Sample Arabic 1001 Lesson Plan

One of the more challenging tasks for tutors of languages that are very different from English is getting the students comfortable listening and speaking in their new language while still helping them to develop the very basic skills. Therefore, Ann and I have brain-stormed a sample Arabic 1001 lesson plan for use during the first weeks of class, when students are still in the early stages of learning the alphabet. Of course, this lesson plan could be adapted to any language. We hope you find it useful.

Sample Arabic 1001 Lesson Plan: Alif Baa Chapter 3, Drills 1-9

(Throughout the lesson, everything you say to the students should be in Arabic. If they do not understand, pantomime the meaning of what you are saying or give them other visual clues.)

Greetings: Say 'hello' to the students in Arabic as they come into class, and have them respond. Ask them how they are doing, modeling appropriate responses.

Warm-up: Students will have studied about 12 letters at this point (including vowels and the new material from chapter 3). They can now play a simplified version of BINGO as a warm-up. Have them choose nine of the letters they know and write them into a grid of boxes, three rows of three. Check to make sure that they have written their letters correctly. Then call out letters in random order. When students hear a letter they have written, they can mark it off, and the first to complete an unbroken line -horizontal, vertical, or diagonal - wins the round.

Writing Exercise One: Show cards with the letters the students know and then read words composed of those letters, like a word scramble. Use the vocabulary presented at the end of chapters 1-3. Students should first choose the letters that spell the word, and then write the word - joining the letters.



Writing Practice Two: Break the class into two teams. Have both teams form lines in front of the whiteboard. Call out a letter, and the first student in line for each team should write that letter on the board and then go to the end of the line. The second students will do the same until the letters are all called. The team who has written the most letters without mistakes wins. This can also be used with the words the students have studied.

Dialogue Practice 1 - Choral Repetition: Make sure you listen to the dialogue before coming to class, but dialogues also appear at the back of the book so that you can make sure you are representing it exactly as the students have practiced it. Pull out any new vocabulary and write it on the board - using pictures or actions to explain any unknown words. Have the dialogue written on the board in both Arabic and the transliteration (English representations of the Arabic sounds). Have students start by listening and repeating the dialogue line-by-line (you can do this several times until their pronunciation is good).

Dialogue Practice 2: The tutor should take one part of the dialogue and have the students read the other - all together. Switch roles, having the class read the first part and the tutor reading the second.

Dialogue Practice 3 - Pairs Practice: Break the class into pairs to practice the dialogue, and work with different pairs on pronunciation. Pairs will then present the dialogues to the class.