Content Writing

The General Concept Serious students of Arabic language start with two massive mountains to climb: the language itself and a lack of knowledge of even basic grammar even in their own language. This guide is not attempting to teach Arabic from scratch, but to at least assist in quickly climbing the second mountain. Students often give up due to their text books failing to explain the ‘Why’ of a particular piece of grammar. Instead such textbooks plough straight into the how with endless list dry rules in a dull format, painfully learnt but quickly forgotten. Here each grammar term will be explained one by one: not just the ‘what’ and ‘how’ but the ‘why’ thus truely deepening understanding the language and etched into the memory. Format Simple: Each term will start with its own page and have, where appropriate, standard headings using a standard headings of so that the student can use the guide as a handy look up. Presentation will be attractive to encourage quick learning, easy referencing back to and hopefully encouragement to further study. e.g. 1. Term name in English, 2. Arabic, 3. Why is the term important? 4. How is it used? etc The WHY question is vitally important, often ignored by standard academic text books or given a cursory obscure explanation. Without a deep knowledge of the ‘Why’ of something how can the student begin be interested in the ‘How’ or ‘What’? Again most Arabic textbooks (often written by linguists) assume the student has a deep linguistic knowledge of the grammar structure of their mother tongue e.g ‘Genitive construct’, ‘Verbal and nominal sentences’ etc – this is rarely the case these days! Your Role: I will provide a topic or term used in Arabic grammar. e.g Al I’raab: The three vowel markings – Why are they important? The Diptote (لممنوع من الصرف) - Definite Particle - The Subject - The ‘News’ This is not new, what is new is I what to simply explain the 'WHY' of a rule not just WHAT the rule is an expect the student to memorise it like a computer. Rules are boring... until you know the importance ! You will perhaps think about and provide different ways of explaining the term – it may be simple term to explain or perhaps need graphics? We will work our way through each term perhaps 20-30 terms in all, some short some likely needing a longer explanation – with time, an ideal presentation/format will emerge. You will provide content according to the heading below term/topic (in English) perhaps using a table form or graphics or from limited only by our imagination ! For each topic think of an exciting, imaginative, amusing and unusual ways to aim fast understanding can be helped through: • Tables • Colour • Graphics Long and complex explanations for terms MUST be avoided. Instead by using simple graphics, colour highlighting the concept is explained. Before the term is presented the reader MUST have a clear idea of WHY the term is important and WHAT is its function. If there is no accepted reason why then this MUST be admitted and stated clearly (eg ‘The reason for X lies deep in the history of the evolution of Arabic and is not known’ or There is no agreed reason among linguists why this is so…’ etc).