The school will unequivocally promote the importance of the Arabic language every day.
While English is the language of instruction, Arabic will feature in assemblies, in presentations, on display, in brochures and newsletters, and in everyday conversation between the schools and its students and parents.
The teaching and learning philosophy is to promote a communicative language approach. Language facility is first grounded in speaking, listening and the everyday experience of language. At all levels, the goal is to ensure importance and provide inspiration in and for the learning of the language. Scaffolding the learning of language with semantic, graph-phonic, and syntactic cues will further improve progress.
The school will have the capability to communicate in classical or standard Arabic, when required, and will enjoy celebrating the traditional form. Language teachers have the lead responsibility for differentiating their teaching in-class with peer support. Students will be offered extra classes and extra resources for use at home. Parents will receive guidance on the help they can provide in ‘catching up’.
The Arabic program will introduce students to, and immerse students in, Arabic literature and Arab achievement as well as everyday communication and the functional language.
The curriculum will endeavor to engender ‘proficient users’ of Arabic with:
- high levels of well-paced spoken interaction in the classroom
- timely assessment and feedback that helps students to access the next challenge
- access to prose (fiction and non-fiction) and poetry
- exploration of idiom, proverbs and approaches to storytelling.
The starting point of the curriculum for Arabic A students will be different for Arabic B students due to their assumed language proficiencies.
The Arabic A students will have greater opportunities to explore in-depth concepts from the outset, and their critical thinking within the language will be fostered and facilitated from an early age.
Within the Arabic A curriculum, teachers will adapt the learning skills indicators from the DSIB framework to ensure that all Arabic A learners are building their learning skills through the Arabic A curriculum, and the curriculum is adapted to ensure that all Arabic A learners are assessed against these learning skills internally, as well as the UAE Ministry of Education Curriculum.
As Arabic B students will have a different starting point, and the curriculum will be adapted to their needs. A language toolkit of strategies will be developed and fostered from day one to ensure that all Arabic B students are thinking through the language whilst still fulfilling the Arabic B curriculum requirements. As the children develop their language proficiency, challenge and depth increase, and teachers will design learning opportunities that are connected to real life situations and familiar events so that the students develop confidence and their capability of using the language outside of school.
Reading and Literacy in Arabic.
Reading skills are core to the MoE curriculum and there will be a communicative approach to language adopted to run in parallel with MoE expectations for Arabic language learning. Reading and conversation are therefore central to the approach and students will have experience each week working across a range of tasks that operate at the level of letter, sentences and texts and they will practice the use of language in everyday contexts.
This work takes place in the context of regular testing and teacher assessment as well as annual use of Arabic APT testing to record and track students’ attainment and progress in (a) reading, (b) listening, (c) writing and (d) speaking, hence including conversation.
Reading and comprehension exercises will be augmented by online resources. Students will access standard Arabic texts. The love of Arabic literacy will be fostered through the range of activities including regular access to Arabic stories and poetry.