[251] Learning Arabic is fun in noncredit MTSU course

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FOR RELEASE: Jan. 28, 2013

EDITORIAL CONTACT: Gina Logue, 615-898-5081, gina.logue@mtsu.edu

MURFREESBORO — MTSU’s Center for Accelerated Language Acquisition is offering an interesting and dynamic way for adults to learn Arabic.

The noncredit beginners’ Arabic course will meet from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. beginning Thursday, Feb. 21, and run through Thursday, April 18, in Room 116 of the Paul H. Martin Honors Building.

This class is both for students who are starting from scratch and those who already have learned the Arabic alphabet. Content will be a mixture of high-frequency vocabulary that will enable students to start expressing themselves in Arabic.

All the vocabulary and stories will be given in both forms: transliterated into the English alphabet for beginners and in Arabic characters for those who have studied them.

Ahmad Jeddeeni, a native Syrian who has taught Arabic at Damascus University and for one year at MTSU on a Fulbright Scholarship, will be the instructor. After teaching at the American embassy in Syria for two years, he has returned to MTSU.

Jeddeeni will use two methods: Total Physical Response (TPR) and Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling (TPRS).

In TPR, the instructor and students interact with the new vocabulary through hands-on activities. This vocabulary is then used in TPRS, where the students apply it to create stories with the teacher. The result is a less stressful internalization of the language and its grammar, much like the way our first language was learned.

Tuition is $300. MTSU students will receive a 75 percent discount. MTSU faculty and staff and their family members will receive a 50 percent discount.

For more information, contact Dr. Shelley Thomas of the MTSU Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at 615-898-5757 or shelley.thomas@mtsu.edu. To register or to view videos of the TPR and TPRS techniques in practice, go to www.acceleratedacquisition.com.

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