocabulary building, as well as higher-order questions designed to promote critical thinking skills. The majority of the writing and listening tasks focus on group work to encourage students to collaborate and engage in the learning process.

From Reading to Writing, Volume 1 is also suitable for foreign-language learners of Arabic at the intermediate and advanced levels and native Arabic speakers enrolled at Arab universities.

An introductory media Arabic book for the elementary and low intermediate levels

With the proliferation of satellite television news and social media channels, students of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) have access to an increasingly vast range of print and broadcast news from the Arab world. Media Arabic for Beginners is a unique textbook designed to lead elementary and low intermediate level students of MSA to a solid level of proficiency in the language of Arabic media.

Through active engagement with authentic texts selected from a wide variety of news sources and websites, learners are familiarized with vocabulary, idioms, lexical items, and collocations, while grammatical concepts are introduced and explained in context. With sixteen texts accompanied by sixteen audio files and supportive PowerPoint presentations, this content-based approach allows students to develop and enhance their reading, listening, speaking, and writing skills. Vocabulary and grammatical points are presented as PowerPoint slides, making for discrete and manageable learning targets.

Media Arabic for Beginners is structured around four themes, each devoted to a dominant news topic: Official Visits and Talks; Elections and Referendums; Attacks and Explosions; and Demonstrations and Protests. Each unit is in turn made up of four lessons, each lesson featuring a text from a particular perspective together with pre-reading activities, reading activities, post-reading activities, and a section with particular focus on grammar. The texts progress from very simple to more complex, as students steadily increase their reading fluency. Each unit ends with a thorough review section with various activities, such as comprehension questions, vocabulary translation, and role play.

A dynamic and creative approach to teaching spoken Arabic in the classroom for the Upper Intermediate level by the author of Media Arabic

Upper-Intermediate Arabic through Discussion is a classroom-tested course that uses an inquiry-based approach to challenge intermediate learners of Arabic by engaging them in thought-provoking discussions about topics of general interest. Each topic is framed in the form of a question, such as “How can we learn a new language fast?” or” Why are some sports more popular than others?,” to motivate students to immediately start searching for an answer.

Drawing on her long experience as an Arabic instructor, Nevenka Korica Sullivan has organized the book into twenty chapters, each one devoted to a single theme. While exploring each topic, learners are guided to expand their vocabulary, acquire more complex structures, and discover systemic relationships between language form, function, and meaning. A rich assortment of exercises and activities ensures that learners make palpable progress in advancing their language skills.

The course is designed to create a lively learner-centered classroom where interaction between participants is both the goal and the means of language study; it can also be successfully used with a tutor or for independent study.

The complete series of innovative new coursebooks in Egyptian colloquial Arabic

Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor and course developer, Samia Louis has used a functional approach to create a bright, innovative set of coursebooks for the study of Egyptian colloquial Arabic—the spoken dialect most frequently studied and most widely understood in the Arab world. Now three new books, for beginner, early advanced, and higher advanced students, have been added to the series. Designed according to the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, each book of Kallimni ‘Arabi trains students through highly structured lessons in the crucial skills, with particular emphasis on listening and speaking, using real-life situations and expressions. The associated audio files consist of recordings of the dialogs and exercises in each chapter, made by Egyptian native speakers.

“The books in the [Kallimni ‘Arabi] series altogether present the best Arabic textbooks available . . . miles ahead of most others.”—David Wilmsen, American University of Beirut

An innovative and highly structured course for teaching Arabic to beginners and for self-study

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary language of today’s books, media, and formal communication throughout the Arab world, the region’s principal shared language of written and official discourse. The first book in this new series for the classroom is designed for adult learners of the language at the beginner stage.

Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday contexts and real-life, practical language, along with a wide range of grammar-learning strategies to allow students to deploy the language with confidence. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, the course is conceived in such a way to make the study of Arabic language and grammar easier for the student.

Book 1 is divided into ten chapters, focusing on specific everyday situations, including greetings and introductions; people and names; numbers, dates, and telephone numbers; and directions and addresses. The chapters allow for the gradual acquisition of vocabulary and grammar, the exercises at the end of each chapter covering all the crucial skills of listening, reading, writing, and pronunciation, with emphasis on reading and writing. The course includes digital material for all listening activities, dialogs, and pronunciation exercises, as well as video films of real-life situations covered in the chapters. The book is further supported by interactive reading, writing, and grammar drills accessible through the Internet.

A new intermediate course that introduces students of Modern Standard Arabic to the most widely spoken and understood Arabic dialect

A new intermediate course that introduces students of Modern Standard Arabic to the most widely spoken and understood spoken dialect

Based on the cumulative experience of three leading teachers of Arabic as a foreign language, Kalaam Gamiil builds and develops communicative skills in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic, along parallel tracks of vocabulary and grammar. It is designed for students who have reached the lower intermediate level of Modern Standard Arabic and are now ready to branch out into their first experience of a major spoken dialect. Structured around basic topics that crop up in daily conversations, lessons each include a situation, a vocabulary list, preparatory sentences using the new vocabulary items, explanations of grammar in English, cultural information, and a variety of mechanical drills and communicative exercises.

The book, volume one of a two-part series, focuses on the speaking and listening skills that will enable intermediate students to handle a variety of uncomplicated communicative tasks with native speakers of Egyptian Arabic successfully and is supported by online associated audio files.

The second volume in our flagship series designed for heritage students and advanced learners of Arabic offers a comprehensive approach to teaching reading and writing skills

From Reading to Writing is a content- and task-based textbook for students of Arabic as a heritage language at advanced and superior levels, aimed at developing learners’ key language skills, especially reading and writing. Although heritage learners can often communicate in colloquial Arabic through exposure to the spoken language at home or in their country of residence, they equally as often face fundamental problems in reading and writing, as well as in speaking, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). Through authentic texts, carefully chosen to represent the lived realities of the language, supported by a range of tasks, this book seeks to develop heritage learners’ communication skills to meet the practical requirements of university study and the modern-day workplace. The topics covered also offer intellectually stimulating content to learners while connecting them in a meaningful way to Arab culture and society.

The authors developed the course content with their students for over a decade and have designed the tasks in this book with the notion that language acquisition is not just a set of rules but an interactive process that depends on performing different tasks in multiple contexts. The tasks include prereading and intensive reading activities; comprehension questions; writing, listening, and grammar exercises; and vocabulary building, as well as higher-order questions designed to promote critical thinking skills. The majority of the writing and listening tasks focus on group work to encourage students to collaborate and engage in the learning process.

From Reading to Writing, Volume 2 is also suitable for foreign-language learners of Arabic at the intermediate and advanced levels and native Arabic speakers enrolled at Arab universities.

An invaluable guide to more than one hundred of the most commonly used Modern Standard Arabic idioms

Idioms are deeply rooted in their cultural context and as such are both are uniquely tricky and key to competency in a language.

With more than 140 of frequently used Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) idioms, this book is a key learning tool for intermediate to advanced learners of the language. Organized by theme into eight chapters, each idiom includes an English translation or equivalent expression and a short bilingual dialogue to show the idiom used in context. Each unit ends with a set of exercises to practice usage and aid in language acquisition.

Mastering Modern Standard Arabic Idioms is designed to be a flexible resource, and as such could be adopted in a classroom setting or employed in self-study, and will be of interest to students of language, literature, and culture, as well as to translators and linguists.

This comprehensive guide to Arabic grammar is an essential resource for the first five years of language learning and beyond, now in a revised edition

Thorough and carefully organized, this book covers all the basic structures and grammar that students need for the first five years of learning Modern Standard Arabic, from beginner through to advanced proficiency levels.

- Filled with diagrams, tables, and examples for ease of learning
- Provides straightforward explanations of the all the key grammar points, avoiding overly jargonistic language
- Presents grammar rules and structures in order of frequency and communicative functional use

Already a time-proven favorite among students and teachers alike, this classic book now has a new chapter as well as updates and new material throughout.

An essential collection of empirical studies on the TAFL (teaching Arabic as a foreign language) classroom experience, by leading professionals in the field

Although teaching Arabic as a foreign language (TAFL) has grown inexorably in recent decades, there is a dearth of empirical research on the TAFL classroom experience. In this insightful volume, Dalal Abo El Seoud brings together up-to-date practice-based research and conceptual contributions by eighteen professionals in the field. These address a wide range of challenges in teaching Arabic as a foreign language and ways of overcoming them with a clear eye to twenty-first-century language-learning skills, which advocate communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity.

The chapters address curriculum design, teaching Arabic to non-English speakers, trends in the use of technology, motivating students, teaching Arabic language varieties, and teaching language skills. This volume will be an invaluable resource for teachers and teachers in training of TAFL and for scholars and researchers in the field.

Contributors:
Dalal Abo El Seoud, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Hagar Lotfy Amer, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Wael M. Asfour, independent scholar, Cairo, Egypt
Mona Azzam, State University of New York at Binghamton, New York, USA
Mahmoud Al-Batal, The American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
Nino Ejibadze, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
Shereen Y. El Ezabi, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Mohamed Ibrahim, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafr al-Sheikh, Egypt
Mimi Melkonian, Brunswick School, Greenwich, Connecticut, USA
Haitham S. Mohamed, University of California, Berkeley, Berkely, California, USA
Joanna Natalia Murkocinska, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland.
Heba Salem, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Mohamed Sawaie, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Laila Al-Sawi, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Paweł Siwiec, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
Iman Aziz Soliman, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt
Przemysław Turek, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
Shahira Yacout, The American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt

Arabic textbook with online audio and visual materials for students of Modern Standard Arabic who are embarking upon the study of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic

Directed to learners of Egyptian Colloquial Arabic who have previously studied Modern Standard Arabic, this is the first textbook to handle the different levels and the variety of contexts of Egyptian Colloquial: both the everyday and the educated forms. It is also the first to introduce the language through multimedia, addressing recent and compelling topics of interest to learners of both language and culture, and focusing on pronunciation as a skill.

Each of the ten lessons is structured around a video series, Abdalla’s Journey, which covers a range of topics in the everyday language, and video interviews with scholars discussing the same topics in the educated variety. Vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation in both language levels are the focus of drills and exercises, and the phonetic and syntactic differences between the two forms are highlighted.

An essential, easy-to-use handbook for students at all levels

In a compact, easy-to-use format, this new book offers a convenient guide to grammar for any student of Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), the version of Arabic most commonly used in journalism, formal writing, and literature. Drawing on over a decade of experience as a full-time teacher of Arabic, Azza Hassanein explains the rules in straight-forward English, illustrating usage with examples throughout.

The book covers all the rules of grammar and morphology that students require for elementary, intermediate, and advanced levels of Arabic. As a compact guide, it is an ideal auxiliary, no matter what textbook the student is using. While students of the language will find Modern Standard Arabic Grammar extremely helpful, it is also a valuable tool for linguists who want to acquire a clear idea about the skeletal structure of the language, as well as translators who are working with written Arabic.

Covering all the important grammatical rules of MSA, from nisba adjectives and nominal and verbal sentences to more complex constructions such as conditional sentences and the subjunctive, this unique handbook fills a real need for the growing number of people worldwide learning Arabic.

The third volume in a series of classical Arabic language learning textbooks for the intermediate student of MSA, refining written and oral skills

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary language of today’s books, media, and formal communication throughout the Arab World, the region’s principal shared language of written and official discourse. The third book in this new series for the classroom is designed for adult learners of the language at the intermediate stage.

Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday contexts and real-life, practical language, along with a wide range of grammar-learning strategies to allow students to deploy the language with confidence. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, the course is conceived in such a way to make the study of Arabic language and grammar easier for the student.

Divided into five chapters, Book Three addresses the early to middle intermediate Arabic learner. The aim of this book is to help students to read and write articles, essays and texts, using a range of tenses, in correct Arabic grammar. Students will also learn how to communicate orally in a number of different situations, discussing current events, leisure activities, and practical matters.

The students’ facility with sentence structure and vocabulary is increased by reading newspapers and listening to news broadcasts, and by writing about real-life interests such as environmental conditions, political issues, sports, and cultural pursuits. The chapters guide students through the gradual acquisition of vocabulary and grammar. Exercises at the end of each chapter cover all essential skills and translation, with emphasis on reading and writing. The course includes accompanying audio material for all listening activities, dialogs, and reading exercises. The book is further supported by online interactive reading, writing, and grammar drills.

An innovative, interactive, and highly structured course including interactive digital exercises for teaching Arabic to beginners

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the literary language of today’s books, media, and formal communication throughout the Arab world, the region’s principal shared language of written and official discourse. The first book in this new series for the classroom is designed for adult learners of the language at the beginner stage.

Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday contexts and real-life, practical language, along with a wide range of grammar-learning strategies to allow students to deploy the language with confidence. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, the course is conceived in such a way to make the study of Arabic language and grammar easier for the student.

Book 2 is divided into ten chapters, focusing on real-life situations, including introductions; asking people about jobs and nationalities; talking about daily activities; describing apartments, people, and cities; asking and giving directions; and discussing future plans and past events. The chapters allow for the gradual acquisition of vocabulary and grammar, the exercises at the end of each chapter covering all the crucial skills, with emphasis on reading and writing. The course includes audio material for all listening activities, dialogs, and pronunciation exercises, including real-life situations covered in the chapters. The book is further supported by digital interactive reading, writing, and grammar drills.

The complete series of innovative new coursebooks in Egyptian colloquial Arabic

Aimed at the growing number of students studying Arabic worldwide, the Kallimni ‘Arabi series takes an innovative, functional approach to the study of Egyptian colloquial Arabic—the spoken dialect most frequently studied and most widely understood in the Arab world. Kallimni ‘Arabi Mazboot, the fourth book in the series, is designed for adult students at the early advanced stage of learning the language.

Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday cultural content and real-life functional language as well as comprehensive grammar. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, this highly structured course trains students in the crucial skills, with emphasis on listening and speaking.

Each chapter includes a conversation unit that enables students to improve their communication skills and allows for progressive acquisition of vocabulary and grammar through interactive classroom tasks and everyday situations, from expressing personal likes and dislikes to initiating conversations and describing events and experiences. The associated audio files have recordings of each chapter’s dialogues and exercises, made by native Egyptian speakers to enrich the student’s exposure to the spoken language in its natural context and speed. The associated audiovisual files comprise a series of video programs entitled “People’s Opinions,” which further help the students to place colloquial Egyptian within context.

“The books in the [Kallimni ‘Arabi] series altogether present the best Arabic textbooks available . . . miles ahead of most others.”—David Wilmsen, American University of Beirut

A new coursebook in modern standard Arabic from the authors of kullu tamam!

This sequel to the well-known kullu tamam!, on Egyptian Arabic, by the same authors, focuses on the modern written language used in real life by providing short texts taken from Egyptian newspapers, official statements, and the internet, and introduces personal and business letters, some of them in handwritten form (ruq‘a). For those who have studied kullu tamam!, the first lessons give contrastive word lists and exercises to make the link with Egyptian Colloquial Arabic. Extensive pattern drills, translation exercises in both directions, and writing exercises aid understanding and encourage active use of the language. The key to the exercises, the Arabic –English / English –Arabic glossary, and the audio material containing the texts allow for classroom use as well as for self-study.

The complete series of innovative new coursebooks in Egyptian colloquial Arabic

Aimed at the growing number of students studying Arabic worldwide, Kallimni ‘Arabi Aktar takes an innovative, functional approach to the study of Egyptian colloquial Arabic—the spoken dialect most frequently studied and most widely understood in the Arab world. Picking up where the previous title in this series, Kallimni ‘Arabi, leaves off, this volume is designed for adult students at the high-intermediate/low-advanced levels of language proficiency. Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday cultural content and real-life functional language as well as comprehensive grammar. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, this highly structured course trains students in the crucial skills, with emphasis on listening and speaking.

Each chapter includes a conversation unit that enables students to improve their communication skills and allows for progressive acquisition of vocabulary and grammar through interactive classroom tasks and everyday situations, from expressing personal likes and dislikes to initiating conversations and describing events and experiences. The online associated audio files carry recordings of each chapter’s dialogues and exercises, made by native Egyptian speakers to enrich the student’s exposure to the spoken language in its natural context and speed.