Grade 8 Arabic :Non-Native Speakers

Assalam Alaikum,

My name is Hajar A.Boutaleb and I am the Arabic teacher for the Grade 8's (Non-Native Speakers).
Your child has brought home an Arabic text book (level 5) which will be our primary focus for all our lessons.
As of the beginning of this week, we started looking at  lesson 1: "ذكريات المدرسة " , "School Memories". . In this lesson, we will be working on the following:

Listening:

• listening to the teacher read the text to hear for the correct reading of Arabic letters, pronunciation and using "tashkeel" (reading the vowels on top of letters) correctly.
• listening for the correct meaning/ translation of text from Arabic to English and English to Arabic.

Reading:

• learning to read the text using correct pronunciation of the Arabic letters.
• learning to read the text using correct tashkeel.
• learning to read at a good pace, stopping when necessary and using the correct tone
• learning grammatical rules and sentence structure through reading activities 
• learning to read for comprehension
• learning to identify grammar rules and sentence structure during readings

Writing:

• learning to write the text correctly in a neat, and legible manner .
• learning to write the text with all tashkeel correctly.
• learning to write the text's vocabulary in Arabic and in English (translation from English to Arabic and Arabic to English)
• learning to write answers in Arabic of text questions 
• learning grammatical rules and sentence structure through writing activities

Communication:

• learning to communicate ideas in the text in both Arabic and English fluently.
• learning to express ideas in the text and in lessons in the form of oral presentations to their peers and teacher

Assessment: Students will be assessed in all areas mentioned above in a variety of ways ( examples may include: writing dictations, oral presentations, in class projects and reading comprehension)

Note: Because the students are Non-Native Speakers, many may find the vocabulary, grammar and overall context a bit challenging. We will work through it at a steady pace to ensure all students are learning the material.

****HOMEWORK:  Because Arabic is only a 40 minute period each day, students MUST complete ALL assigned homework. This will help them review concepts in class and prepare for the next lesson.******

Jazakullah

GRADE 8 :Language Arts and Social Studies

Assalam Alaikum!

Welcome to another great year at Abraar and the last year of  middle school InshAllah !

Language Arts
Unit 1 Poetry:

For Language Arts, we are beginning our first unit of study on poetry. We will be looking at the following aspect of poetry to examine the following questions:

• What is Poetry?
• What are the various types of poems?
• What are the various forms of poetry?
• What are poetic conventions?
• What is figurative language?
• How can we analyze poetic verses?
• How can we write our own poetry of various forms using poetic conventions?

Throughout this unit, we hope to answer  all the above questions in as much detail as possible though various activities. Students will be given the opportunity to listen, to read, and to reflect on various poems in class. Furthermore, they will be given several assignments which will allow them to create their own poems which will become part of their Poetry Portfolio. It's going to be a lot of hard work but it will also be worth while!

 I am eager to see how creative  they can be! :)

Social Studies

Unit 1: The Confederation

For Social Studies, we will begin a unit that examines the Confederation era roughly from 1860 to 1873. We will work together to examine the  following key points in our  history:

• What political factors, peoples, events, and geographical realities led to the creation and growth of Canada?
• How was Canada in 1867 different from Canada today in terms of political, social and other issues?
• How can we use the inquiry process to answer historical questions?

Students will engage in classroom discussions, chapter reading assignment that require reflection and answering questions, analyzing graphs and creating their own graphs accordingly,examining population statistics, comparing and contrasting " Canada then and now" activities, learning key vocabulary as well as a unit reviews followed by a unit test. All activities and homework assigned will reflect the three  main  "big ideas" of the unit and allow for a better understanding of  the Confederation as an important part of  our history.

Jazakullah Khair

Hajar A. Boutaleb BA (Hons), BEd., OCT

hboutaleb@abraarschool.com