v-Arabic : Virtual Arabic
v-tivity : virtual activity
Realia: Real life authentic items
Virtual Realia
Digitized objects and items from the target culture which are brought into the classroom as examples or aids and used to stimulate spoken or written language production.
Language Realia
Realia is a term used in education to refer to certain real-life objects. In education, realia are objects from real life used in classroom instruction.
In education, realia include objects used by educators to help students to understand better other cultures and real life situations. A teacher of a foreign language often employs realia to strengthen students' associations between words for everyday objects and the objects themselves.
In foreign language instruction, the term realia has a broader meaning, which includes photos of objects from a country where the target language is spoken.
Wikipedia
BBC Arabic (Learning English) has a dedicated bilingual radio programme aimed at teaching English to native Arab speakers. As an Arabic learner yourself, you may benefit hugely from listening to this interactive programme where the host (an Arabic speaker) interviews a guest (an English speaker) in English about a particular news item. The interview is then interpreted in Arabic immediately by the host.
اليوم في بي بي سي أكسترا إنجليش نتحدث عن رجل قرر بيع كل حياته علي موقع للمزادات علي شبكة الإنترنت لانه يرغب في الإنفصال من ماضيه تماماً و الشروع في حياة جديدة.
In this podcast,Somaya and Doug are talking about making a fresh start.
An Australian man is putting his whole life up for sale on eBay.Normally on eBay people sell small things such as clothes or books.Ian Usher is selling his three bedroomed-house, his car and his job.His friends are also included in the sale.His marriage has just ended and he wants to escape from painful memories. He wants to make a clean break.So how much can he hope to make from selling his life? Bidding starts at $Aus1, but he hopes his life is worth around $Aus 500,000.When it’s sold, he wants to walk away with the money in one pocket and his passport in the other. He’s going to jump on the first plane to anywhere.
BBC Arabic (Learning English) has a dedicated bilingual radio programme aimed at teaching English to native Arab speakers. As an Arabic learner yourself, you may benefit hugely from listening to this interactive programme where the host (an Arabic speaker) interviews a guest (an English speaker) in English about a particular news item. The interview is then interpreted in Arabic immediately by the host.
This is the latest BBC bilingual radio programme for learning English. It is hosted by Mr. Louay Ismail, the BBC producer who came to interview us here at CASAW, University of Edinburghlast Tuesday 4th Mar. 2008
US investment guru Warren Buffett has ousted his friend and occasional bridge partner Bill Gates as the world’s richest man, Forbes magazine says. Read more
BBC Arabic (Learning English) has a dedicated bilingual radio programme aimed at teaching English to native Arab speakers.
As an Arabic learner yourself, you may benefit hugely from listening to this interactive programme where the host (an Arabic speaker) interviews a guest (an English speaker) in English about a particular news item. The interview is then interpreted in Arabic immediately by the host.
Read the following article before listening to the podcast:
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Today Somaya and Finn are talking about two famous inventors from Scotland.
Alexander Graham Bell is credited as the inventor of the telephone. Other people were working speech transmission devices at the same time, but it was Bell who was awarded the first US patent for the invention of the telephone.John Logie Baird is credited as the inventor of the television. Like the telephone, this invention is used by people around the world.But which invention is more important to you? Some of us would say, “I couldn’t live without my telephone.” Others would say, “I couldn’t live without my television.”While others would say, “I could live without either of them!” They don’t think that these inventions are important at all.Would it be a hassle for you not to have a telephone?
If you happen to be in Edinburgh one day, or are already here, you may want to visit Scotland’s new Parliament. It sits at the foot of Edinburgh’s famous Royal Mile in front of the spectacular Holyrood Park. It is also located very close to “Arthur’s Seat” - a series of hills that are great for climbing.
The complex building has been hailed as one of the most innovative designs in Britain today. However, the design has been the subject of a lively yet controversial debate since not all agree with its attractiveness.
The following leaflet realia, written for an Arabic-speaking audience - explains how committees work and outlines their role in scrutinising legislation, conducting inquiries, gathering evidence and holding the Scottish Government to account.
It is estimated that around half a million Arabs live in the UK. London has attracted the majority who have settled here largely from Egypt, Morocco, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, the Gulf States and Iraq.
Migration to the UK substantially began in the 1940’s by the Egyptians. It started up again during the 1960’s. A mixture of the professional and unskilled - they came in search of employment, and mostly from Egypt and Morocco.
During the oil-boom days of the 70s, Arabs arrived from the Gulf to set up businesses in the UK. Civil war in Lebanon during that decade produced a further influx of people from the Arab world and by the 1980’s there was an exodus from Iraq of Arabic, Kurdish and Shi’a political refugees and asylum seekers.
Some have had to leave behind highly skilled careers in their own countries. Unable to resume the same path in the UK, they have instead taken advantage of the growth of London’s café society, opening up lucrative coffee shops and patisseries all over London, including suburbs such as Richmond and Harrow.
The hotel and catering industry in general has attracted skilled and unskilled workers, largely from Morocco and Palestine.
The centre of London, including SW1, NW London, W2 and W1 - particularly around Edgware Road - has a thriving Arab community. The Borough of Westminster has the highest density of Arabic speakers in the capital and is one of the most expensive areas to live. Knightsbridge is another example, with its nightclubs, banks, restaurants and the famous department store owned by the Egyptian Al Fayed brothers.
Associations such as the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding (CAABU) are geared towards the intellectual Arabs who find in these a forum for debate on current affairs, as well as a platform for the arts. This particular association was founded in order to give the Arab perspective of Middle East affairs to the British public.
In contrast, some Arabs, Moroccans amongst them, lead a completely different lifestyle, sometimes in the deprived areas of London – a far cry from the opulence of Bond Street, where it is not uncommon to see chic Arabs adorned in the finest jellabas (an Arabic robe), their princely heads swathed in the traditional ghutra (white Arabic head dress), shopping for high-class goods.
This is a new book on the US war in Iraq published in 2006, which was translated into Arabic.
The editrorial review states:
” The graphic photographs of U.S. military personnel grinning over abused Arab and Muslim prisoners shocked the world community. That the US was systematically torturing inmates at prisons run by its military and civilian leaders divided the nation and brought deep shame to many. When Steven H. Miles, an expert in medical ethics and an advocate for human rights, learned of the neglect, mistreatment, and torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo Bay, and elsewhere, one of his first thoughts was: “Where were the prison doctors while the abuses were taking place?”
In Oath Betrayed, Miles explains the answer to this question. Not only were doctors, nurses, and medics silent while prisoners were abused; physicians and psychologists provided information that helped determine how much and what kind of mistreatment could be delivered to detainees during interrogation. Additionally, these harsh examinations were monitored by health professionals operating under the purview of the U.S. military.
BBC Arabic (Learning English) has a dedicated bilingual radio programme aimed at teaching English to native Arab speakers.
As an Arabic learner yourself, you may benefit hugely from listening to this interactive programme where the host (an Arabic speaker) interviews a guest (an English speaker) in English about a particular news item. The interview is then interpreted in Arabic immediately by the host.
Read the following article before listening to the podcast:
Today Kaz and Louay talk about controlling your anger.
A new study says that controlling your anger helps the body repair itself. It speeds up the healing process.
100 participants were given blisters on their arms and asked to fill in a questionnaire on how well they controlled their temper. Then scientists studied the speed of recovery.
BBC Arabic (Learning English) has a dedicated bilingual radio programme aimed at teaching English to native Arab speakers.
As an Arabic learner yourself, you may benefit hugely from listening to this interactive programme where the host (an Arabic speaker) interviews a guest (an English speaker) in English about a particular news item. The interview is then interpreted in Arabic immediately by the host.
Read the following article before listening to the podcast:
رواتب ربات البيوت - BBC Arabic - Learning English
Today Louay and Cath talk about housewives. According to a new survey in the UK, housewives would be paid more than the average worker, if they received the going rate for their household chores.
The average annual salary in the UK is £23,700.
An average mum apparently works for nearly nine hours a day, every day, which would mean that housewives could earn almost £30,000 a year.
4,000 housewives were involved in the survey and most of them agreed that successfully running the family home was a full-time job.
The way they worked this out was by comparing the various chores with actual jobs. So for child care they would look at what a nanny would earn; cleaning and tidying would be compared to what a cleaner would get. Other jobs in the calculation included being an accountant and a taxi driver.
Do you think housewives should be paid?
هل تعتقد انه يجب دفع رواتب لربات البيوت مقابل مجهوداتهم لقضاء في الاعمال المنزلية؟
To gain some understanding of this news read the following article:
The Calgary Sun newspaper in Alberta, Canada, chose Monday to publish no bad news and made the story of a found dog its front page banner piece.
The tabloid said it was filling the paper with “good news” on a gamble “the news gods would cooperate with us and not deal us any world catastrophes or local tragedies that would elbow for space on Page 1.”
Annahar (جريدة النهار), a leading Arabic-language daily newspaper from Lebanon, offers its readers a free virtual daily newspaper that you can read online using flash technology.So far, I found this the most authentic and life-like Arabic realia available online for Arabic learners and teachers as well as for native Arabs worldwide.This virtual tool will not only help you improve and perfect your reading skills, it will also keep you abreast of the latest current affairs in the Arab world in particular and international affairs in general.The newspaper content provides fresh and up-to-the-minute news and information for its readers.
