 لنبدأ. لنبدأ أولاً بكم جميعاً. ونعودني أعضي my colleague, د. مارلي هاموند. She teaches Arabic culture, Arabic literature and Arabic language. I am Mohamed Saeed, the admission tutor and the Arabic language coordinator. I think after welcoming you all, hopefully we will leave enough time at the end for questions and answers. I think all of you coming with the questions will leave time for that. د. هاموند will start. We say in Arabic. Thank you Mohamed. I have to apologize. I'm in the middle of moving office. And so the background behind me is very drab. I've got empty shelves. So I apologize for that. I have a PowerPoint, which I will try to share. Can everyone see that? No. I can see it. You can see it. Okay, great. So I'm here to talk. I'm standing in for Professor Wen-Chen Ou-Yang, who's the head of Arabic. And she had a scheduling conflict, so she couldn't be here today. But she'd be happy to answer your queries, should you wish to get in touch with her. I'm going to talk about BA Arabic, single and joint. And why you want to study Arabic and why you want to study Arabic at SOAS. Okay, slide show from beginning. Okay, so Arabic, apart from the sheer beauty of the language. So that's one good reason to study it. There are many other reasons. So Arabic is one of the six official languages of the UN. It's the lingua franca of the Arab world. So modern standard Arabic, which is what you'll study at SOAS. It unites Arab world. Different countries in the Arab world have different dialects. But they all read and write in modern standard Arabic. It's also the detergical language of 1.8 billion Muslims. It's the language of the Quran. Not modern standard Arabic, but Arabic in general is the language of the Quran. And there are 422 million speakers of Arabic. It's the fifth most spoken language in the world. So those are some reasons why you might want to study Arabic. Also Arabic is kind of a window onto other languages. So languages like Hebrew and Amharic are also Semitic languages. And they share a lot of principles of grammar and some vocabulary. And then there are lots of languages that use the Arabic alphabet. And many languages that borrow a lot of vocabulary originally from Arabic. So it helps you. If you know Arabic, that will help you learn a lot of different languages. So Arabic at SOAS. So you can do a single degree or a joint degree. And they're both 4 year degrees including a year abroad. You can also do a BA languages and cultures and do an Arabic pathway. And that would be 3 or 4 years depending on whether or not you do a year abroad. But at SOAS we aim to teach Arabic language culture and literature from past to present and around the world. And you get a sense of Arabic in history up to the present day. And you also get a sense of the geographical expansion of Arabic. So I put here some of the learning outcomes. These aren't all the learning outcomes of the degree. But the learning outcomes that are specifically related to the study of the language. So the subject based practical skills. So by the end of the degree you should be able to communicate in Arabic fluently, appropriately. And with a high degree of grammatical accuracy with native and other competent speakers. You should be able to exploit Arabic for a variety of purposes. And as appropriate contextualize a broad range of materials written or spoken in Arabic. You should be able to apply effectively and appropriately Arabic language skills in a professional context. Right. You should be able to use it at your job in other words. You should demonstrate detailed knowledge and effective understanding of the structures, registers and varieties of Arabic. So while you're at SOAS you will be exposed to multiple varieties including some dialects. You should at the end of the degree be able to demonstrate a detailed knowledge and effective understanding of the linguistic principles required to analyze Arabic. And you should be able to demonstrate a broad knowledge and using appropriate methodologies a critical understanding of literature in modern and or classical Arabic. So we have a rigorous program. And we hope you'll be able to achieve all those things at the end of it. So if you do the single subject be a Arabic degree. Your first year is set for you you do Arabic one in term one which is 30 credits. And then alongside that you take a department wide course called cultures of Africa the Middle East South and Southeast Asia. And another department wide course called literatures of Africa the Middle East South and Southeast Asia one the art of storytelling and. And part of the purpose of making you take these modules is so that you can situate Arabic in its global context. So then in the second term you take 30 credits of Arabic and then films of Africa the Middle East and Asia one and another module called languages of the world. So then in your two. You do have compulsory modules. So you take Arabic three and B or you take Arabic four and B and then in addition to that you have to choose. You have to choose 60 credits of language use classes. And then you have 30 credits which are open. And there are a variety of options that you can choose from. And then in your three you do your year abroad and we'll come back to the year abroad towards the end of the presentation. In your four if you're doing a single subject be a Arabic degree you have 90 credits of compulsory modules including Arabic five and B or Arabic six and B and then you choose from among the language use language use modules and literature and cinema modules taught in English. And also there's an ISP, which includes a translation project so you have lots. You do have to have 90 credits on the Arabic side of the degree. Well it's not the side of the degree if you're doing a single subject you do have to have 90 credits in Arabic but But there's a lot of room and a lot of variety. And then you have 30 credits of open options. And again you have a lot of modules you can choose from social and political dimensions of modern Arabic literature modern Palestinian literature cinemas with at least in North Africa one and two and And then also you can take any language taught in the department in your four of your degree so if you decide you want to do Hebrew or Persian or Turkish Or Swahili any language taught in the department, you can do that in your fourth year. Okay so if you're doing a joint degree so Arabic and a discipline. A lot of people do international relations in Arabic or Arabic and history or Arabic and economics. So then you take Arabic one. This is your first year Arabic one in term one which is 30 credits Arabic two in term two which is another 30 credits and then you take 60 credits in the other discipline. So in your one you just have your language classes. And then you have 60 credits in the other discipline in your two. And then you have 60 credits in the other discipline in your two. You have to take 60 credits in Arabic and Arabic related modules. And, and these will include Arabic 3A and B or 4A and B and then you have some options among language use modules. And then you have 60 credits compulsory in your other subject. Then your three is abroad year four. You have 60 credits of Arabic and Arabic related modules that are compulsory. And there's a lot of room for maneuver. And then again 60 credits in the other subject. If you're doing Arabic and French, or I think actually it's called French and Arabic. And you'll be based at UCL. In your first year you'll do 90 credits in Arabic and Arabic related subjects and 30 credits in French. Then in your second year, you will do 30 credits of Arabic so 3A and B or 4A and B and 90 credits of French, and then you spend a year abroad and then in year four is 60 60. 60 credits and Arabic 60 credits in French. And you have similar options on the Arabic side. Okay, so what are our current year abroad destinations. So we have the costed Arabic Institute in Amman. And, and the Arabic Institute in Nablus in the West Bank. So both popular destinations and students come back from their year abroad, having immersed themselves in the Arab world and usually feeling very happy with both their language acquisition and and what they've learned culturally. So this is just the staff of the Arabic section, as I mentioned when Chen Ou Yang is the head of section she's a professor of Arabic and comparative literature and unfortunately she couldn't be here today. But, but then we have many other members of staff and and Muhammad Said and I are here today. And that's the end of the presentation. So I will stop sharing and Muhammad I guess it's. Did I stop sharing. It's my share. I hope it's your turn. Allow me to share. Yes. I am not going to show any slides. So maybe the share is not necessary. So maybe I'll stop sharing. Okay, and I will make the view full screen. Okay. Now, let me, because today I am wearing two hats that mission tutor and the convener of Arabic I'll start with the admission. I understand I assume also that most of you here guests are going to apply you have not applied yet. And some of you already started the application process. The applicant or potential applicants always ask the question. What do you want us to show in the application. Currently, we are making offers to a level and a level equivalent. Last year we made a AB this year with most universities opening their doors for more students and we are like any other university we want to take more students. It's our duty. So we will be asking you to have to have a prediction or a potential of scoring a levels ABB or equivalent. And the equivalent of ABB for example in IB international baccalaureate is maybe 35 or 34 in the French baccalaureate is about 14 and a half or 15. You can check the rate of exchange between your degree and and ABB in the A level. Also students ask what do you want us to put in the personal statement. We look for three things you look for. Language learning background. We don't insist on A level in the language maybe GCSE is enough. Maybe having studied abroad one year maybe living in a bilingual house or multilingual house. A language learning background is useful in the degree, but it's not compulsory. To make good students, even if they have not done GCSE in a language but if they have done GCSE in a language they should really show it in their personal statement the A level is obviously as well. So we want to show interest in or background and ability to work and be kind of prepared to work regularly from day one on time because the difference between studying a language and studying a discipline at university. If you are doing a language, you cannot wait until the reading week and you sort of sit for seven days and read all the reading list. You have to start working from day one, because in day two, if you have not understood what was taught in day one, you will not be able to progress in day two if we taught you the alphabet in day one. In day two will be using the alphabet to write words, and in week two will be writing sentences, and if you already, if you can't already read and write and decipher the alphabet, you cannot read words and sentences. What I mean by that, we want somebody who is prepared from day one to work and to work every day. The advantage of that, by the time we come to the exam at the end of the term or the end of the year, you have done all the work. You don't have to worry or panic or spend the last week of term doing nothing but revising. On the contrary, you may spend the last week of the term just enjoying yourself. So studying a language is like building a house. You need to, first of all, to lay the foundation. Strong foundations always necessary for a strong outcome. The final product is the whole building, which you're going to build over four years, but the foundation you lay in the first year is very, very important. And that is what we call grammar, structure, vocabulary, the very elaborate work which you will be doing in the first and part of the second year. But from the second year onwards, it's building the walls and the roofs and the windows, i.e. decorating the house, the icing on the cake. That comes from, as my colleague, Dr. Hammond said, the literature courses and the year abroad and the advanced languages you do in the advanced levels of Arabic, which you will be doing in the final year. When Dr. Hammond mentioned that in the second year we'll be doing Arabic 3 or Arabic 4, in the final year we'll be doing Arabic 5 or Arabic 6. Why this difference of variety? Because some entries, some first year students have done Arabic before. So what do we do with them? We give them a placement test. So during your registration week, if you have done Arabic before, you let us know, we give you a placement test. You may not need to start in Arabic 1. You could be able to start in Arabic 3. In that case, you do Arabic 3 in the first year, Arabic 4 in the second year. And then when you go and do the year abroad and come back, you shouldn't be in Arabic 5, you should be in Arabic 6, and so on. So some of you will graduate with a slightly higher level than the others. But always the absolute beginners, they work hard and they achieve high. And a lot of them reach the final Arabic 6. We have a class rep among us here, Grace. She started as an absolute beginner and she is now in Arabic 6. And she is one of the stars of Arabic 6. She will answer her questions in a minute. Okay. Now, other things students ask. What else do you look for? We look for what we call. One second, please. There's an alarm in the house. I have to switch it off. A successful student in studying language and culture should be an open-minded student. A student who wants to study cultures and languages outside his immediate domain. People who travel, people who are invested in the third world, in the Middle East, who read history, who read politics, et cetera, et cetera. These are important points also in an applicant. Then students ask, do I need any other preparation before coming? Well, I mean, students who do medicine at university, they don't have a level in medicine. But I am sure they all read about medicine. Anything you read, anything you do to prepare yourself will give you a good head start. For example, I recommend if you can find any online teaching to teach yourself the Arabic alphabet, the Arabic letters, decipher them, recognize them. The other thing I recommend also before you come to join a degree in Arabic in any university, including Salwas, is to sort of do some preparation in what we call a grammar. Why I'm saying that it's not the fault of the applicant. It's the fault of the education system in this country, which does not teach grammar properly. So for this reason, I actually recommend you read a very nice small book entitled Rediscover Grammar by David Crystal. David Crystal was a professor of linguistics, and he taught in more than one British university, and he wrote many books about languages. But this book Rediscover Grammar is a very reader friendly grammar kind of introduction. It's not rigid grammar lessons. It's making the grammar an interesting subject. We need students who will take the course in Arabic to know the grammar concept ideas and the grammar terms terminology. So these two things in preparation will be very, very useful. The other thing, now I finished talking about applications. Now when you are with us, we want you to also supplement what we do in the class with other activities yourself. And you are lucky you are in London. London really is a real international city. You will not have to work hard to find contacts in Arabic in London. There is a good Arab community in London. They have cultural activities. You can actually watch Arabic films in London. You can read Arabic newspapers in London. There are Arabic TV, Arabic radios, and many clubs and cultural activities. So in London, even before you go to the Yerab Road, you will meet Arabs. You will hear Arabic. You will speak in Arabic. Now the last thing I'll say before I open the floor for Grace to say something and to open the floor for you to ask me questions. The job market. A lot of students say, where do graduates of Arabic find jobs? Here I tell you, it is one of the widest kind of options of finding jobs for graduates of Arabic. A lot of our graduates work in the media. I can name you some of our graduates who work for the BBC. BBC Arabic and BBC International as well. Not only the media in this country, the media abroad. When the famous TV station Al-Jazeera, when it was established in the mid 90s or late 90s. A lot of Arabic graduates found jobs in Al-Jazeera. So when I say the media, I'm not limiting it to TV and radio. The written media, the electronic media now, a lot of jobs for language graduates, particularly Arabic graduates. But other thing, and thank God the job market in this country is not very restrictive. You don't have to have done math or economics to work in a bank. If you have done a good degree in a language like Arabic and you apply to work in a bank. The bank will take you because the bank will look at your CV and say, if this applicant managed to reach fluency in Arabic over four years, they will be able to reach fluency in our banking system over four weeks. So also the banking world, the business world, the civil service, etc., etc. I'm not going to go through the whole list, but I'll finish it by the famous security services. You know that they're searching for now a new James Bond. You can be the next James Bond. Not the James Bond of the films, the James Bond of reality. I think I said a lot. So at this stage, if Grace wants to say something, and after that, if anybody wants to ask a question, just raise your hand, unmute your mic, and put your questions forward. Thank you for now. Grace, would you like to say something? Yes. Hi everyone. So I am a Arabic student. I just study Arabic. My experience at Sars has been great to be honest. I actually today saw one of my lectures from the first year, Mr. Wael Odeh. He only taught me the alphabet. I could hardly speak anything. And now I can have full-on conversations just in Arabic with him. So that's after three years of studying. So I think that's a testament to Sars and my year abroad as well. If you have any specific questions about student life or the learning, please just put them in the chat because maybe it's easier. And answer any questions regarding my year abroad. We were in COVID times, but everything was very successful. I studied with Hasid in Jordan. They're a great institution. And everyone who went to both Hasid and Najah in Palestine, they both said they love. All the students said we love so much, even virtually. But hopefully you guys, I guess, will be able to go there yourselves. And study there, which will be brilliant. Do students find it generally difficult? Grace, you can answer this question. Is it difficult? Obviously, I studied virtually. So I had a slightly different experience. I was lucky enough to go to Jordan most still to stay with some friends I have over there. And I think you'll be fine. Grace, the question is not only about the difficulty of the year abroad. I think it's a general. The question is saying, is this degree difficult? What do you think of the first and the second year you have done here as well? Were they difficult? I think the year abroad is great because it's very practical in terms of putting what SOAS taught you to use. The first year at SOAS gives you such a good foundation. And I don't think you could learn Arabic easily without going through the grammar and getting the real basics. But I think the year abroad is necessary to get what you learned to good use. But I don't think it's difficult to adapt from a cultural aspect. Obviously, you just have to be sensitive on the spectrum when it's fine. And it's very safe as well. Okay. I would like to add to this that when people ask, is this degree difficult? I think any degree at university will become difficult if the student is not organized. But if the students are well organized and they do the work regularly and they prepare themselves, then any degree at any university becomes less difficult. So if you want your degree not to be difficult, you have to sort of organize your time properly, put some time for work and some time for activities and for health, et cetera, hobbies. But don't come with the habit of sort of leaving everything to the last minute. Leaving everything to the last minute might have worked in certain subject but it will definitely not work in languages. Okay. Any other question? Marley, can you find the chat questions for us and read them for us, please? Well, okay. There's a new question now. Does the year abroad lead to a student learning a dialect? Since you went to Jordan, did you also use the MSA practically? Like with people. So I think that they're asking you two questions, Grace. Did you learn a dialect? And did you ever speak MSA? So at CASSID when I went, we had three different modules. One was a Fusar module. So an MSA module. One was a media module for learning media Arabic. And we did a dialect module which I was studying and then so we learned the Jordanian dialect. But even on a year abroad, when you learn to study at the different institutions, I'm sure you'll study a mix of dialect and MSA. But in terms of being on the streets and actually living in Jordan or in Palestine, definitely you will use a lot more dialect than Fusar, but it's easy to interchange between the two. It will just become like a second nature, I guess. Good. What I would like to add here that all these dialects from the Gulf in the East to Morocco in the West, they all stem from standard Arabic. They are not independent languages. They might sound different, but they are using the same structure and the same vocabulary with changes and varieties and relaxations of rules. You will be introduced to the concept of dialect in the second year in the module entitled Introduction to Arabic Dialect. In this module, our colleague Dr. Chris Lucas, who is a specialist in dialect, will introduce you to dialect as a development in languages and you will have at least practice, real practice listening and speaking in two dialects. Which two dialects? The two major ones. There are many dialects in the Arab world, but the major ones are the Egyptians and the Levantine. And these are the two dialects we teach in the second year. And these are the dialects of potential year abroad centers. And in the year abroad, in addition to carrying on studying modern standard Arabic and reading text. Anything red is standard Arabic. You don't read colloquial texts. You don't read colloquial newspapers. But in addition to that, you are living there. If you like it or not, whatever level you speak, you speak modern standard or a dialect, the locals will understand you and you will understand them. Okay, we have another question. Regarding the entry requirements, I don't have an A-level certificate. Is it obligatory for a mature student to have it? Excellent question. A mature student by practices and by norm in which universities they don't have to have exactly the same qualifications as 19 years old. But still we will be looking for background. I mean, you can do access courses. You can do foundation courses. You can do B-take. You can do the varieties of qualifications to apply to universities. But we need to see something. It's not enough. It's good to be mature, obviously. But it's not enough to be mature and join a university degree. Why? Because we don't want to promise people that they can do a degree and they come and find they can't do it because they haven't done any learning, any training in studying and learning before. So mature students don't need to have an A-level, AB, an A-level, but they need to have qualifications, background. I recommend access courses. I recommend foundation courses. And I think in this case each case will be studied on its own. And if you are the questioner, if you think you have a special different case, email me. My email is ms15 at sawas.ac.uk. And if you email me say in the very beginning I came to the open day and I still have a question. So I will give the answer a priority. Okay, we have another question. Sorry, Mali. Let me add that mature students do extremely well with us. And don't be shy to say I'm a mature student. Can I do it? Some of our best graduates joined us after they retired from their jobs. We all know people who were doing extremely successful jobs and then they came back and they came to us and they did BA in Arabic and they continued with MAs, et cetera. So mature students do well in languages even if they are slower than the very young ones. But they do well at the end. Thank you. Okay, we have this other question. I was told that Arabic dialects to Fosha is like nowadays English to Shakespearean English. Is it really a big gap or do most native speakers understand Fosha? I think Mali, you can answer this question better than me. Because I don't know that much about Shakespearean English. Oh, well, I don't know that much about Shakespearean English either. I think that yeah, I think most native speakers who were educated in Arabic understand Fosha. There may be some native speakers who didn't ... I don't know, when I was a student I spent a summer in Tunisia and I found that I could speak modern standard Arabic with almost everyone in Tunisia except older women and I think it was because the older women didn't have a schooling. But children and men they could all speak modern standard Arabic with me. So I think it's it's not an easy question to answer but I think most native speakers understand Fosha as long as they've been educated and they've been taught to read and write in Fosha. Yes, that's actually very accurate and since now education is more widely spread in the Arab world than some years ago I think it won't be a difficulty plus as I said we will prepare you for dialects we will not send you to do the Arab road with only a background in modern standard you will have a useful background also in dialects but the level of education in the Arab world is good enough I'm not saying it's fantastic it's good enough for any speaker when they meet somebody who is not from their own area to switch a little bit into nearer to move their dialect nearer to modern standard what I mean by that say and educated Kuwaiti and educated Moroccan they meet in the middle of Cairo would they speak Egyptian or Kuwaiti or Moroccan they will speak something not really any of these three they will speak something nearer to modern standard but based on a little bit of relaxation of rules towards a little bit of dialect and they will understand each other but other thing which is making the Arabs now understand each other dialects is cinema and TV you know Egyptian cinemas Syrian TV series are watched all over the Arab world and vice versa so many people in Tunisia for example we had the example of Tunisia they know the Syrian comedies and they know the Egyptian dramas and they watch them very well it won't be difficult if you master modern standard and one dialect it won't be difficult for you to communicate with any other Arab as Dr. Hammond said with the exception of those very old who did not have any education who don't watch TV don't watch films or don't listen to radios but that's very very small number of people and you're not likely to to need to speak to them okay okay we have another question which is is it possible to do Arabic language degree combined with Japanese as a second language I think it's not possible unfortunately and that's because Japanese is in a different department so there are a lot of languages that you could combine with Arabic the south east Asian languages south Asian languages other Middle Eastern languages and African languages but the east Asian languages are in another department so that creates a difficulty for us but I don't know am I right that it's not possible you are right there are no name degrees in Arabic and Japanese Arabic and Chinese Arabic and Korean so there are three languages in South you can't combine them with Arabic as a BA joint degree but as you noticed in the introduction earlier in that finally you have a chance to what we call open option I mean the open option you can take any language in South we prefer you take any language in our department because they are nearer to Arabic you know Asian languages Middle Eastern languages they have a lot of similarity and connection and even material from Arabic and vice versa but Chinese, Japanese and Korean are completely different languages languages come in families and regions and zones they are not from the Semitic family they are not from the Middle Eastern region they are not from the Islamic culture and Islamic languages I don't recommend a BA a joint 50-50 between Arabic and Chinese but I do recommend if you want in the final year to take one open option one module in any language and so on yes you can do that and currently in this very year we have somebody doing Korean as and last year we had somebody doing Korean as well as an open option okay we have another question if your predicted grades are not the required or however would that be and so as as I can only see two foundation years in law and humanities or should you still apply with lower predicted grades that's a good question I mean if your predicted grade is close to ABB we will look at the other point in the other aspect in your application and the other thing I shouldn't say but you also I'll say it all universities when they give you an offer of say ABB and God forbid when you get your A level results in the summer it turns out to be 3Bs are they going to reject you well most likely they will say if we still have places we will take you so there are things we call them the marginals so if it's marginal you will be considered but if your prediction is very very low then it will be difficult because we can fill the places with people either ABB or close to ABB now as for the foundations in SOWAS are not in languages I don't know of any foundation in languages in any other university but a foundation degree tells us you have kind of to your experience in academia another year the only disadvantage in this case then your degree or your education your higher education will be 5 years the foundation will be 1 plus the Arabic degree will be 4 so 5 years the problem the loan company the loan system the student loan system will only finance you for 4 years if you finance yourself for 1 extra year yes that's a way to do it and in this case instead of doing single subject language you can do Arabic and economics Arabic and law, Arabic and history Arabic and culture any other subject I tried to be frank in this answer I don't want to promise things we can't give you are there any other questions? seems not I have a question has anyone already applied anybody from the guest already applied? not yet you still have time the deadline for application is not soon and if you have any further question please don't hesitate to email me Dr. Hammond or our head of department professor Oyang or our student representative Grace we will try to answer any of your questions also just to add before we end the session today that it has been recorded and it will be available on the website so if you missed anything and you want to refer back to it then you'll be able to find that on the website hopefully within the next few weeks but absolutely if you feel free to contact us if you want someone to chat you through foundation years then we're always very happy to hear from you or if you're based internationally get in touch and we can let you know what those equivalents are we'll try to consider all students and their backgrounds and their qualifications and do our best to help Laura can I ask you a favor? yes to the guests Laura has done Arabic at another university but she's going to tell you what she heard about Arabic in Saouaz compared to the other universities no I think it's no secret that when I used to I also studied at class and the first thing that you would say is that the Saouaz students have beautiful and they have excellent grammar so there was always a shout out to Saouaz wherever we went and wherever we were learning Arabic so let that encourage you that it's an excellent place to study Arabic thank you thank you Laura any other question? well we have a comment it was very useful thank you to all of you Doctor Said thank you for the example you gave about the three Arabs meeting in Cairo because it did happen to me personally in Cairo and it made me laugh why not I'll give you another one to laugh one of our students when he went to do his year abroad and on his first day he took a taxi from the airport to an address he had in his pocket which was given to him by a returning student from the previous year abroad and he spoke to the taxi driver in something close to modern standard rather than to Egyptian colloquial so the taxi driver Said to Saouaz student you speak like a book then the student very clever he said of course because I learned it from a book another story about the year abroad because our students are exposed to teachers from all over the Arab world and non-native Arabs as well Arabists so they're dialect they can move between dialects and one of them when he was speaking Egyptian he will try to speak Egyptian then you meet somebody in Egypt who is not Egyptian who is Syrian for example then Saouaz student switches his dialect so they said to him how can you do that he said yes I can do that because I had Egyptian and Syrian and Iraqi and even his teachers so they can switch as well and we all switch dialects it's not a problem it's like in England if you go to Scotland you can sort of adjust your dialect a little bit to suit Scotland okay good well thank you all for coming hope to see you all in September