Arabic
ARABIC STUDIES
The teaching of Arabic studies at Repton School gives every student a broad, well-balanced amount of language material to commensurate with our students’ abilities. The school offers learning programmes based on the following frameworks:
- * UAE Ministry of Education (MOE)
- * Edexcel IGCSE (Arabic 1st and 2nd language)
- * IB Arabic A1, A2, Arabic B.
Arabic studies is considered as a compulsory course for Arab Nationals up to Year 12 (MOE)
Arabic studies is to be taken by non-Arabs as a second language course up to Year 9.
Social subjects curriculum for the UAE is presented to all students across the various stages. 
ISLAMIC STUDIES
The teaching of Islamic studies at Repton School reflects the Islamic culture and its principles.
The Islamic studies course is introduced in the Early Years Programme as part of the academic curriculum taught at Repton School.
In our effort to strengthen the Islamic values of Repton Muslim boarding students, we provide these students with the transportation and a guardian to attend the Friday prayer at Mosque.
The Islamic studies course is offered in both English and Arabic for participating Repton students.
ARABIC & ISLAMIC TEACHING DEPARTMENT
All of our Arabic and Islamic Education teachers are experienced in their field. They have been selected for their high standard of classroom management skills and knowledge of teaching/training techniques.
Our teachers have a proven record of success and are led by a highly-experienced academic specialists on national and international levels of Arabic and Islamic studies.
Our Arabic and Islamic studies teachers come from a variety of different backgrounds including Palestine, Jordan, Syria and Algeria.
At Repton School, the primary focus is on four major areas:
• The Curriculum
• The Learners
• The Teachers
• The Resources
Repton School adopts as an integral part of its mission statement, the UAE National Curriculum in Arabic and Islamic
studies and is committed to excel in its implementation.
The Arabic language curriculum in both primary and secondary schools aims to help learners lay a good foundation in
learning Arabic, paving the way for independent and lifelong learning and effective communication of knowledge,
ideas, values, attitudes and experience. It is built on existing good practices, with emphases on learner- centredness and task-based learning, promoting a balanced use of approaches appropriate to the needs and interests of first or second language learners. To facilitate effective learning and teaching, teachers are encouraged to enhance learners’ experience through:
• Providing ample opportunities and a conducive environment for the learning and practise of language forms
(including text types,vocabulary, and grammar items and structures), communicative functions, and language skills in
meaningful contexts.
• Making extensive use of a variety of text types (including stories and informational reports) to develop critical
thinking and encourage free expression and creativity.
• Promoting the development of learning and language development, strategies, values and attitudes to enhance
effective, independent and lifelong learning.
Emphasis has been focussed on the learners and the teachers through various modern methods and training programmes
to teachers. Our teachers will be trained to understand the theoretical principles of first and second-language
acquisition in order to implement effective teaching programs.
The Arabic department is keen on ensuring good classroom organisation and management for effective Arabic language
and literacy development.
Repton Teachers’ Training Courses
Repton teachers’ training will endeavour to train teachers to:
• Co-ordinate the complex elements of language instruction to organise a classroom through multiple teaching
strategies and grouping patterns. Their literacy instruction organisation will be based on a logical progression
from structured teacher-guided activities towards increasing levels of independent speaking, reading and writing
activities.
• Select appropriate methods of instruction to enhance first and second-language acquisition, literacy development
and content-area knowledge.
• Structure step-by-step lessons to include presentations of concepts and vocabulary and ample opportunities for
guided and independent practice.
• Plan for high levels of student involvement focused on both process and product of learning.
• Understand the purpose of testing and to use it as an unbiased measure of students’ performance, as well as a
reflection of their own effectiveness of teaching.
Train their students on how to:
• Communicate with people in other cultures in a variety of settings.
• Look beyond their customary borders.
• Participate more fully in the global community and marketplace.
• Develop insight into their own language and culture.
• Act with greater awareness of self, of other cultures and their own relationship to those cultures.
Our aim is to enable our students to be able to:
• Have access to language and culture study that is integrated into the entire school experience.
• Benefit from the development and maintenance of proficiency in more than one language.
• Learn in a variety of ways and settings.
• Develop and enhance basic communication skills and higher-order thinking skills.
• See tests and exams as an interesting challenge rather than a burden and a difficult requirement.
Islamic Studies Curriculum
Repton’s Islamic Studies Curriculum based on UAE syllabus with the department’s application of new methodology will
be able to assist students to:
• Develop an awareness of spiritual and moral issues in life experiences.
• Develop knowledge and understanding of Islam and other major world religions.
• Develop an understanding of what it means to be committed to a religious tradition.
• Be able to reflect on their own experiences and to develop a personal response to the fundamental questions
of life.
• Develop an understanding of religious traditions and to appreciate the cultural differences in the UAE
today.
• Develop investigative and research skills and to enable them to make reasoned judgements about religious
issues.
• Have respect for other peoples’ views and to celebrate the diversity in society.
With the arrival of Hazim Abbas, the current Edexcel Arabic IGCSE Chief Examiner, GCSE (Second Language) Principal
Examiner, and the Examining Advisor to the Irish Ministry of Education, taking the post of Director of Arabic and
Islamic Studies at Repton, the school’s Arabic and Islamic studies teaching programmes are seeing greater
improvements and innovations in all aspects: the curriculum and resources, and teaching and learning.
The department has set its plans to:-
• Continue to host the Edexcel IGCSE annual training events, after the first successful training session was
delivered by Hazim Abbas, the Arabic IGCSE Chief Examiner and Director of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Repton, in
March 2009.
• Launch the first Edexcel Arabic GCSE (Second Language) teacher training event.
• Recruit highly experienced teachers with a proven track record and who are willing to take on the challenge
of applying modern teaching methods and strategies.
• Regularly monitor teachers’ performance and delivery.
• Monitor students’ progress and achievements on a regular basis.
• Increase extra-curricula activities to reflect Arabic and Islamic culture.
• Provide teachers with short and long training courses administered and delivered by British and other
internationally recognised trainers.
• Invite local and international educationalists to Repton.
• Enrich the Arabic and Islamic Studies teaching resources and facilities.
• Install the most modern Language Learning Software Programme.
Bringing Language Learning to Life
The new multimedia Language Learning Software Programme will allow students to work with audio and video material, use interactive exercises and websites and link together themed resources into text, audio, video and gap-fill exercises. Students can practise both their listening and their speaking in contexts that reproduce as closely as possible the situation of being in any country where Arabic is spoken.
