Dear Abu Dhabi Week,
Back in autumn 2009, you ran a short item in Abu Dhabi Week referring to a new book club I was setting up. Your story was very successful for us and we got several new members as a result. In fact, the book club has been phenomenally successful and now has 140 members (making it the largest reading group in town). Our website address is now changing; I wonder if it would be possible for you to run a sentence or two in a forthcoming issue notifying readers of the change? Many thanks for your help.
Francis

Editor: Happy to oblige. From June 2010 onwards the book group’s new web home will be at http://groups.google.co.uk/group/adbookclub.

Dear Abu Dhabi Week,
I am looking for a good self-teaching option to learn Arabic – I know that it would be much better to go for face-to-face lessons, but I cannot guarantee that I will be available at a particular time each week. So I am thinking that an online learning system or maybe a CD-ROM or iPod download book would be suitable. Can any readers advise me on this? Do you have any suggestions?
Noreen Divaldi

Editor: There’s a small problem with learning Arabic in that classical Arabic – used in more formal communications and most written works – is rather different to the colloquial Arabic used in everyday speech. What’s more, colloquial Arabic varies widely from one part of Islam to another; the dialect spoken in the Gulf is certainly not incomprehensible to people from elsewhere, but it is noticeably different. That said, there are many common expressions and grammar rules.
In terms of recommendations, we’re currently using (and are very happy with) LiveMocha – go to www.livemocha.com to learn more. The basic lessons are free, which is a good way of seeing whether the courses are for you.
Other websites we know but have no direct experience of include www.learnarabiconline.com and www.rocketlanguages.com/arabic/. Any other suggestions? Over to you, readers.

Dear Abu Dhabi Week,
I know the ADEC school authorities are trying to raise educational standards in Abu Dhabi, but I don’t think the ridiculous behaviour of some schools is doing much to help. Recently my son’s school was visited by an inspection team from the UK, and before their visit the teachers were on tenterhooks. My son’s class was given repeated lessons so that the inspectors could be impressed by how receptive the students were and how well they answered the questions. They were promised free periods if they avoided telling the inspectors the actual truth about the number of computers in the computer lab (and how many of them were connected to the network). Generally the students were t

Editor: There will always be arguments about school inspections, if only because the way schools actually operate in practice includes ad hoc systems and pragmatic workarounds (to put it politely) while inspections assume that everything is done by the book. But then: if everything should be done by the book, there really shouldn’t be a problem ... Have any other readers had similar experiences to report?

 

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