Wednesday 29 April 2020 saw the publication of the ALEF project’s first language level teacher’s book. The children’s course books of the first level were published earlier already. The ALEF project’s Arabic language classes for children aged 6-15, is producing these new books to support its classes and to give guidelines, but it also uses a new teaching method.
The new teaching method came into being after research showed that when it was applied within the ALEF curriculum, the time to learn the Arabic alphabet was reduced by 50 percent!
The book also includes information on language teaching methods for non-native speakers with a series of scenarios outlined to give teachers inspiration on how to use the different teaching methods to match their own personality. It also helps to generate the best results in creating an active, participatory and enthusiastic teaching and learning experience. Several ideas are offered for activities in the classroom or the playground. It also offers advice and suggestions on how to solve common issues faced by Arabic teachers in Europe.
The next step is to have the books of level 2 published by October 2020, and to have the books related to levels 3 and 4 ready by December (and publication in 2021). The books are published by VUBPRESS at ASP editions.
The teacher book along with 30 slides and 600 flash cards has been put together by the ALEF project coordinator, Sami Azar, with help from Mujahed Hattab. Sami oversees the development of the innovative teaching curricula as well as the daily implementation of the project itself. He has a degree in physics and in teacher education, and went on to set up the Athena Institute, a secondary school for 12 to 18 year olds in his native Syria, where he taught physics but was also the school principle. Mujahed has a PhD in Arabic morphology and specialises in palaeography, with several publications under his belt. He worked at Iraqi and Belgian universities and in 2014 was the head of the educational supervision committee at Mosul University. He currently works at VUB with academics to put together a curriculum to teach youngsters Arabic.
The ALEF Arabic Language Classes for children was started in 2016, and has been an unmitigated success, with 300 children attending the classes and a waiting list with several hundred more. The classes were started up because there were none available in Brussels which were given free from religion. These classes were started by VUB to offer a neutral learning platform where children can come into contact with Arabic language and culture, where they learn about societal issues and Western and intercultural values, in Arabic. The project is open to all children who wish to learn Arabic in Brussels. The new curriculum which is used by these classes will have 8 levels. The longer term perspective of the ALEF project is to use similar initiatives in other cities and to be a centre to teachers of contemporary Arabic using new materials.
More information on the ALEF project on www.alef.vub.be.
To order the teacher’s book, please go to the ASP Editions site. Organisations interesting in purchasing the children’s course and exercise books (level 1) can contact VUB by emailing Arabic.class@vub.be or via the ALEF website
The project is kindly supported by several donations and project grants from the King Baudouin Foundation – Baillet Latour Fund and Princes Paola Foundation. Donations are welcome via VUB Foundation.