This page contains valuable and detailed information about the courses offered by the Ali Baba International Center. The page also contains information about the daily and weekly schedules of the courses and the assessment procedure followed by the center for performance evaluation of the both the students and the instructors. The policy of the center regarding course withdrawal and course cancellations is also described.

A Wide Variety of Courses
The Ali Baba International Center offers different types of course to different types of learners – students, diplomats, economists, businessmen, young learners, teachers, among others. These options include group courses, private individual courses, combined (group and private) courses, academic courses for college students, online courses, teacher training courses, and Bildungsurlaub Courses.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA)
The Ali Baba International Center teaches the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) in all offered standard courses. It is the official language of 22 Arab countries extending from the Arabian Peninsula to the Atlantic Ocean. Modern Standard Arabic is the common medium for nearly all formal communication, both printed and spoken, in the Arab world countries. It is also the official language of all Arab countries, thus providing the most versatile tool for those interested in living or working in an Arab country. Our offered MSA courses will enable students to use the language across the Arab world for official correspondence, speeches, reading a newspaper, among many other usages.

Colloquial Spoken Arabic
Whilst the written Arabic is standard in the entire Arab World, the spoken Arabic varies as each Arab country speaks its own dialect. Colloquial Arabic, or the Spoken Aamieh, is also taught at the Ali Baba International Center, however, its only taught as a private course, i.e., in a one-to-one or a group-to-one setting. The different dialects spoken in the Arab World can be taught at the Ali Baba Center. The “Levant” dialect is the most popular dialect that all Arabs understand and gives the learners consistent and practical speaking skills. Major topics covered in the course are greetings; courtesy expressions; geography; counting; telling time; food; clothing; shopping; banking; travel; weather; health; professions; and personal, family, and home life.

Textbooks
Different international and local textbooks are used. The two mostly used textbooks are ‘Al-Asas for Teaching Arabic for Non-Native Speakers: I, II, III’ and ‘Al-Kitaab Series’ (Alif Baa, Al-Kitaab I, II, III). These textbooks are supplemented by selected materials and activities to cover different subjects and language skills.

Levels
Three language levels are offered each month: beginners, intermediate, and advanced. The three levels may get subdivided into sub-levels depending on the number of enrolled students. To determine the appropriate level for each admitted student, we typically conduct a placement test and an interview, both online, three to four weeks prior to the start of the course.

Weekly Schedule
The working week in Jordan is from Sunday to Thursday. A total of 20 teaching hours is offered every week (5 days per week, 4 hours per day). Therefore, a total of 80 teaching hours of modern standard Arabic (MSA) is covered every month. This is equal to 4 credit hours in most credit-based universities. One teaching hour is 50 minutes in classroom.

Daily Schedule
Teaching at the Ali Baba International Center starts at 9 AM and ends at 3 PM. Students who are signed up for a group course will have 4 hours of language instruction every day. The exact timing of the daily hours may vary from one group to another depending on the group’s level and on instructor and classroom availability issues.

Certificate of Completion
Upon the successful completion of the course, each participant receives a ‘Certificate of Completion’ indicating the name, level, and duration of the course attended. Students may request official transcripts indicating the content of the course studied so they can claim credit at their home universities. It’s however the students’ sole responsibility to negotiate with their home universities the appropriate number of credits to be awarded.

Program Performance Evaluation
Continuous performance evaluation of students and teacher is regularly made in order to continuously improve the quality of our programs.

• Students are evaluated before joining the center by having them take an online placement test and an interview to determine their exact level. Once they join their assigned classes on the first day of the course, their progress in the language is evaluated through homework assignments, class participation, quizzes, a midterm exam and a final exam.


• Instructors are evaluated by strict procedures to ensure high quality of the delivered language instruction. Daily administrative supervision and follow-ups on teacher performance by the director of studies and the head of the Arabic Language department are conducted. Moreover, the students are asked to fill up a teacher evaluation form midway through the course and at the end of the course. The feedback evaluations submitted by the students are discussed with the instructors individually in order to improve their performance.

Course Cancellation by the Center
It is the policy of the center to avoid cancellation of courses. However, in case of very low enrollments, group courses are cancelled, and registered students of the cancelled course are given individual classes. Number of individual lessons totals up to 50% of the original group lessons.

Course Withdrawals by the students
For withdrawals any time before the first day of the course, 100% of the tuition, minus the $250 cancellation fees, is refundable. And if an enrolled student withdraws during the first or second day of the course, then 50% of the tuition, minus the $250 cancellation fees, will be refunded. Then, from the third day on, no refund will be issued. For individuals who withdraw from private tutoring before their first class session, the center will refund 100% of the tuition, minus the $250 cancellation fees. After this day, however, no private tutoring tuition will be refunded.