Arabic on Curriculum – Intermediate & Advanced

The priority in teaching Arabic at an intermediate or advanced level is to ensure that the fun of learning a language ensues. Too much focus on language from the teacher can build barriers for learning and it is a very important opportunity for teachers promote a ‘can do’ attitude in the classroom. Dragons Teachers are also strongly encouraged to include cultural awareness into all of their language lessons – this is the colour that students remember! Furthermore, student excitement at learning a new language online neatly gels with our teachers’ enthusiasm to teach Arabic in new schools. As a Dragons teacher, the goal is to make Arabic learning fun and engaging for the students. We ensure that our teachers excel by providing an in-house training programme focused on student engagement. With a team of around 50 online Arabic teachers, the large majority are keen to teach at a higher level, both in primary and secondary schools. Whilst the majority of our teachers are native speakers, we also provide non-native teachers who are bilingual or at or beyond degree level.

There are 2 Arabic curricula for intermediate and advanced students: Level 1 and Level 2. These are broadly aligned to Arabic teaching beyond 50-60 hours of learning and our teachers are familiar with many exam board’s syllabi e.g. GCSE. Dragons Teaching has developed ArabicConnect, an interactive online Arabic teaching platform, enabling schools to fully immerse their students in Arabic language and culture via independent asynchronous learning. The Platform, which comes with interactive teacher access and teaching resources, provides intermediate & advanced students with many hours of individual learning, which provides detailed results and teacher feedback to the school. AmigosConnect works on the majority of devices and just requires an internet connection.

We are committed to making sure that our schools and students feel safe reassured from the outset. We are a child-focused organisation, and we expect that all our staff and partners are too. Whilst all our teachers are required to sign our Safeguarding children & vulnerable adults’ policy as part of their onboarding, we remain ready and prepared to respond to the bespoke requirements of our partner schools. Every school will receive a Dragons Teaching Safeguarding Checklist at the outset of the assignment plus a wide range of documentation to confirm identity and entitlement to work in or with UK schools. All our teachers have an Enhanced DBS or the equivalent from their country of origin (if teaching online).

As important as the lessons being engaging for our students, it is really important for Dragons to be able to clearly demonstrate progress. All results from the student asynchronous learning in ArabicConnect is saved real-time in a clear and attractive results area. Teachers can see how their students are progressing online and academic leads at schools can keep an eye on overall progress in line with other areas in a school’s curriculum.

Given that our teaching provision is a global offering, Dragons Teaching is ready to bespoke the requirements of the Arabic delivery according to a school’s needs and curricula. Our teachers’ and our experience in working with intermediate & advanced syllabi enable us to quickly pivot and bespoke to the requirements of ex-UK Arabic examinations. We need simply to understand the goals of the school and the students so that we can work with our teachers to exceed expectations.

Our students require a Mac/PC, Chromebook or iPad per student with the Chrome browser enabled. If individual device access is not viable, we can teach whole or split classes via an interactive whiteboard.A webcam, microphone and headphones per student should be provided wherever possible but, if not viable, we will teach via the interactive whiteboard. We run the programme via a school’s chosen video conferencing platform, e.g. Zoom, Teams or Google Meet. We ideally require a member of staff from the school to supervise the lesson. This adult does not need to speak any languages. Dragons Teaching will liaise with the school’s IT department to provide guidance with regard to pupils accessing ArabicConnect, our Online Teaching Platform. We require a list of pupils (in alignment with Dragons Teaching and the school’s data protection policy). We like to receive these in a protected file and we will then upload them onto our secure password protected Online Learning Platform.