'Arabi Liblib Reviews

Aimed at the growing number of students studying Arabic worldwide, the Kallimni ‘Arabi series takes an innovative, functional approach to the study of Egyptian colloquial Arabic—the spoken dialect most frequently studied and most widely understood in the Arab world. Kallimni ‘Arabi Mazboot, the fourth book in the series, is designed for adult students at the early advanced stage of learning the language. Drawing on her years of experience as an Arabic instructor, author Samia Louis has developed a course rich in everyday cultural content and real-life functional language as well as comprehensive grammar. Written in accordance with the ACTFL guidelines for teaching Arabic as a foreign language, this highly structured course trains students in the crucial skills, with emphasis on listening and speaking. Each chapter includes a conversation unit that enables students to improve their communication skills and allows for progressive acquisition of vocabulary and grammar through interactive classroom tasks and everyday situations, from expressing personal likes and dislikes to initiating conversations and describing events and experiences.

The accompanying video films entitled “People’s Opinions” will further help the students to place colloquial Egyptian within context. Click here to watch them on the AUC Press Arabic Resources YouTube channel.

The book is further supported by interactive reading, writing, and grammar drills accessible through the Internet. The audio recordings of each chapter’s dialogues and exercises are made by native Egyptian speakers to enrich the student’s exposure to the spoken language in its natural context and speed. Click here to listen to the tracks on Soundcloud.

“The books in the [Kallimni ‘Arabi] series altogether present the best Arabic textbooks available . . . miles ahead of most others.”—David Wilmsen, American University of Beirut

Advanced and High Intermediate Arabic learners can benefit greatly from reading texts that cover a broad range of different themes, to build their vocabulary and attain a higher proficiency level. The authors of this textbook have carefully selected a lively variety of texts that cover controversial issues and current events, which are likely to arouse students’ attention and interest. In the course of reading to learn, students will not only practice strategies (skimming, scanning, careful reading, and guessing for vocabulary recognition), but they will also engage more deeply in the material as informative of Arab and Egyptian society, politics, and culture. Another important objective is to direct the attention of the student to MSA connectors, which are essential for comprehension. Readers will begin to notice high-frequency words and idiomatic expressions in multiple contexts, reinforcing their retention and ability to then use them in discussion. The grammatical structures of MSA styles occurring in the texts can be reviewed and reinforced. The texts appear in order from least to greatest linguistic complexity, and to a certain extent, by the topic which they tackle. This makes it easy for instructors to choose the most level-appropriate material to present to their classes. An experimental copy of the book has been piloted over the last four years at the Arabic Language Institute at the American University in Cairo, with the result that the first 15 lessons have been deemed correct for the high intermediate level and the remaining lessons for advanced students. The book includes exercises after every five lessons, and all the drills are gathered in an appendix following the text, as well as a glossary for all vocabulary items.