- Input (listening, reading) and Output (writing, speaking) skills have different purposes in language acquisition
- Listening and Reading are not equal
- Abundant input in the form of listening and reading eventually produces output naturally
- Anxiety is a major barrier to abundant listening input
The #100DaysOfArabic challenge is quite different to what most Arabic learners will be used to. The aim is rapid and natural vocabulary acquisition, and therefore, fluency, as opposed to the usual focus on grammar, form and accuracy.
There is increasing evidence that the grammatical approach actually hinders language development, so our aim for the #100DaysOfArabic challenge is to get us back to the natural way of language acquisition, i.e., an abundance of compelling, rich, comprehensible input, which brings us joy and advances our communicative rather than technical competence.
We’ve released a new video on our YT channel which will, إن شاء الله, be the first of a few, visiting simple but important concepts before we start the challenge.
We start by getting you to rethink what you’ve been taught in school and elsewhere about the four skills. I encourage you to focus on input skills, listening and reading, and encourage you to think of listening as your most important asset. Together, let’s embark on an adventure to nurture it into a superpower.
