Casa Árabe hosts the Month of the Arabic Language of the King Salman Global Arabic Language Academy of Saudi Arabia

On Monday 21st April, the opening day of the Month of the Arabic Language of the King Salman Global Arabic Language Academy of Saudi Arabia (KSGAAL) will take place at the headquarters of Casa Árabe in Madrid, where the prizes for the calligraphy, storytelling and poetry competitions held last March, and a round table will be held to discuss the challenges of teaching Arabic as a foreign language with experts and teachers. 

The inauguration will begin at 09:00 in the institution's Auditorium (c/ Alcalá, 62, Madrid), and will feature speeches by the Director General of Casa Árabe, Miguel Moro Aguilar, and the Secretary General of the King Salman Global Academy of the Arabic Language (KSGAAL), Abdullah bin Saleh Al-Washmi, as well as the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Spain, Princess Haifa bint Abdulaziz Al-Mogrin. 

This will be followed by the prize-giving ceremony for the finalists and participants in the calligraphy, storytelling and poetry competitions held last March. This will be followed by a speech on ‘The efforts of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the field of teaching Arabic as a foreign language’, by a representative of the KSGAAL. 

From 12:00 noon, a round table will be held on ‘The teaching of Arabic as a foreign language: challenges and realities’, with the participation of experts from the KSGAAL and Spanish universities, among them, Pedro Buendía Pérez, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), and Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), moderated by Hatim Bouazza Touil, professor of Arab and Islamic Studies at the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC). 

The aim of the Arabic Language Month is to promote and celebrate the richness and diversity of the Arabic language through training sessions with teachers and students of Arabic, including visits and meetings with universities and training centres to establish lines of collaboration and joint projects. 

The opening day can be followed live on Casa Árabe's YouTube channel. 

Also as part of the Month of the Arabic Language and during the same week, from 22 to 25 April, Casa Árabe is hosting a training course for teachers of Arabic as a foreign language in which the participants' skills in preparing assessment tests will be developed. 

In addition, on Wednesday 23rd, training will be given to Arabic language students in which they will be introduced to online resources for learning Arabic, as well as Hamza, a certification for knowledge of this language that aims to become the international accreditation exam. 

On Friday 25th April, the closing day will take place, with the awarding of diplomas for the different courses. 

The stay of the delegation from the King Salman Global Arabic Language Academy of Saudi Arabia in Spain will be rounded off with visits to educational centres in Madrid, Granada and Córdoba. In Madrid, they will visit the Rey Juan Carlos University (Tuesday 22nd), the Autonomous University of Madrid (Wednesday 23rd) and the Complutense University (Thursday 24th), where they will be able to see first-hand the Arabic teaching departments, their methodology and their strengths. In Granada, on 29 and 30 April, they will offer training sessions for teachers and students at the University of Granada. From there they will travel to Cordoba, where on 30 April, in addition to cultural visits, they will meet with the Arabic team at the city's School of Languages.