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How to get my child to learn and understand Arabic?

Last activity 30 August 2012 by yiyyr987

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azeera

Hello everyone who might stumble over this post.

I was wondering if some of you can share your experience and suggestions as what you did or would do to help your non-Arabic speaking and understanding child to learn the language here?

I, for my part, have an 8 yrs old son, who really feels left out, at school as well as in the neighborhood here, for not being able to understand and speak Arabic. The Arabic he learns at his school isn't really helping him, as the teachers are not allowed to use a different language during their lesson time. So without being even able to understand what the teacher wants from him it's a real huge struggle for him. Yes, as foreigner he is exempt from being graded in Arabic and religion, but that isn't really helping him (or us) on the long run.

What did you do? Were you able to find some books which helped? If so, what books, where did you get them, how much did they cost? Or did you go the extra mile and hired a private tutor? Is there someone in particular you made a good experience with and would like to recommend???
(School has a strict rule which doesn't permit parents to ask the teachers for private tutoring :( )
So, if you have any suggestions, referrals or ideas, PLEASE respond to this post!

Thanks for reading ;)

aligirl

Dear Azeera, I'm sorry to hear about your struggles.
My son is not even going to school here for this reason and does his school through Internet and his exams at the Spanish Embassy. He is learning Arabic very slowly on the weekends when he sees friends. In my own personal opinion the best thing to start with would be a private teacher.
Wish you all the best.
Salaam

Ally1602

not really the same but when i was at school we had a girl who moved to the uk from Italy, she was 13, and could not speak a word a english.. after 6 months ahe was fluent.
children learn so fast.
however i do understand that arabic is soo different.
I think lots of exposure to the language as hard as it might be and maybe private lessons so he had learn the alphabet.
just lots of TLC i guess. good luck.

Lizette Wit

Heeyy,

I'am from Holland and i live now 9 year in Egypt and i have 6 kids, what i saw when my childeren learned the langauge is that when we did put them with the egyptian childeren in the street who were playing the did learn very fast the language, what with us was also different my husband is Egyptian so he did learn them also in the house my oldest on did learn the language when he 7 year. Can i have your email mayby?

gr.
Aisha

yiyyr987

i think if you want him to deal with people in arabic , you should leave him contact people
just dealing with them in any kind of information such as buying something , helping someone , play some sport with someone
you as his mother should tell him that he will find some difficulty at first but when he deals more , these difficulties are going to disappear

but regarding teaching him arabic as a language like school material , if school is not enough ,  i think an arabic teacher can be useful

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