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“You should have seen how I used to teach Arabic before,”
said Falak Reno. “There were dictations, recitations, memoriza-
tions. The children used to be petrified. They couldn’t wait for
the class to end.”
When Julia Kozak, the director of the elementary school,
joined IC six years ago, she was amazed to see the silent Arabic
classes with one child or another reciting. She felt a sense of
fear in the students. They just had to get the grammar or dicta-
tion right. There was no place for errors. The teachers were seri-
ous. The lessons were strict. She wanted to yell out: “just let go
and have fun!”
Unbeknown to her things were about to change.
As PYP began to kick in in 2000, textbooks, including Ara-
bic, in both preschool and elementary schools were slowly be-
ing phased out.
“In the classroom you will now find a lot more drama, sing-
ing, poetry, theatrical productions in Arabic,” said Kozak. “I
don’t understand the Arabic but I can see how much the chil-
dren are enjoying it. I get the feeling. They’re happy and they
love it. That’s what’s important to me.”
The dramatic change meant that dictations and grammar no
longer stand alone. When given, they are conducted within the
transdisciplinary theme.
“It’s no longer a matter of just write something and get a
grade,” said Sana Harakeh, teacher and the chairperson of the
Arabic department at the elementary school. “We don’t just see
one side of the child. We see him or her from all sides. We have
continuous evaluations and weekly meetings to see how we can
help the children improve their Arabic.”
In third grade, Manuela Asmar, 8, was pouring over a map with
her group. Their task was to trace the life of Vincent van Gogh.
“He immigrated to London,” Yasmina Zamel, 8, a group
member said knowingly.
After a brief look at the information given to them, Manuela
objected. “Immigrated? It doesn’t say ‘immigrated’. It said he
was sent to London. Then he ‘immigrated’ to Paris.”
The others nodded and traced Van Gogh’s journey on the
small laminated map in front of them.
Their task completed, the students’ next job is to present their
work to their classmates – all in formal Arabic.
A big boost to IC’s revamping of the Arabic methodology came
about five years ago when Lebanon suddenly saw a sharp increase
of Arabic authors writing or translating children’s books. For the
first time, young readers have a wide choice of interesting Arabic
books. Arabic book fairs are held at IC at least twice a year.
“All schools teach Arabic but they teach it in a very tradi-
tional way,” said Khoury. “IC is a leader in making teachers
understand that they are only facilitators in the classroom and
not THE source of knowledge. Teaching is shared by teachers
and students.”
IC teachers often give
workshops in Arabic
methodology. If inter-
ested, contact the Educa-
tion Resources Center at
01364016.
7
Learning Arabic through tracing the journey of an artist.
Children at
Arabic book fair.
Preschoolers recognize most of the words in the daily morning
message and read along with teacher Nawal Hammoud.