Mona Bassam

Arabic teacher, Bahrain

I have been Danielle’s Arabic teacher for the past year. Danielle is a very diligent learner and acquires new language quickly. This is in part down to her enthusiasm and motivation which are manifested in the way she goes about learning. It is quite difficult in Bahrain to get opportunities to speak Arabic as most local people are able to speak conversational English well. For this reason I am impressed by how Danielle has taken it upon herself to try to immerse herself in the local culture and seek out opportunities to practice with colleagues and Bahraini friends.
Danielle is an independent learner and looks for other sources of input such as online resources, books, radio and podcasts on topics that interest her. When given homework she completes it to a high degree and returns it to me on time. This means that she has progressed much more quickly than most other students I have taught.
From talking to Danielle about her approach to learning she tells me how she brings her knowledge of the theory of second language acquisition to her own learning, and I believe this is what has made her such a successful student. She has talked about how she prefers the Lexical Approach where she prefers to learn chunks of language in context rather than isolated words and grammar. We have worked together to create a syllabus based on these principles that meet her particular needs.
I would not hesitate to recommend Danielle for further studies at post-graduate level. She is a motivated and enthusiastic learner who is able to articulate her preferences based on academic theory and has opened my eyes to different ways of creating personalised courses. I think these qualities and those mentioned above will serve her well on a Master’s level course.