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Programs & Activities - Cairo, Egypt  


 

The Program

Our program is broken into two separate components. First there is the "Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (spoken) - ECA" component, and the second is the "Modern Standard Arabic (reading and writing) MSA". Most students opt to participate in both components, but they can be taken individually as well.

The ECA component is for 10 hours per week.
The MSA component is for 10 hours per week.
The total program is 20 hours a week.

Full educational details of standard courses can be found below. Specialized courses can be put together for groups of students. For more information please contact us.

Classes are from Monday to Thursday, 5 hours daily.


Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA)

Covers the spoken language of Egypt and the most widely understood Arabic dialect in the Middle East. We try to give you a working knowledge of ECA to enable you to accomplish everyday tasks, to chat in Egyptian Arabic and as you improve, to exchange opinions and hold real conversations with native speakers. Another objective of our courses is to give you a working knowledge of the Arabic script to make your life easier. Our focus is communicative. We follow the situational language teaching methodology where the spoken language is presented through situations that do not require translation.

What You Will Learn

We have structured our ECA courses from level 1 (Beginners) to level 10 (Advanced) and by the end of each level you should be able to:

Beginners ECA: Ask and givepersonal information about people– shop – give instruction to a taxidriver– talk about jobs – tell time –deal with money and numbers.

Early Elementary ECA: Introducing oneself – family members– adverb of place - polite requests – asking aboutaddress – routine verbs – shopping –short planning – flat hunting – colours –clothes

Elementary ECA: Talk about weather – hobbies –suggestions – invitations – ordering in restaurants– likes and dislikes – talking about future andpast events – complaints of physical illnesses.

Early IntermediateECA: Biographies – describe cities andbuildings – talking about change between past and present– disapproving with people – talk about pastpersonal experience – ask services – invitations

Intermediate ECA: Reported speech –apologies –asking help – borrowing – complaining –talk about accomplishments – expressing positive and negativeopinions – describe feelings and emotions–narration of stories.

Upper IntermediateECA: Talk about historical events –comparisons – express personal opinion – idioms toexpress duration of events – agreeing and disagreeing– giving advices –assumptions –probabilities and conditionals – asking for help –giving reasons.

Post IntermediateECA: Borrowing – complaining –talking about landmarks and monuments – using passive forms– idioms to express doubts – exaggerations– describe personalities – guessing –talking about personal experiences.

Advances levels ECA: Express subtle sophisticated ideas – putfeelings into language – use exaggeration and flattery– engage in lively exchanges – understand some ofthe cultural influences on the language.


Modern Standard Arabic MSA

Covers the written language of Arabic. It is developed from Classical Arabic which is the language of the Holy Quran. MSA is the language of newspapers and the media. It is a 'living' language, drawn up by educated people and intellectuals. The objective of our MSA courses is to enable you to read and write at an appropriate academic level, and to enable you to follow current day-to-day events in the Middle East and North Africa. Our MSA courses also serve as an introduction to the enormous wealth of Arabic literature.

Pre-MSA: Using a variety of classroom activities, thiscourse will enable you to build up the basic skills of reading,writing, listening and speaking as well as developing languageacquisition skills. Grammar is not presented explicitly at this stage.

Beginners MSA: This level aims to enhance the understanding andproduction, both written and spoken, of different patterns of nominalsentences, present and future tenses of verbs conjugated with singlepronouns, negation of nominal and verbal sentences and useful basicvocabulary.

Early Elementary MSA: This course expands on the teaching points of theprevious level in teaching tenses with plural nouns. The level alsodeals with all essential morphological rules related to verbconjunction, such as weak roots and the ten forms of Arabic verbs aswell as sentence structures. All grammar and morphology presentationsare contextualized in relevant situations which expand the basiclexicon.

Elementary MSA: Thislevel prepares the participant with essential newspaper expressions andvocabulary. This level expands on the morphological aspects ofvocabulary. "Masdars", active and passive voice, reported statements,conjunctions and complex sentences. This will enable students tounderstand and use them in meaningful contexts.

Early Intermediate MSA: This level details sentence formation, compound andcomplex sentences and related syntax, i.e. connectors, clauses andaccusatives. It expands more on morphology as active and passiveparticiples.

Intermediate MSA: Students will be exposed to different styles ofsemi-authentic texts with the aim of building a more specializedlexicon and expanding on grammar taught in previous levels. This levelalso enforces oral and written skills through a variety of classroomactivities.

Upper Intermediate MSA: This level exposes the student to a wide range oftopics which cover a variety of areas such as Politics, Economics& History. It focuses in expanding grammar such as differentuses of "Masdars", using different verb types and conditionals.

Post Intermediate MSA: This level is aiming at fluency in reading andenables the participant to cope with short texts of different styles byusing a wide range of topics. Grammar points are generated from thetext. The student consolidates and expands on all grammar andmorphological rules taught in previous levels.

Advanced levels MSA: In these levels, students are exposed to a varietyof texts which enrich their knowledge of sophisticated vocabulary. Thelevels also widen the scope of the students’ understanding ofdifferent written styles; i.e. the informative, argumentative,philosophical, scientific and literary styles which are used atdifferent times by different writers. These authentic texts enablestudents to have a deeper analytical view of Arabic grammar and syntaxproblems. The students also recycle old structures and enhance anddevelop their writing and listening skills.



 

Admissions & Academic Credit

The minimum age for students traveling alone is 18. Students age 16 and older are welcome if traveling with an adult and with the permission of their legal guardian(s). All students are welcomed regardless of educational background, occupation or nationality. No previous knowledge of German is required except where otherwise indicated.

As Egypt is predominately a Muslim country it is important to respect its customs - in particular its dress code when attending class.

Students desiring credit for their study should contact their home school or request the NRCSA Credit Fact Sheet. Generally, U.S. universities consider 15 hours of study to be equal to 1 semester credit.

For general information on academic credit, please click here.


 
ECA Program
MSA Program

Admissions & Academic Credit

 
 

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Tel: (414) 278-0631    Fax: (414) 271-8884    E-Mail: study@nrcsa.com
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