time – Gulf Arabic Program

Language Learning Tip #18

Problem

“I am trying to change some of my language learning habits, and I have ideas, but somehow I don’t put them into action.”

Idea: Address problems with strategies not with wishes.

Five steps for creating suitable strategies:

1) Identify areas you want to improve in. Do this periodically as your needs and abilities change. Write down things you want to be able to do at this point in your life and skills you want to practice. Then prioritize them by giving them numbers. Choose 2 or 3 of them and develop creative strategies to improve in these areas.

2) Identify your strengths and weaknesses as a learner. What are you good at? What is difficult for you? Then focus on ways to strengthen your weak skills by using your strengths.

For example, if you don’t spell well, identify the reasons. Maybe two Arabic sounds seem the same to you so you get mixed up with words which have those sounds in them. This would be a weakness in an aural (listening) skill. But if you can see the word in your mind or you write the word a number of times, you can use your strength as a visual learner or as a kinesthetic learner to work on your spelling problem. Or if your weakness is listening comprehension, you cannot improve in that area by making a grammar chart. However, listening to recorded Arabic at slower speeds could be helpful.

Look for a connection between the skill you need and the activity you want to spend time on. If you can not explain the connection between the two, then maybe the connection is not really there.

3) Identify things in your personality that make it hard for you to do what other successful learners do. Then find a way to compensate. For example, if you are a shy person who finds it difficult to knock on your neighbor’s door, go visiting with someone else. Or, if you never know what to talk about with people, before you visit, write a list of topics and questions that you can ask people.

4) Reevaluate your strategies from time to time. If your strategies are all the same now as they were 3 months ago, you probably are not giving enough attention to this area. Use your creativity and feed off of the creativity of your classmates and other learners.

5) Find someone to be accountable to. You might talk with that person about what you are writing in your language learning journal. You should discuss what your current strategies are, why you have chosen them, and how you might improve them. Sometimes another person might just have an idea that will turn a good strategy into a great strategy.

How Much Can I Learn?

We are often asked by prospective students how much Arabic they can learn with us or how good their Arabic will be after two years.

Measuring ability in a language can be a bit subjective but the ILR and ACTFL scales are helpful and are shown below.

But before we go any further, a word of warning. There are Arabic language programs which claim that a student can be ‘fluent’ in Arabic after 3 months study and even quoting students who have done this. The results of research from the U.S. Government’s Foreign Service Institute (FSI) as shown in the chart below show clearly that this is not a realistic claim.

The data here are cited by Judith E. Liskin-Gasparro in “ETS Oral Proficiency Testing Manual,” Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service, 1982. The data were obtained from LinguaLinks Language Learning Bookshelf.

The FSI has classified languages according to the difficulty factors for native English speakers. Group 4, the most difficult are shown in the chart above.

If you compare the graph above with the table below you will see that the FSI considers it would take an average language learner between 100 and 150 weeks at 30 hours per week to attain superior status (3 to 3+) which is the lowest level most of us would call fluent. This is a bit more than the 3 months quoted by some programs! However, if by “fluent” you mean level 1, it may be possible. Beware of programs who play with words to get your money, the only way to get a good standard of Arabic is time and effort and a good program.

So where would you be on the scale below after studying with us? Well, assuming you have average aptitude for learning language and you study for the full two-year course and, of course, you will fulfil the course requirements by completing all homework assignments and mixing with local people on a regular basis, then you will attain the same level that our two year students normally do. That is, you would be about a 2 on the scale below – Able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements. Our full-time two year program is around 75 weeks in total, if you compare the length of our program with the graph above then you will see that even this is a bold claim but we see average students on our course attaining this regularly.

Those with a gifting for language may be able to reach about a 3 – Able to speak the language with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations.

ILR Scale	ACTFL Scale	Definition
5	Native	Able to speak like an educated native speaker
4+ 4	Distinguished	Able to speak with a great deal of fluency, grammatical accuracy, precision of vocabulary and idiomaticity
3+ 3	Superior	Able to speak the language with sufficient structural accuracy and vocabulary to participate effectively in most formal and informal conversations
2+	Advanced Plus	Able to satisfy most work requirements and show some ability to communicate on concrete topics
2	Advanced	Able to satisfy routine social demands and limited work requirements
1+	Intermediate – High	Able to satisfy most survival needs and limited social demands
1	Intermediate – Mid Intermediate – Low	Able to satisfy some survival needs and some limited social demands Able to satisfy basic survival needs and minimum courtesy requirements
0+	Novice – High	Able to satisfy immediate needs with learned utterances
0	Novice-Mid Novice – Low 0	Able to operate in only a very limited capacityUnable to function in the spoken language No ability whatsoever in the language