High school Arabic classes online?

[Luckymama]

Dd has decided she'd like to study Arabic if she stays home for high school (still under discussion). I've been spending my free time the past two days googling without much success-----or maybe I've found all that is available!

 

I want a class with live speaking, with a class group, that is entirely secular. I have no interest in piecing together a course at home for a language I do not speak!

 

I found

--BYU's Independent Study course which doesn't have a class group but has speaking opportunities

--Landry Academy's class is most decidedly not secular, though it has live meetings twice a week

--CTY has live classes with speaking but they are quite expensive

 

The university here offers Arabic (actually using the same texts as BYU and CTY) but I want dd to start with something a bit slower paced than an in-person 4x per week university course! There will be no shortage of grad students from Arabic-speaking countries I could utilize for additional speaking practice, though.

 

Has anyone ever used an Arabic class? Has anyone used CTY for languages?

 

Thanks :) I expect that if dd does stay home I will be asking a lot of questions!

[Kareni]

I've no information regarding Arabic; however, you and your daughter might investigate the

National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y)

"The State Department’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) provides merit-based scholarships to U.S. high school students and recent graduates interested in learning less-commonly studied foreign languages.

Eligibility Requirements

All applicants must be:

* A U.S. citizen who is currently enrolled in or just graduated from high school;
* 15-to-18 years old at the start of the program;
* have a minimum GPA of 2.5.

Languages Offered

There are seven languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Korean, Persian, Russian and Turkish."

I've no first hand experience, but this program is well regarded. My daughter has a friend who valued her participation in their similar program for college aged students.

Regards,
Kareni

[3andme]

The Potter's School also offers Arabic. 

[Guest JuniperMtn]

Here is my experience (from trying the same search for my homeschool son):  First, you might want to consider what her purpose in studying Arabic is.  There are many resources available to study Modern Standard Arabic, which would help her read newspapers, but it isn't really spoken anywhere.  If she is primarily interested in learning to speak with native-speakers, Egyptian Arabic is a good place to start because this is the language used in films which are shown across the Arabic-speaking countries.  That way she might be understood, even if her dialect was different from that used by a person from somewhere other than Cairo. If you are more concerned with reading and writing, the Standard Arabic would probably be better.

 

We  have had good results in starting with Pimsleur to develop an ear for hearing a native speaker and to start with accurate pronunciation, especially when there is no one to practice with.  Unfortunately, if you choose Egyptian Arabic, they only have one level.  (There are additional levels for both the Modern Standard and Levantine (Eastern) Arabic.)  Last summer my son went to the BYU StarTalk immersion camp. After he came home I was concerned that he would forget what he had learned, so I did some research to see what would help him continue learning independently.

 

For the past month, my family has been using Critical Language Service for our live instruction.  My husband and I took the class with my son so that he could have a group to practice with.  Neither of us have prior Arabic knowledge.  Our class met twice a week for an hour via Skype with an instructor from Egypt, in addition to additional group projects to practice writing and speaking.  Since the teacher was individualized for our group, we could work at our own pace, or go off topic discussing grammar questions that we had.  The teachers have been really fun to work with and we have been able to work on both Standard and Egyptian Arabic with someone explaining the similarities and differences as we go.  The teachers try to maintain an immersion environment, but they are fluent enough in English to explain concepts so we understand what they mean before we get too lost or frustrated.  One of the interesting things I have learned from our Egyptian teachers is that my son was mixing several dialects from what he learned at StarTalk.  Our teachers are helping him straighten these out now.

 

I have looked at the NSLI-Y study abroad options and hope that we can take advantage of them in a few years, but my understanding is that they are extremely competitive.  The students I have heard that have attended are those who already have several years of study behind them who are then able to use the time abroad to develop a mastery of the language.  I don't know if that is true in all cases, just the ones I have heard about.