The Ministry of Education recently launched two initiatives specializing in improving competencies in the Arabic language for students in both grade 4 and 5, being the “Enhancing Linguistic Competencies Initiative” and “Spelling”. This comes in accomplishment of the Ministry’s plans aimed at elevating creativity in students in the Arabic language, to enable them to perfect the same to the fullest extent, which will strengthen the status of the country in various local and international competitions.
This comes as part of the incredible efforts and initiatives launched by the State during the current year, including “Month of Reading” and “Arabic Reading Challenge”, which aim at reinstating interest in the Arabic language and promoting it in the minds of students as a main pillar of national identity, that formed the basis of the Ministry’s comprehensive development plans under the umbrella of the Emirati School.
Dr. Rashid Al Hammadi, Director of Middle School Curriculum, explained that these two initiatives supplement other initiatives launched by the Ministry since the beginning of the current academic year, the main objective of which is to perfect students in their mother tongue in a systematic and well planned manner, which will enhance their perceptions on the skills of analysis, criticism and comparison, and will stimulate their linguistic imaginations as a major step towards developing and improving their linguistic proficiency.
“Enhancing Linguistic Competencies” Initiative
Al Hammadi added “the enhancing linguistic competencies initiative aims at identifying the standards of students in grades 4 and 5 in the Arabic language by viewing the level of each student separately within the so-called definition of "individuality education”. This allocates space for each student separately, to determine his strengths and weaknesses in the Arabic language, and subsequently create effective educational plans to improve his level. The initiative also seeks to enrich activities inside and outside the classroom which support reading, through qualifying and training teachers on how to take advantage of those activities in instilling the notion of reading skills and mastering of the same in the minds of students.
Spelling Initiative
Dr. Rashid Al Hammadi explained about the “spelling” initiative, which concentrates on the concept of competition between students in grades 4 and 5 in public schools, to correctly spell words in Arabic according to a set of standards and procedures consistent with specific timeframes. He indicated that the aim of this initiative is to strengthen the status of the Arabic language in the minds of learners, motivate them to read, and to enable them to correctly use the Arabic language in writing, reading, speaking and listening, in addition to developing students’ skills in connecting words and synonyms, the origin of words and their meaning, and to qualify students in participating in local and international tests based on reading. The initiative will also help in the uncovering of talented students; supporting their self-confidence and training them in communication skills and approaches to confront the public.
20/12/2016