المقدمة

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 Economics and Politics of the Arab World textbook draft in a web-based environment. The website lessons are based on selected authentic texts from online sites of major Arab newspapers, journals and video recordings from Al-Jazeera and other Arab Internet sources, dealing with current economic-political topics.

This website serves two purposes: (1) providing the growing number of Arabic language learners across the country with engaging authentic and practical language materials designed to bring the learners to the Advanced-Superior proficiency levels and ultimately acquire near native control of Arabic, and (2) broadening their knowledge and understanding of important current economic and political issues in the Arab world.

The website utilizes a balanced integrative, communicative proficiency approach  which has the following distinctive features:

  1. It focuses attention on the three basic learning processes: the process of interpretation of meaning, the process of internationalization of newly- learned vocabulary and useful expressions, and the process of communication.
  2. The materials are organized in such a way that instructors and their students can select the units best suited for their needs and interests without detracting from the rest of the units
  3. The types of learning and teaching activities included in each unit encourage collaboration, sharing of information, negotiation of meaning and require learners to use both oral and written discourse as they get engaged in a variety of communicative exchanges and problem-solving tasks.
  4. The lessons are presented in a logical and systematic manner following a four-stage sequence:
  1. list of new vocabulary and useful expressions with English equivalents and Arabic explanations where necessary,
  2. Basic text or video segment,
  3. Questions for comprehension and analysis,
  4. Oral and written activities.

Finally, this website is still in the experimental stage and, therefore, comments and reactions from both teachers and learners will  be greatly appreciated.

This Website is offered Free of Charge. The authors, however, would appreciate any contribution in whatever amount to the Raji Rammuny Endowment Fund code 731112 which has been established at the University of Michigan to provide yearly scholarship awards to outstanding graduate students in the field of Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language. Contributions can be made online using the Donation button at: https://leadersandbest.umich.edu/find/#!/give/basket/fund/731112?keyword=raji20rammuny%20fund

Or by calling the Office of University Development: (888) 518-7888

Acknowledgements

We wish to express our deep gratitude to Aljazeera Arab network and the Center for Arab Unity Studies in Beirut  for providing us permissions to use the authentic articles and video materials we selected from their sources in development of the Economics and Politics of the Arab World unpublished textbook draft and this website based on it with modifications. Our special thanks go to the authors of the selected material. We are also indebted to the website team, including Johnathon Beals and Philip Cameron, instructional technology consultants in the UM Language Resource Center and Ahmed Farahat, Ph.D candidate in Arabic Linguistics in the Department of Middle East Studies, for their support and outstanding efforts during the process of  converting the textbook printed instructional lessons into website environment and careful design and development of the website.

The authors

Raji M. Rammuny & Yousef K. Al-Yousef

University of Michigan

Department of Middle East Studies

Ann Arbor, Michigan  2020