Introduction

The latest economic and political developments in the Arab World and recent advancements in instructional technology have produced a wealth of video, audio and textual materials. These changes have provided us with opportunities to update and expand the content of the Advanced Business Arabic textbook in a web based environment. The new website lessons are based on selected authentic texts from online sites of major Arab newspapers and journals and video recordings from Al-Jazeera and other Arab Internet sources. The lessons consist of economic reports as well as articles and videotaped panel discussions dealing with economic-social-political topics. Each lesson exists in two versions: student version and teacher version. The difference between the student version and the teacher version is that the latter contains the answers to the questions.

The new Advanced Business Arabic website is intended as a FREE OF CHARGE complement to the Advanced Business Arabic textbook . The teachers and their students can choose the lessons in which they are interested. The Advanced Business Arabic textbook and its accompanying website presuppose control of basic vocabulary and grammatical structures which are typically covered by the end of the intermediate level of Arabic instruction. Grammatical explanations are given only for remedial purposes, based on the actual common errors made by the students in their written assignments. The author strongly recommends using Raji Rammuny’s Advanced Arabic Composition: Student Guide which can be purchased through the following URL:

http://www.press.umich.edu/6861468/advanced_arabic_composition_student_guide

The new Advanced Business Arabic website is still in the experimental stage and, therefore, comments and reactions from teachers and students will be greatly appreciated.

I am greatly indebted to Al-Jazeera net and all the journals and newspapers from which we selected the topics for the website lessons, and to the University of Michigan for Research on Learning and Teaching for their financial support to create the new Advanced Business Arabic website. I also would like to thank my able graduate research assistants Adelaide Byrum, Mathew Hanna and Samia Ayyash for their help in collecting the material, typing glossaries and occasionally adding some questions to the lessons. Special thanks go to the website team led by my graduate student Courtney Lesoon in cooperation with the University of Michigan Language Resource Center staff: Philomena Meechan, Claudia Warth-Sontheimer, Jonathon Beals, Robert Demilner, Philip Cameron, and Laura Brubacher.

Finally, a huge debt of gratitude is due to Mrs. Julie Evershed, director of the UM language Resource Center, Mrs. Philomena Meechan, instructional technology learning lead, and Dr. Laura Shram, Academic Program Officer at UM Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, for their guidance and valuable suggestions during the various stages of developing the website.

Raji M. Rammuny
April 9, 2015