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Are you a native Arabic, from a country where Arabic is the official language?
If Arabic is your mother tongue, then why seek a job?
Yours may already be chosen: teaching the Arabic language in the US!
What is the level of education required to become an Arabic language teacher? Is the profession regulated by the public authorities?
In this article, we reveal all you need to know about the professorship in order to teach Arabic.
How to become an Arabic teacher? Here are the guidelines for teachers.
When one has a passion for literature and is attracted by modern languages, one thinks to teach English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, or Russian maybe.
You have a teacher education. But teaching Arabic... Who would have thought?
Yet teaching Arabic is a very enriching activity. A multi-millennial language spanning over 2000 years, this Semitic language is the mother tongue for more than 270 million people on Earth. Which makes it the 8th most spoken language throughout the globe.
Arabic has been able to adapt over the centuries and has endured in our modern times.
Unfortunately, pupils often have to wait until they get to university to receive Arabic language lessons. Very few programs are offered and only a few schools offer modern standard Arabic classes.
How to become an Arabic teacher?
Becoming an Arabic teacher requires a number of skills:
- Having an excellent command of the language in its modern standard and dialectal forms
- Having a sense of listening
- Being patient
- Knowing how to adapt to your students
- Knowing how to transmit your learning method
- Loving to pass on knowledge
- Having good interpersonal skills
- Validating a diploma recognized by the State
- Receiving a certificate
- Knowing how to be firm
- Being available
- Being organized
If you wish to be a professor, the classical path will be to follow a university courses in Arabic or Languages, Literature, Foreign and Regional Civilizations. You then receive a teaching certification that will allow you to give out lessons in official institutions or schools.
Then, most of the time you will have to pass a certification to teach in high school.
Beware, it might be difficult, there are not as many positions offered as for the Spanish or French classes. Doing a thesis will make it possible to go further, and to teach at university.
You can't manage a thesis? Don't worry too much, not everyone needs it. Gone - at least for the next school year - the prospect of a lifetime job in a college or a high school?
Go for the private lesson. If you feel you have the level to teach Arabic, apply for a position in all the Arabic-language private institutes in your city.
They may be looking for a teacher to expand their language training offers.
An excellent formula to develop and continue giving Arabic courses, is the broadcast of free online courses. Build your own method and curriculum to share on Youtube.
Otherwise, create your own MOOC in Arabic language! An excellent formula if you want to give free Arabic courses.
What level does it take to become an Arabic teacher?
In the US, even for unregulated professions, some sort certificate is often required. It is informal, but the level of studies serves as a signaling effect sent by the teacher to his potential pupil. This depends in which State you wish to practice. However, do expect to present a teacher certification. Find out what your State requires: sometimes alternative teacher certifications are given.
Certified teachers will also find it easier to get students to take private lessons with them. Once you are accredited, you can make an application to the places you wish to teach and be an educator.
Check out tutoring jobs on Superprof.
Know that it is possible to give lessons and be a teacher from the age of 16 years. Nevertheless, it is considered that a private teacher needs at least three years of higher education than his / her learner.
There are many teaching jobs, and ways to give Arabic language classes. These don't always have to follow the official teaching standards.
The teaching of Arabic in the US is carried out:
- Within the school environment (from primary to secondary school and initiation)
- In associations (language schools to learn literary Arabic)
- Within religious institutions (to learn Qur'anic Arabic, the Tajwid)
- At the level of private institutes for the promotion of Arabic language and culture
- By taking private Arabic lessons at home
In order to become an Arabic language teacher, the training curriculum can be quite long and you need to receive some sort of teacher preparation.
During your graduate studies in Arabic, you will become an Arabic speaker: intensive learning of Arabic grammar, written and oral expression, Arabic phonetics, knowledge of literature and civilization (Arabic culture and history), linguistics.
To be an Arabic language teacher on your account, no one will ask you for a diploma. But you will have to demonstrate excellent language skills and a sense of pedagogy with the students.
Obviously, it will be necessary to use pedagogy to learn the alphabet and to learn Arabic letters to the pupils, to teach vocabulary words, Arabic grammar, to teach them to read and write Arabic.
Besides, how are you going to fill in your teacher's agenda?
How to find pupils for Arabic language courses?
As an Egyptian Arabic native or native of an Arab country, you are looking for pupils for the new school year.
You will be available during the day, evening, weekend and during the holidays to give more Arabic lessons.
How to find your Arabic students / clients? First, make word of mouth.
Have yourself and your business be talked about, speak to your networks. This is important, because that is how you will have your first private lesson.
Be always at you best: considering the theory of "the strength of weak ties" of the sociologist Mr. Granovetter, the information (I am an Arab teacher and I am looking for students) that you will leave to your contacts will spread between people whose knowledge you do not know.
Post free ads: in town, in the shops, in the mosque, in the associations, at the local mission, and on the internet.
Write an attractive profile attesting to your solid knowledge of the Arabic idiom:
Alphabet and Arabic letters, vowels and consonants, grammar (personal pronouns and possessive pronouns), phonetics, pedagogy, didactics, vocabulary and Arabic words, your level of experience, listening and adaptive skills, relational skills, etc.
Start up schools and universities, language schools, institutes dedicated to the promotion of the Arabic language, online advertising platforms (Facebook, Craigslist, Superprof) and finally the school support agencies.
You will thus draw from a vast pond to go "fish" your future pupils.
By registering on Superprof to teach your Arabic lessons, you will:
- Introduce your students to Arabic
- Teach them the Arabic alphabet
- Teach them to read and write Arabic
- teach Arabic vocabulary
- Transmit idiomatic expressions
- Work phonetics and Arabic pronunciation
- Improve their knowledge of Arabic words
- Perfect their level of Arabic grammar (pronouns, verbs, chords)
- Increase their level of oral expression
To avoid stammering an inconsistent rate on your first call - this has happened to me personally - here's how to set your private tariff.
How to set the price of an Arabic course?
Unfortunately, it is not enough to transmit your knowledge. One must also know how to estimate their price.
How much will you earn with your Arabic lessons?
This tariff is based on the professor's level of education, the level taught, the hourly volume required to master the Arabic language, any travel expenses of the teacher, the geographical area (North / South disparities), the teacher's age and sex.
An hour of lessons will also be more expensive in New York than elsewhere. In the south, prices will be a bit more expensive than in the north.
The lessons of literary Arabic do not have the same level of demand - and therefore different prices - than those of dialectal Arabic.
Finally, adapted language courses and intensive Arabic language courses can be fixed, or built as a package, in contrast to regular lessons smoothed over the school year.
Here's what to do to set your Arabic course price as a private Arabic teacher:
- Benchmarking: comparing applied prices, being the homo-economics
- Indicate target audience: schoolboy, college student, high school student, university student, adult
- Specify the types of courses taught: introductory courses, intensive courses, beginner courses, individual courses, group lessons
- Mention your level of education, diplomas and experience, your pedagogical method
- Build good course sequences to prove your added value
- Evaluate the student's level to adapt
- Modulate your price: if it takes 88 weeks to understand, write and read Arabic appropriately, offer packages or discounts
- Adjust according to the geographical area
- Display a specialization: Arabic literary, Arabic dialectal, Arabic Koranic, Moroccan Arabic - Darija - Egyptian Arabic ...
After listening the parameters of the price of an Arabic language course - home course or online Arabic course, individual or collective course, literary or dialect Arabic course, beginner course, intensive course - you will have your price offer: between $25 and $40 per hour.
At your classes, ready, teach!
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