Arabic Language Wing (ALW)

ALW has over 20 Arabic instructors, both native Arabs and non-native Arabic speakers, from countries as diverse as Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Sudan, enabling them to teach both Modern Standard Arabic as well as various Arabic dialects.

ALW runs a number of different courses, depending on the level of language proficiency required and the job for which it will be used. The 10-week Survival Course aims to get students to Level 1 and is primarily for those going to work in Defence Sections. These courses are usually in either Gulf or Iraqi dialect, though ALW is able to teach Egyptian, Sudanese and Levantine dialects too, with others currently in development. The 15-month Professional Course is taught in MSA and aims to get students to Level 3 before deploying on operational tours as interpreters. Finally, the 18-month Full Professional Course, also taught in MSA, aims to get students to Level 4 (the highest level that anyone can be trained to without being a native speaker or bilingual). These students go on to work in various roles, including intelligence. Some even return to ALW as instructors. Outside these courses, ALW is able to tailor training to suit other requirements.

Students study all aspects of the Arabic language, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing, along with the cultural aspect, an essential part of understanding any language. The native Arab instructors provide valuable insights into things such as how students should conduct themselves when dealing with Arabs and the importance of religion.

During the longer courses, students get the opportunity to travel abroad and conduct In-Country Language Training (ICLT) in places such as Jordan and Oman, thanks to long-standing exchange agreements with these countries. This gives students the opportunity to immerse themselves in the language and, more importantly, the Arabic culture, spending time living and studying among native speakers outside the classroom environment.

The Farsi students in ALW are all taught at the Chicksands site, where they spend 18 months studying to Level 4. The Farsi course consists of 5 phases. The first phase is the Foundation Course which covers all Farsi grammar and 3000 words of vocabulary. This phase lasts 6 months and is followed by Survival, Operational, Advanced and Diploma phases, all of which are aimed at preparing students for the MODLEB examinations from Level 1 through to Level 4.

In-Country Language Training (ICLT) is not as easy to conduct for Farsi as it is for Arabic, but in the past students have been able to attend the American Partner Language Training Center Europe (PLTCE) in Germany which immerses them in a Farsi-speaking environment. This has proved very successful in improving students’ linguistic proficiency.

The Farsi course also contains inbuilt modules in Cultural Awareness throughout the 18 months of Diploma level training. These modules are designed and delivered by native speakers and have been enthusiastically received by students. Students are encouraged to take part in discussions and debates as part of the Cultural Awareness training.

Arabic is spoken in more than 20 countries around the world, ranging from Morocco in the West to the borders of Iran in the East, and from Syria in the North to Sudan in the South. It is the first language of over 200 million people, with at least another 35 million speaking it as a second language. It is the language of Islam, one of the world’s major religions, and of the Qu’ran, the holy book of Islam. It was also made the sixth official language of the United Nations in 1974.

Arabic belongs to the Semitic family of languages. With origins dating back to pre-Islamic Saudi Arabia, and its rapid spread across the Middle East on the back of the Islamic religion, it has one of the richest and largest bodies of literature and poetry in the world. In fact, many languages are full of words of Arabic origin, including English – alcohol, algebra, magazine, elixir and cotton are all examples of English words with Arabic roots.

Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is the official language throughout the Arab world, and in its written form it is relatively consistent across national boundaries. MSA is used in official documents, in education and the media as well as for communication between Arabs of different nationalities. However, the spoken forms of Arabic vary widely, and each Arab country has its own dialect, which can seem like different languages at times.

The Arabic Alphabet is composed of 28 basic letters, with no difference between upper and lower case, and is written from right to left. Each individual letter can have up to four distinct forms, based upon where the letter appears in a word, meaning that there are almost 100 different letters to learn.

Farsi is an Indo-European language. Therefore, although it is written in the Arabic script and contains a wealth of Arabic vocabulary, it is of a totally different language group to Arabic. Farsi is in fact closer in structure to European languages than to Arabic and hence, Europeans find it much easier to learn. Farsi grammar is simple and elegant. There is no gender in the language and there are only two cases. There is also no definite article. Farsi students typically find that vocabulary learning is the main challenge when studying the language.

Geographically, Farsi and its related dialects are spoken from as far West as Iraq to as far East as China. Dari or Afghan Farsi, which is one of the two official languages of Afghanistan, is a dialect of Farsi and the two languages are almost identical in written form. Tajik or Tajiki, the official language of Tajikistan, is also very close to Dari and again almost identical to Farsi in its written form.

Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan thus share a huge wealth of poetry and literature going back thousands of years. There are also ancient Farsi speaking communities in Uzbekistan, particularly in the towns of Samarkand and Bukhara.