Arabic 401

Arabic 401 is a 5-credit course offered in the fall semester.

Required Materials
Self Evaluation
Learning Resources

Course Objectives


By the end of Arabic 401, you are expected to reach at least the Advanced-Mid1 level of proficiency in Arabic. To reach this goal you will be able to:

  • Use sentences and series of sentences to narrate in the past, present, and future about your life, familiar experiences or events, basic information about familiar person and place.
  • Describe, both in spoken and written formats, your future plans, people, events, and experiences using practiced material.
  • Initiate and respond, in a culturally appropriate way, to situations that require making simple compliments, well-wishing, etc.
  • Handle short social interactions in everyday situations by asking and answering a variety of questions.
  • Understand questions and simple statements on everyday topics when you are part of a conversation.
  • Understand the main idea of short and simple texts when the topic is familiar to you.
  • Develop analytical reading skills and identify familiar words in a wider variety of selected authentic materials.
  • Display knowledge of fundamentals of Arabic morphology (i.e., verb conjugation, noun declension, word derivation, and memorization of the ten verb forms)
  • Use Arabic root and pattern system, especially the ten verb forms, to deduce vocabulary meaning from familiar roots

Course Materials

Saaq al-Bambuu (The Bamboo Stalk) by Kuwaiti novelist Saud al-Sanousi provides students at the intermediate-advanced Arabic language level the opportunity to engage with an award-winning work of contemporary fiction.
The novel is a coming-of-age story of a half-Filippino, half-Kuwaiti teen who returns to his father’s Kuwait. There, he explores his own identity as a poor Filipino in a culture he does not know well and receives a mixed welcome from his own wealthy relatives. Universal concepts of identity, faith, belonging, poverty/wealth, and otherness are explored through a poetic narrative and engaging plot that will keep students captivated from the first line to the very last page.
Included within the book are chapter exercises that develop linguistic and cultural competencies, a short biography of the author, and glossaries of literary terms and devices.