An-Najah Celebrates the Graduation of the 5th Cohort of Students from its Arabic for Non-Native Speakers’ Institute
On Thursday, May 25th, 2017, An-Najah National University celebrated the graduation ceremony for the 5th cohort of students from the School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS-University of London students from the Arabic for Non-Native Speakers Institute.
The ceremony was held at the Zafer Al-Masri Auditorium in the Old Campus and was attended by Professor Maher Natsheh, Acting President of An-Najah; Dr. Mohammed El-Amleh, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dr. Raed Abdulraheem, Head of the Arabic for Non-Native Speakers Institute as well as a number of An-Najah’s academic and administrative staff.
In the opening speech, Prof. Natsheh congratulated the graduates and commended their performance in Arabic. He talked about the academic progress made on the institute as it hosted for the year 90 students from Britain, Korea, Japan, China, Italy and other parts of the world. He also talked about the institute achievements and commended An-Najah performance in supervising the Standardized Test of Arabic Proficiency in Speakers of Other Languages.
Prof. Natsheh then announced that the university is paving the way to launch a minor BA programme on training Arabic teachers for non-natives.
Ms Naheel Arda, who is a teacher at the institute talked about the students’ experience on class and referred to the importance of the training programmes she was offered by the university to enhance the quality of the learning outcomes.
The graduates in turn expressed their gratitude to An-Najah and the people of Palestine and talked about their experience at the university. They stated that the programme has developed their knowledge of the Arabic language as well as the Palestinian culture and cause.
The programme graduates recited three poems from the Arabic literature on Palestine and played a video they made on their experience in Palestine and their activities outside campus. They also recited two songs of Palestinian folklore.
The ceremony was concluded by awarding the students with their certificates.
Notes:
The Arabic for Non-Native Speakers Institute started as a programme in 2012. The institute aims at introducing the world to the Arabic language and Palestinian cause and culture. It also aims at abolishing the stereotyped image of the Arab and Islamic world. It consists of 36 credit hours over one year to increase exposure to the Arabic language and Arab societies, with particular emphasis on Palestine.
