ARB 301 L00.A
INTRODUCTION TO ARABIC I
Fall 2016, 3 hrs. Tuesdays 1:30–4:00 PM, Room A203
J. Scott Bridger, MA, ThM, PhD
Email: [email protected]
COURSE DESCRIPTION: An introduction to Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and the Levantine
dialect with a focus on the four language skills (listening, reading, writing, and speaking) and a study of Arab
culture and civilization.
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
A. General Education: Develop skills in formal, Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), as well as colloquial
Arabic, including reading, listening, writing, speaking, and cultural knowledge.
B. General Education: Acquire the ability to recognize the sounds of Arabic, write the alphabet, and
begin speaking.
C. General Education: Obtain a vocabulary of over 200 words upon completing the Alif Baa text.
D. Academic Advancement: Reach a level of novice-intermediate or novice-high by the completion
of the course.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
Brustad, Kristen, and Mahmoud Al-Batal. Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds. 3rd ed.
Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University, 2010. ISBN: 9781589016323.
Swanson, Mark N. “Arabic as a Christian Language.” Available at:
http://www2.luthersem.edu/mswanson/papers/indonesia%20Arabic.pdf
** NOTE: After purchasing the Alif Baa text, students will also need to purchase access to the companion
website at: www.alkitaabtextbook.com. Instructions for how to register will be distributed the first day of
class.
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
Nicholson, Reynold A. A Literary History of the Arabs. New York: Cambridge University, 1976.
Wehr, Hans. A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. 4th ed., J. Milton Cowan. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979.
Griffith, Sidney H. The Church in the Shadow of the Mosque: Christians and Muslims in the World of Islam. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton, 2008.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
A. Online Drills, Exercises, Videos (30%): This course requires a large amount of self-study
outside of class, both in your textbook and online. Students must complete all of the reading,
writing, listening exercises, and drills for each unit prior to coming to class (see the schedule below).
Students will need to utilize a microphone for some of the online exercises. Once you register for
the course at the al-Kitaab website, I will be able to track your progress in completing each unit’s
“At Home” assignments.
B. In-Class Activation (20%): Class time will be spent activating all the skills, vocabulary, and
dialogues you learn in your textbook and online. Attendance and active participation is expected and
absences will result in a reduction of your grade.
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C. Quizzes (20%): Quizzes will be administered each class to test the student’s mastery of the skills,
vocabulary, and drills for that particular unit.
D. Mid-Term Exam (15%): A mid-term exam, including a written and oral component, will be
administered covering the first half of the course. See course schedule for details.
E. Final Exam (15%): A final exam, including a written and oral component, and will be administered
during exam week. See course schedule for details.
ATTENDANCE POLICIES:
Students are responsible for enrolling in courses for which they anticipate being able to attend every class
session on the day and time appearing on course schedules, and then making every effort to do so. When
unavoidable situations result in absence or tardiness, students are responsible for acquiring any information
missed. Professors are not obliged to allow students to make up missed work. Per their independent
discretion, individual professors may determine how attendance affects students’ ability to meet course
learning objectives and whether attendance affects course grades.
GRADING SCALE:
A 97-100
4.0 grade points per semester hour
A- 93-96
3.7 grade points per semester hour
B+ 91-92
3.3 grade points per semester hour
B 88-90
3.0 grade points per semester hour
B- 86-87
2.7 grade points per semester hour
C+ 83-85
2.3 grade points per semester hour
C 80-82
C- 78-79
D+ 75-77
D 72-74
D- 70-71
F 0-69
2.0 grade points per semester hour
1.7 grade points per semester hour
1.3 grade points per semester hour
1.0 grade point per semester hour
0.7 grade points per semester hour
0.0 grade points per semester h
INCOMPLETE GRADES:
Students requesting a grade of Incomplete (I) must understand that incomplete grades maybe given only
upon approval of the faculty member involved. An “I” may be assigned only when a student is currently
passing a course and in situations involving extended illness, serious injury, death in the family, or
employment or government reassignment, not student neglect.
Students are responsible for contacting their professors prior to the end of the semester, plus filing the
appropriate completed and approved academic request form with the Registrar’s Office. The “I” must be
removed (by completing the remaining course requirements) no later than 60 calendar days after the grade
was assigned, or the “I” will become an “F.”
INSTITUTIONAL POLICIES:
Academic Honesty: Absolute truth is an essential belief and basis of behavior for those who believe in a
God who cannot lie and forbids falsehood. Academic honesty is the application of the principle of truth in
the classroom setting. Academic honesty includes the basic premise that all work submitted by students
must be their own and any ideas derived or copied from elsewhere must be carefully documented.
Academic dishonesty includes, but is not limited to:
• cheating of any kind,
• submitting, without proper approval, work originally prepared by the student for another course,
• plagiarism, which is the submitting of work prepared by someone else as if it were his own, and
• failing to credit sources properly in written work.
Learning Disabilities: In order to ensure full class participation, any student with a disabling condition
requiring special accommodations (e.g., tape recorders, special adaptive equipment, special note-taking or
test-taking needs) is strongly encouraged to contact the instructor at the beginning of the course or if a
student has a learning disability, please inform the professor so assistance can be provided.
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Auditing and Sit-in Students: Any on-campus course may be audited if there is space available in the
classroom. Audit students do not receive grades from professors. A student’s permanent transcript will
reflect which courses have been completed as audits.
Sit-in status is offered only if space is available in the classroom and when approval is given by the
Registrar’s Office. Sit-in students are not given grades by professors and their transcripts will not reflect
enrollment in the course. Taking tests and participation in course activities are at the discretion of the
professor.
DISTANCE EDUCATION:
(One requirement in your distance education course should include a more specific assignment or task
which will involve the student’s use of Wallace Library’s resources in a way that can be evaluated.)
General: Students participating in courses through Distance Education, whether with or without live
interaction, must complete the academic requirements for those courses with the integrity and commitment
necessary to participate in and benefit from all of the exercises provided by the professor for learning the
subject matter of the course. Therefore credit for Distance Education courses is the same as credit for
courses taken on campus.
Library: Distance education students can access information about Criswell College’s Wallace Library at
http://www.criswell.edu/current_students/library/. The Wallace Library manual is available at
http://www.criswell.edu/current_students/library/library_handbook/.
Student Life: Students needing educational support or services should contact the Student Services at 214818-1332 or [email protected].
Video and Other Intellectual Property Rights: Unless otherwise specifically instructed in writing by the
professor, students must neither materially nor digitally reproduce materials from any course offered by
Criswell College for or with the significant possibility of distribution.
ASSIGNMENTS AND COURSE OUTLINE:
TBD
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abdo, Daud. A Course in Modern Standard Arabic: Part 1. Beirut: Khayats, 1962.
________. A Course in Modern Standard Arabic: Part 2. Beirut: Khayats, 1962.
al-Warraki, Nariman Naili, and Ahmed Taher Hassanein. The Connectors in Modern Standard Arabic. Cairo: The American
University in Cairo, 1994.
Alkhuli, Muhammad Ali. A Dictionary of Islamic Terms. Swaileh, Jordan: Dar Alfalah, 2001.
Badawi, El-Said M., and Haleem Abdel, M. A. Arabic-English Dictionary of Qur’anic Usage. Leiden: Brill, 2008.
Benmamoun, Elabbas. Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics Xix: Papers From the Nineteenth Annual Symposium on Arabic
Linguistics. Vol. Amsterdam studies in the theory and history of linguistic science. Current issues in linguistic
theory ; v. 289. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2007.
Blau, Joshua. A Grammar of Christian Arabic, Based Mainly on South-Palestinian Texts From the First Millennium. Louvain:
Secrétariat du CorpusSCO, 1966.
Chrestomathy of Arabic Prose Pieces.
Doniach, N. S., Safa. Khulusi, N. Shamaa, and W. K. Davin. The Concise Oxford English-Arabic Dictionary of Current Usage.
New York: Oxford, 1982.
Frangieh, Bassam K. Anthology of Arabic Literature, Culture, and Thought From Pre-Islamic Times to the Present. Vol. Yale
language series. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2005.
Gutas, Dimitri. Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation Movement in Baghdad and Early ‘Abbasid Society
(2nd-4th/8th-10th Centuries). New York: Routledge, 1998.
Halloun, Moin. A Practical Dictionary of the Standard Dialect Spoken in Palestine. An internal and experimental ed. ed.
Jerusalem: M. Halloun, 1997.
Haywood, John A., and H. M. Nahmad. A New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1982.
Haywood, John A., H. M. Nahmad, and John A. Haywood. Key to a New Arabic Grammar of the Written Language.
London: Lund Humphries Publishers, 1964.
Jeffery, Arthur. The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur’an. Leiden: Brill, 2007.
Jones, Alan. Arabic Through the Qur’an. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2006.
Khalil, Aziz M. A Contrastive Grammar of English and Arabic. Jerusalem: Jordan Book Centre, 1999.
Lane, Edward William. An Arabic-English Lexicon. Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1968.
Ryding, Karin C. A Reference Grammar of Modern Standard Arabic. New York: Cambridge University, 2005.
Scheindlin, Raymond P. 201 Arabic Verbs: Fully Conjugated in All the Forms. Woodbury, N.Y.: Barron’s Educational
Series, inc., 1978.
________. 501 Arabic Verbs: Fully Conjugated in All the Aspects in a New, Easy-to-Learn Format, Alphabetically Arranged.
Hauppauge, NY: Barron’s, 2007.
Schulz, Eckehard, Günther Krahl, and Wolfgang Reuschel. Standard Arabic: An Elementary-Intermediate Course. Rev.
English ed. ed. New York: Cambridge University, 2000.
Sterling, R. Arabic and English Idiom, Conversational and Literary. Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1960.
Swanson, Mark N. “Arabic as a Christian Language.” Available at:
http://www2.luthersem.edu/mswanson/papers/indonesia%20Arabic.pdf
Thomas, Richard W. A Wordbook of Religion: English-Arabic. Beirut: Dar al-Manshurat al-Nafir, 1969.
Wehr, Hans. A Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic. 4. ed., considerably enl. and amended by the author. ed. ed. J.
Milton Cowan. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1979.
Wright, W. A Grammar of the Arabic Language. Beirut: Libraririe du Liban, 1896.
Yellin, A., and L. Billig. An Arabic Reader. 3d ed. ed. New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1963.
Zammit, Martin R. A Comparative Lexical Study of Qur’Ānic Arabic. Boston: Brill, 2002.
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