FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

MSA (Modern Standard Arabic) is the Arabic of books, religion, politics, and news media, while Arabic dialects (Spoken Arabic) are the regional adaptations of Arabic used in virtually all daily communication as well as popular media (films, TV shows, music, and theater). While some people point out that MSA is also spoken, this is misleading because most native Arabic speakers cannot hold a lengthy conversation in MSA and quickly revert back to their dialect.

The main reason for this lower MSA speaking proficiency is that Arabs do not learn MSA for speaking nor do they practice speaking it often; rather, they learn it for reading, writing, and to a lesser extent, for comprehension. So, it can generally be said that MSA is the Arabic which is written and Arabic dialect is the Arabic which is spoken. This is why we refer to it as “Spoken Arabic.”

Aside from North African Arabic dialects (Arabic countries west of Egypt), Arabic dialects do not differ that greatly from one another. This fact runs counter to the popular opinions of many people today believe partly because beginners tend to judge the dialects by their daily greetings and high frequency vocabulary. However, once learners move beyond the relatively small corpus of this high frequency vocabulary, they begin to discover just how much shared vocabulary exists between the dialects.

As a result of these similarities, Arabs from the Gulf regions find it fairly easy to communicate with Arabs in the Levant and Egypt. Another factor that has facilitated easier communication between Arabs is the advent of increasingly popular regional sitcoms and entertainment shows viewed across the Arab World. It used to be the case that Egyptian films dominated the airways but, in the last decade, we have seen numerous shows in other dialects gain popularity — even among the Egyptians themselves. To conclude, Arabic dialects are not as different as you may have heard. Students who have studied Arabic at our institute and later moved to another region of the Arab World have found great success in transferring over to another dialect.

This is one of the most important questions a student of Arabic should be asking before beginning language study.  In short, the answer really depends on your goals.  If you desire to study Arabic solely for one of the following reasons, then you should consider studying MSA:

1. Understanding the Qur’an and other Islamic texts
2. Studying Arabic poetry or the historical documents of Arabic civilization
3. Reading Arabic newspapers and other forms of news media

However, if it is your goal to do any of the following, you should strongly consider studying Arabic dialect (Spoken Arabic):

1. Speak and communicate with Arabs in their heart language
2. Build strong and meaningful relationships with Arabs
3. Live in an Arabic-speaking country
4. Prepare yourself for a career in the Arab World
5. Understand Arabic films and contemporary Arabic music

While there are some popular curriculums which seek to teach MSA and dialects concurrently, we do not advise beginning students to study both Spoken Arabic and MSA at the same time. Students who do this usually become overwhelmed and have a hard time progressing well in either one.  After almost two decades of experience teaching Arabic, we have come to believe that the best approach for most students of Arabic is to begin with a grammar-rich study of Spoken Arabic and then move to add MSA once they have reached a rating level of Advanced Low on the ACTFL OPI scale (click here to see ACTFL’s rating descriptions).

At CGE Jordan, we teach Spoken Arabic without neglecting the critical and practical grammar which holds it together and powers it. We begin by making sure that the student has mastered the Arabic alphabet and accent marking. We use our director’s curriculum for Spoken Arabic entitled, “Spoken Arabic Capsules of the Levant.” This curriculum is presently only available to our students and combines critical grammar and basic syntax rules along with high-frequency vocabulary and topic-based lessons. Thanks to this and our talented instructors, CGE Jordan students come out with a practical grammar structure enabling them to speak accurately, intelligently, and with greater fluency.

After gaining popularity with westerners studying in Asia, the GPA came to Jordan about ten years ago with many more opening since then. What can account for the GPA’s popularity? One reason is that GPA fees are typically less-expensive than those of traditional centers because GPA nurturers (language helpers) do not require degrees or any prior teaching experience, so they can be hired at less of an expense to the center than a credentialed or well-trained instructor who would possess a better understanding of Arabic’s structure and grammar and how to convey that to the student. CGE Jordan is not a GPA center, but one can always find some shared methodology between our different approaches to language learning.

One of the core  differences between a GPA center’s approach and CGE Jordan’s pedagogy is the underlying philosophy of how best to learn a second language. While the author of the GPA is a trained linguist, he does not have a thorough knowledge of Arabic grammar or its unique structure. His ideas, no matter how informed they are, do not give learners the important  strategical advantages that a deep knowledge of Arabic would give.

The GPA is based on the assumption that it is more natural for a person to learn a second language as a baby learns her first language. So, according to this philosophy, there is no need for a skilled instructor to guide the student in learning the grammar nor is there a necessity to be able to read or write letters in the initial stages. Instead, students are required to be quite and listen for the first 50, 60, or more hours of class.  The focus is completely on listening and then  speaking. Students are expected to discover the grammar principles that they need to know purely through exposure to the language. Cartoons, illustrations, and physical objects are the primary tools for teaching and form the base of a GPA student’s vocabulary.

The weakness with this philosophy lies in the fact that Arabic is very different from the Latin “Romance languages” East Asian languages and African languages. Unlike Spanish, French, Swahili, Indonesian, Mandarin, and many other languages, the grammar of Arabic is robust in its complexity; it does not lend itself to discovery without the guidance of a skilled instructor. As a result, very few students of Arabic in GPA programs are able to learn and understand the basic grammar they need to form healthy sentences. According to our extensive language evaluation data for Arabic, it is rare to find GPA students who can communicate at or above an advanced level without having already had significant instruction in practical Arabic grammar.

Our belief is that it is unwise, as an adult learner, to attempt to duplicate or base their language learning process on the process a child goes through in learning her first language. A child is fully-emersed in a new language 24/7, yet still needs at least four to five years to begin to speak her language at a basic level.  Tom Brewster, many years after founding the L.A.M.P. Method (a predecessor to the GPA), stated plainly, “If your child is learning a second language faster than you are, there’s something wrong with your program.” The GPA approach, in its purest form, diminishes the value of utilizing the immense first language structure that learners spend years building throughout their childhood. In contrast, we believe this first language structure to be of great value and seek to employ it to help students build a parallel structure in their second language.

This is not to say that students with strong learning preferences or  particular learning difficulties are not better served by certain hybrid GPA programs (not all GPA programs are purists in their approach).  In fact, we have occasionally advised some students to study part-time in select GPA programs. In any case, Arabic should not be approached as one would a romance language or an Asian language. While Arabic may share some similarities with other languages, it is resistant to the Natural Approach and the Total Physical Response Approach (TPR), both from which the GPA heavily draws.  We, at CGE Jordan, have spent years developing and tailoring our program and its approach specifically and directly for the Arabic language.

At CGE Jordan, we tell our students that Arabic has given us three “saving graces.”  These are:  1) A simple-to-understand system of writing and spelling,  2) Simple and direct keys to pronunciation emanating from its alphabet, and 3) A highly-structured and sensible lexical construction. These along with many other reasons, are why we include writing as well as grammar structures right from the beginning.  But, the most important thing is results.  On average, CGE Jordan students achieve the highest proficiency ratings of any language school in Jordan, when comparing similar classroom hours and other relative factors. In fact, we have concluded that it will take a GPA students double the study hours of our students to reach the intermediate mid and high rating levels. This gives us confidence that our curriculum and pedagogical approach, though it took many years of labor to develop, cannot be replaced by the GPA.

We differ from traditional Arabic programs in several ways. First, we do not focus all of our attention on teaching MSA. We believe in a balanced approach that acknowledges the great importance of Spoken Arabic in almost every area of life in the Arab World. So, although we teach MSA to students who request it for their career or study program goals, we do not believe in most cases that students should begin and end there. For this reason, we do not admit students whose sole purpose is to study Quranic Arabic or Arabic poetry. We have chosen to limit our MSA instruction to Media Arabic and practical everyday religious Arabic.

The second way we differ is in regard to our teaching methodology. Unlike traditional programs, we employ many critical drills and other exercises to encourage both fluency and creativity in speaking the language. We also give a lot of attention to high frequency vocabulary as well as crucial grammar concepts that directly affect one’s ability to speak accurately and intelligently. Practical Arabic for everyday home and career life is what we are about and this drives our teaching approach.

Because of the emersion and intensity factor, you will see much more progress in your Arabic during your time at CGE Jordan than you would from taking courses at a university in your home country. Students tell us all the time that they learned more at our institute in a couple of months than they learned in three years of Arabic classes in the United States.  But with regard to what a serious student of Arabic studying full-time with us can expect, here is an approximate time line for the Jordanian/Palestinian dialect (see The ACTFL OPI Proficiency Guidelines for Speaking):

1. From Beginner Low to Intermediate Low: less than 3 months
2. From Beginner Low to Intermediate Mid: 5-8 months
3. From Beginner Low to Intermediate High: 9-12 months
4. From Beginner Low to Advanced Low: 16 months to 1-1/2 years
5. From Beginner Low to Advanced Mid: 2 years to 2-1/2 years
6. From Beginner Low to Advanced High: 2-1/2 years to 3 years
7. From Beginner Low to Superior: more than 3 years

*Bear in mind that these are averages for students who are studying more than 15 hours per week.  Especially-gifted students, with a high level of motivation and good study habits, will reach some these levels earlier.