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Advice on working with a language partner | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| sjones134 Newbie Qatar Joined 3449 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 1 of 10 17 June 2015 at 5:44pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone! Glad to find this forum and am here to ask a little advice.
I am learning Arabic with a goal (at this stage) of being able to speak Gulf arabic with reasonable fluency. I live in Qatar so that is one bonus - important to mention that Qataris make up 10% of their population so it is not the most commonly spoken language here, hindi probably is! I can read arabic with no problems and frequent chat rooms but the conversation doesn't really get too far and once people know that I am British they speak in English to me. Most actually don't believe me as I open with colloquial chat and it is pretty much unheard of for Brits to be speaking khaleeji arabic. My spoken arabic isn't very good at all as I never speak arabic unless I am forced to... Which hardly ever happens as most can speak English. Anyways I digress. I have now been presented with an opportunity - my colleague (a local) wants me to teach him English and in turn he will teach me arabic (Gulf arabic) He has identified what he wants to learn in English and it is easy for me to teach that to him - he needs better reading, presentation skills and emails so he reads old strings of work mails to me, we go through words he doesn't know... We go through old presentations from work and he practices presenting to me. So this will be one day. The next day he teaches me.... I need conversation. What I don't know is how to structure the class, how I can get the most out of him. Please can anyone give me any pointers as to a good way to structure my class where I am learning. All I want is to practice speaking. Actually I can understand the majority of conversations that go on around me.. But I never speak... I know that i need to just speak but I am worried that perhaps he will leave it to me to talk to him and I will just get a mind blank and not be able to come up with anything??? Any help or pointers would be massively appreciated Thanks... Edited by sjones134 on 20 June 2015 at 3:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes  Studies: German | Message 2 of 10 17 June 2015 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
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Hello sjones134,
Search Function I do not speak Arabic, nor have I ever studied the language. Nonetheless, my first suggestion would be that you LOGGIN and that you conduct a SEARCH of the Forum using the criterion ARABIC. I just did so and the search revealed 127 discussion threads. I tried GULF ARABIC but there were 0 results. My next suggestions pertain to my general experience in learning languages, which is quite personal and filled with biases of every imaginable sort. Assimil Arabic Given your situation, I suggest that you explore Assimil Arabic which, as far as I understand, teaches Standard Arabic. If you are not already familiar with the Assimil Method, the course materials are one small, pocket-sized course book and 4 audio CDs. The learning base is 100 short dialogues of increasing difficulty. The book includes a transcription of the dialogues, a translation, and a phonetic spelling to assist in pronunciation. The dialogues are accompanied by explanatory notes that, unfortunately, are not always as clear as one might prefer and, for this reason, I suggest that you acquire a simple Arabic Grammar. The 4 audio CDs contain the recorded dialogues in the target language only. The initial cadence is deliberately quite slow and, while it begins to increase in the subsequent lessons, it rarely achieves the very quick cadence of native speakers. While the vocabularly is quite general, the dialogues themselves do include something of a colloquial element. Generally speaking, the Assimil courses are very highly regarded for their quality and their effectiveness, providing that one put's in the hours of practice! The level achieved would be somewhere around CEFR B1. Addendum: The link that I included to Assimil Arabic displayed the listing for this course from an English base. In the event that your French is strong enough, there exists are more advanced course, Assimil Perfectionnement Arabe. You could used this course either (a) by translating from the French to the English, or (b) simply using the written Arabic dialogues, the audio recordings, and a dictionnary as graded equivalent-to-native-materials. Although Assimil markets their advanced courses as bringing the student to the C2 level, perhaps B2 would be a little more realistic. Glossika Mass Sentences The next recommendation would be the Glossika Mass Sentences for Arabic. I'm plagerizing myself here copying/pasting my comments from another discussion thread ... In my opinion, Glossika does not provide a very good description of their materials and thereby are doing themselves something of a disservice and probably missing some sales opportunities. So, based on my experience with their German Mass Sentence materials, here's what you can expect: A. Text Files Three PDF files, one for each Level, containing a total of 3,000 Mass Sentences expressed in the Target Language, along with a translation in the Learner's Language, and an IPA pronunciation guide for each individual sentence. I would imagine that Glossika refers to them as "Mass" because the sentences are, for all pratical purposes, unrelated to one another. The is no other support included such as notes on grammar, explanations of colloquial usage, etcetera. B. GMS Audio Files The 3,000 Mass Sentences are separated into 60 groups, each containg 50 sentences. The 50 sentences within a group are presented sequentially in three familiarization phases as follows: 1 English_pause_Arabic_pause_Arabic_pause, for a duration of about 12 minutes 2 English_pause_Arabic, for a duration of about 7 minutes 3 Arabic_pause, for a duration of about 4 minutes C. GSR Sentences The Mass Sentences are sequenced randomly, for a duration of range from about 12 minutes to 30 minutes. The individual GSR groups are titled, oddly, "Day 1, Day 2, ... Day 104" and they contain the Mass Sentences of the accumulating GMS sentences, adding and removing materials as they "roll forward", thereby providing significant repetition of the Mass Sentences. D. Hours of Audio Recordings I have not performed an exhaustive analysis of the number of hours of the Glossika German Mass Sentences. However, a quick count suggests that there are about 2 hours of sentences, exclusive of pauses. The total audio files exceed 40 hours of multiple répétitions of the sentences, which includes the English language prompts and the pauses. E. Levels The 3,000 Mass Sentences are grouped into three levels as Fluency 1, Fluency 2, Fluency 3. The range is from A1 through to about B1. F. My Overall Appraisal I view the Glossika materials as representing a sincere effort to provide the student with supplementary practice materials. Are they "more" effective than, say, the FSI Basic courses or the Assimil dialogues, when the latter are pushed to the limit? In my opinion, no, they are NOT "more" effective; however, they DO represent very interesting supplementary materials for someone who needs a change of pace. Also, since it is a little difficult to anticipate the order in which the sentences are presented in the GSR files, this helps keep one mentally alert. Tutors I appreciate that you have many opportunities to practice with the locals and that, in the final analysis, this is best of all possible language schools. Also, as you have an enthusiastic language partner, you can work on the specifics of the language. Nonetheless, you should still consider teaming up with a Professional Tutor. The best tutors will guide you towards greater fluency. Finding one with whom you are truly comfortable can take time, but the search is worth the effort. Here are a couple of websites: First Tutors and Italki. There are many others available. I'm quite confident that other Forum Members, who have actual experience in learning Arabic, will provide more indepth suggestions. Good luck! Edited by Speakeasy on 20 June 2015 at 4:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| sjones134 Newbie Qatar Joined 3449 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 3 of 10 20 June 2015 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the feedback speakeasy.
I think I am looking for more information as to how I can get the most of out of a language exchange. I will have one hour every other day with my buddy to speak arabic. My arabic isn't great but I can hold a basic conversation. Was just wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to get the most out of a language exchange. My main worry is that the conversation won't flow! So I guess preparing some topics would be a good idea?? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 4 of 10 20 June 2015 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to the forum, sjones! If I may make a suggestion, because the title of your post is "Learning Gulf Arabic", it may to specific and it doesn't seem to be getting an abundance of attention. Try making a new post here in the Advice Center titled "How to get the most out of a language exchange?" and you will have more opportunity for advice in general as plenty of people here have done exchanges in their languages and that general advice will be useful to you.
Since you'll have a willing native speaker in front of you, it's a golden opportunity. I have always used language exchanges to practice conversation, as opposed to being explicitly taught. In the process, I get corrected and am taught by way of and through my corrections and explanations as to why what I'm saying is incorrect, if that makes any sense. Edited by iguanamon on 20 June 2015 at 2:41pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 5 of 10 20 June 2015 at 2:43pm | IP Logged |
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Hello sjones134,
Oops, sorry! My own limited experiences with non-professionally-trained language partners have not been very fruitful in terms of developing fluency. Perhaps you could book and number of practice sessions with a tutor and apply some of the best tutor-driven techniques to your sessions with your partner? I have never mastered the SEARCH function of the HTLAL Forum. Nonetheless, I just conducted two searches, one with "tutor" as the search criterion and a second with "tutors" as the criterion. Surprisingly, for me, they yielded different results. My first suggestion would be that you try your own SEARCHES and read through the various discussion threads. Here's one that seems to shed some light on your problem: tutors My second suggestion would be that you use the EDIT function at the bottom of your initial post and change the TITLE of this discussion thread to something like "Seeking advice on working with a language partner" or, if there is insufficient space, simply "Working With a Language Partner?" This might attract more comments on your specific issue. Good luck with your studies! ADDENDUM: Cavesa pre-empted my suggestion. I'm really slow on the uptake! I just conducted a simple Google Search. Here are the results to my question: How To Work With a Language Partner Edited by Speakeasy on 20 June 2015 at 3:14pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sjones134 Newbie Qatar Joined 3449 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 6 of 10 20 June 2015 at 3:22pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks gents - I have amended the title and will do a little research myself and get everyones feedback once I have
come up with a little structure and guidelines for the sessions. Cheers 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sjones134 Newbie Qatar Joined 3449 days ago 5 posts - 6 votes | Message 7 of 10 20 June 2015 at 5:01pm | IP Logged |
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OK so after a little research there seem to be some common themes coming through regarding language partners:
Make some ground rules before starting. Don't focus on grammar and being corrected all the time, rather strive for communication, ask your partner to identify some common mistake themes and inform you about it later. Learn some useful phrases for example "how do i say" "can you repeat". Perhaps record the session to go over afterwards Try and stick to the target language as much as possible (80 / 20 rule) Have a list of conversation topics to go over incase conversation isn't flowing and ask open ended questions and inform your partner to promote the conversation too! Think this should be good - let me know if anyone has any input on the above?? I will also let everyone know how it goes - my first session with him in arabic will be Monday 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Speakeasy Senior Member Canada Joined 4053 days ago 507 posts - 1098 votes Studies: German | Message 8 of 10 20 June 2015 at 6:24pm | IP Logged |
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Hi sjones134,
This is great! It looks like you have begun to establish some "structure" for your sessions. In my case, all of my partners felt that chatting aimlessly was all that was needed and, predictably, we eventually stopped meeting because we weren't making any progress. The thought just occurred to me that perhaps you and your language partner could "role play" using some of the materials from the old DLI/FSI courses as a point of departure. Here is the LINK to the FSI Languages website. I appreciate that it might take some time to go through the various courses looking for ideas, but it might be worth the trouble. For example, in the body of the About section of the website, there is a LINK to the "Defense Language Institute and Foreign Language Institute archives and various material". If you follow this link to the DLI archives, you will be directed to the older DLI course materials. Some of these files have Basic Situations PDF files that contain either pictogrammes or narratives that are meant to provide "role play" scenarios in predictable situations. While I have not made an exhaustive search of the files, I did notice that the FRENCH course has a PDF file of Basic Situations that contains pictogrammes and that the IRAQI ARABIC course has, at the very bottom of the page, a PDF file of "Speaking Exercises" that describe role-playing scenarios in a narrative fashion. Edited by Speakeasy on 20 June 2015 at 6:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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