Arabic is listed second out of the ten languages of crucial importance for the UK’s prosperity, security and influence in the world in the years ahead, according to the highly authoritative British Council: https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/default/files/languages-for-the-future.pdf
Arabic opened the door to me on a wonderful career as a journalist with the BBC World Service before I embarked on my second career as a teacher. Having won a first class Honours MA degree in Arabic from Edinburgh University I went on to use the language professionally (I helped launch the BBC’s first pan-Arab satellite news TV station in Arabic) and socially, living, working and travelling in many Arab countries. I recently qualified from a post-graduate teacher training course (PGCE) at Exeter University and was teaching Modern Foreign Languages at Devon secondary schools when Covid excluded me from the classroom for the time being. Currently I am teaching Arabic online to both children and adults, using a multi-media approach that gets students reading, writing, speaking and understanding from the word go. I strongly believe if you can speak any language at all, you can learn another, and that if you don’t enjoy language learning you’re not doing it right. I tailor my course to the needs and wishes of the individual learner, but the emphasis is always on communicative strategies, whether the communication aimed for is with pre-Islamic poets, the Quran, al-Jazeera news reports or haggling in a Marrakesh market.
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