Arab Language, Cultures, and Current Topics

Catalog description

ARAB 110 is a fourth-semester (upper intermediate) Arabic culture and language course, designed for students who have successfully completed Arabic 003, or those who demonstrate an equivalent competence in Modern Standard Arabic. The course focuses on selected aspects of the cultures to be found among Arabic-speaking communities and countries around the world, and it emphasizes the diversities within, as well as between, these cultures. Learners of Arabic as a second/foreign language will improve their language skills, especially in written and spoken communication, and they will develop their intercultural competence. The material is always presented through culturally rich texts, as the course uses authentic texts in Arabic to expand the student's knowledge of both language and culture. Students have many opportunities to increase their knowledge and appreciation of the varieties of cultural production in the Arabic-speaking world. Along with continuation of language learning, students are exposed to resources such as short stories, travelers' tales, websites, film, music, graphic fiction (comics), etc. The multiplicity of colloquial versions of the Arabic language, and their coexistence with Modern Standard Arabic, are explained in order to prepare students for encountering the complex reality of the language and its many cultures. This course can be taken as a stand-alone, or used to fill a requirement for the Arabic Minor, and as a prerequisite for Penn State's 400-level courses in Arabic.