Media Arabic: A Coursebook for Reading Arabic News [Arabic]

By Alaa Elgibali

Book Overview

A new and updated edition of the essential activities book for learning to read the news in ArabicIn light of the rapidly growing number of people studying Arabic--in academia, governments, NGOs, and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: Arabic
• ISBN: 9774161084
• ISBN13: 9789774161087
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: The American University in Cairo Press
• Length: 232 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.0" x 0.4" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Good Textbook

Great textbook for students studying MSA for the purpose of understanding media. The vocabulary is extremely relevant, the readings are numerous and kept to a useful length, and they build on previously learned vocabulary meaning you constantly see your new words within their common context. This makes for much more effective and easier retention of vocabulary, in my opinion. I would strongly suggest working with this textbook (alone is possible, although a teacher or language partner could help with discussion) first before jumping into translating direct from newspapers. Unless you are able to retain vocabulary after only seeing a word once, the structure is essential for building a strong foundation. Do not buy this book expecting grammar explanations, you can find that elsewhere. Also, the words do not come with vowel markings, but neither do the newspapers.

An example of the new level of excellence in Arabic instruction

This book is a recommended acquisition for the intermediate student of MSA, and is reflective of the improving standard of study texts available to students. The book is outstanding. The thing that most struck me about this book was the terrifically useful and interesting pedagogical structure. The book is divided into chapters by subject area and each chapter is further divided into a repeated pedagogical pattern that aids learning by reinforcing a systematic method of analysis. The student is shown distinct tools for engaging with the written text and these approaches are reinforced through numerous drills. The chapter subjects are: Unit One: Meetings and Conferences Unit Two: Demonstrations Unit Three: Elections Unit Four: Conflicts and Terrorism Unit Five: Trials Unit Six: Business and Finance Revisions of Units Five and Six Glossary (i.e., of key words for each unit) Each chapter (or unit) is then sub-divided into the following areas, in repeated sequence for each unit: Pre-reading: Students are provided with a photo and vocabulary in Arabic text with English translation (no more than about ten terms). This exercise is about pre-empting or predicting the nature of the exercises about to follow; getting students thinking about and discussing their predictions. Reading for main ideas: this is about reading the opening paragraph of a news article to extract key ideas: where, what, who, when and why. Students are provided with a short text plus key vocab items (less than ten) in Arabic and English and a list of main issues to extract, indicated in Arabic. For example in the first unit the main issues are "the kind of meeting", "place of the meeting", "the participants", "the subject of discussion". The student is given a sequence of about half a dozen similar exercises each covering the subject but building on and expanding the knowledge in the previous exercise. Understanding text organization: This section provides a media example then points (with arrows) at key terms to extract the "What, Why and Where" to teach students about archetypical sentence and paragraph structures - thus accelerating the ability to extract key issues from a text. The section then provides tables of standard vocabulary, prepositions and expressions used in media articles. These tables provide more than a flat translation but rather provide expanded contextual meaning that a native reader would comprehend but that won't always be apparent to a student. I found this to be extremely useful, for example, in providing a dual translation of connectors: you get the literal translation and a contextual translation which shows what is indicated by the choice of connector. Reading for detail: provides several, denser, examples of text and asks the student to identify key points then make summaries and answer more detailed questions about content. Vocabulary building: A series of exercises including building network diagrams of vocabulary, cutting out and scrapbookin

Comprehensive Textbook

Yes I said it, textbook. This textbook is very well structured in terms of exercises, I must say, the author really had westerners in mind when putting together the material for this textbook. YES you do need a teacher (Which I have) to really comprehend this material, esp. in terms of speaking exercises etc. Also, this textbook is not for beginners-> Upper intermediate or Advance students only. lastly You must have a GOOD grasp of grammar before learning from this textbook.