Customer Reviews

Al-Kitaab Fii Ta Allum Al-Arabiyya: Part 2 (Pt. 2)

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The second part of the Al Kitaab series puts an emphasis on the development of reading skills and concentrates on more complex grammatical structures and vocabulary, the type that students are likely to encounter in authentic texts (mainly for academic purposes).
As a whole, this book is a lot more "academic" than the first part and this is probably why there seems to be such a wide gap between the two books. Al Kitaab One is about "learning Arabic and having fun doing it" and Al Kitaab Two seems to leave out the "having fun" part.
Those hoping that Al Kitaab Two will address topics in everyday life communication which were not found in Part One will be disappointed. Part Two teaches you the vocabulary you need to read about the first newspapers in the Arab world but it won't teach you how to say "Could you pass me the bread please".
I believe that one reason for this is the setting for which the Al Kitaab series was initially developed: the Middlebury Summer Immersion Arabic program. Now, in an immersion program this would be the perfect book. It gives you the necessary materials for work in class and skipps over some aspects of everyday communication assuming that you will be exposed to them anyway outside the classroom.
Unfortunately, if you are a student in normal academic setting or someone struggling to learn Arabic on their own, this book needs a lot of supplementary materials and, most of all, a very good teacher/consultant to make up for the defficiencies.
You should also be aware that the audio and video tapes that go with the book make it twice as useful. Good luck finding them :)

While this book is helpful and one of the most commonly used textbooks for learning Arabic, there is a big gap between it and the first book. The texts are very dense and the grammatical explanations are not that detailed. Also the vocabulary is very strange and leaves a lot to be desired in the everyday sense. I do think that the contextual way of learning vocabulary is very good and the texts are interesting. Probably not a good book for someone who is trying to learn Arabic on their own, but good for someone who has a good base of knowledge and wants to work on their reading skills.

Much research has recently shown why "constructivist" methodology is inefficient, and this book provides ample empirical evidence. Students are expected to guess the meaning of words, and to help them out, much vocabulary has neither definitions in the text nor in the glossary. The learner can spend endless hours looking up the words rather than learning Arabic. It is certainly not reassuring to just guess the words, the learner ought to have clear definitions. Since so much vocabulary is left up in the air, the book requires a teacher working extra hard, since students cannot do work alone. By the way, amazon is selling a key for exercises, but this is unacceptable. One spends a lot of money on this book and must then buy another book to learn from it. Also, the book assumes the student can figure out fast enough unvoweled Arabic and gives copious texts. Students require hours and hours of tedious reading that ultimately has little to do with live language. Great way to drop out of Arabic!
The revised version has DVDs with visuals aside from readings. But this is no help at all. Watching people recite Arabic in middle-age clothing does not help decipher the missing vocabulary.
Anyone teaching themselves should pick one of the many books available. And Arabic teachers should look at other series. For 20 years, the standard textbook was Michigan Modern Standard Arabic, 3 volumes with tapes. The texts are dated, but the book works very well.

The Al-Kitaab books use a truly outstanding and innovative approach to the teaching of the Arabic Language. The grammatical explanations are clear and concise, texts used are varied in content and address relevant cultural and social issues in the Arab world, and the vocabulary used in the lessons is widely useful. I recommend this series very enthusiastically.

I was under the impression that this would be an answer key for more drills than just the listening drills. All that it does is fill in the blanks of the single listening drill per chapter of the second Al-Kitaab fi' Ta'allum al-'Arabiya book. This is only minimally helpful.
Ideally I would have wanted an answer key to the rest of the drills, so that I could make sure that the hours I spend doing drills isn't in vain. (I currently spend hours doing the drills incorrectly).