My husband and I are thinking of taking private Arabic lessons to learn how to converse and write in the language. The teacher we contacted was a professor at a local university, and is charging $60/hr for the both of us. He is planning to come to our place for the lessons. Is this a reasonable price? He said he is willing to negotiate, but I don’t know what a fair price would be? Any suggestions would help.
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
Only 60$ for both of you
He must be very nice I guess but its about Arabic like Molvi sahab prhaty hain tu mahiny ky 100 dollars bhi mushkil sy dyty hain log if you are thinking like this in this senario it is a bit high but as U told he is professor its really lowest price at least 4 me.
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
have u ooked at language training facilities? price seems reasonable but does he have experience in teaching not native speakers to become good with a language quickly?
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
$30.00 each, how many classes he will be giving you guys?
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
I'd also suggest looking into training facilities first. If learning at home is a preference, then for a universtiy professor... $60/hr sounds o.k. - I would have expected something around $50/hr.
What type of courses does he teach at the university? I've taken a course at the university myself and it was a gora professor who did an impressive job in teaching students who didn't even have basic knowledge of the alphabet. You're probably going to be much better than that so the task won't be as daunting... may be you can emphasize this in your "negotiation".
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
Either Ramadhan is affecting me badly or I have gone mad but I swear the title of this thread read "Cost of private Aerobic class"????
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
It is $60/hr for the both of us. That means that if we take two classes for 1.5 hours each week (his recommendation), its about $720/month for the both of us.
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
Checked out a local faciliity, and they are charging $299 for a six week course. The class would meet twice a week for one hour. Roughly it is coming to $25/class. So comparing to the private lessons, the prof’s price seems ok, since he will also be meeting us at our place.
Professor’s background: Lebanese, MD, quit to become a political activist, then started teaching Arabic as a university course as well as adult education classes at the same university in the evenings.
The prof we contacted said he has a current student that knew only English, and he taught him how to read, and comprehend to the point where he can pick up an Arabic newspaper and understand any passage without hesitation in 3 months. He was an American executive at an oil firm.
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
thats the key, i mean teaching english is different than teaching ESL, and same for arabic..
the classes usually have diff tools, resources and you have an ability to converse with a number of other people, practice is critical.
so this prof who taught this executive, how long did it take..you have to balance your expectations and budget with teh capabilities of the instructor.
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
^^It took the guy three months to get at the level where he could pick up something and read while comprehending at the same time. BUT, this guy really took his studies seriously, and met at least 2X per week. If he wasn't traveling, he would sometimes take 3 sessions per week.
I think w/ this prof. it is really about how much time we spend on our own practicing and revising what we have learned in a particular session.
Since we can read arabic letters, and hubby knows how to read urdu as well, it will probably give us a 'head-start'. Our expectation is to learn reading comprehension, and speaking.
I think if we go with this guy, we are probably going to take it on a month to month basis and see how it goes. Depending on our time constraints, and how much effort we put in, hopefully we will be able to get to a point we're happy with.
Re: Cost of private Arabic classes?
Someone pointed me to http://www.SyrianArabic.com where there are some mp3 files and Acrobat document to learn from.
There are other free online resources as well that you can use to get a good understanding. Once you get the basics I suggest use your professor or other arabic speaking friends to master the language.