English Sounds for Arabic Speakers | WIDA Levels 1-3, CEFR A1-A2

Your Arabic speaking students are not careless speakers. They are using a sound system that works well in Arabic on English words. This pack teaches the English sounds that may be new to them: the p and b and v and f contrasts, vowel contrasts like ship and sheep, the final sounds, endings and clusters of words like school and walked, and the stress and quiet vowel that carry meaning in English sentences. A self-check lets you skip what your students already control.

Give your students 16 short lessons on the 72 sound entries that decide whether English listeners hear the word your students meant to say. Every entry starts from the Arabic side of the contrast, names exactly what the mouth does differently in English, and gives students the audio, the practice, and the games to make the new sound stick. A dialect note travels with every entry whose answer depends on the student's variety of Arabic, because Arabic is a family of varieties and no two students sound alike.

AFTER THE LESSONS THEIR TEACHER CHOSE, STUDENTS CAN:

• Hear both sides of the taught contrasts and name which word they heard in a listening check

• Say pair words like park and bark, van and fan, ship and sheep with a difference a listener can hear

• Read school sentences built from the taught sounds clearly enough that a partner can write down the key words

• Use the Lesson 2 self-check to name which sounds are easy and which ones they want to practice

• Catch the classic traps: the added vowel in school and speak, the dropped endings in walked and plays, can and can't, and thirteen against thirty, where stress carries the number

• Handle the sounds that depend on their own variety of Arabic, including th, ch and sh, ng, and j and hard g, through the routed lessons the self-check selects

WHAT IS INSIDE:

• 96 slide teaching deck (PowerPoint) with tap to play audio on every one of the 72 sound entries: sound awareness, p and b, v and f, final voicing, the vowel contrasts, diphthongs, schwa and reduction, clusters, endings, American r and l, and connected speech

• 72 pronunciation audio files (MP3), one for every sound entry, also included as a separate Audio folder

• 43 page student packet with a sound chart and a practice page for every lesson, the self-check record and routing sheets, a mixed review, the watch out trap list, a full sound map, and final performance scenes

• Games file (9 pages) with 3 games: a 24 answer sound crossword, a 20 word sound hunt word search, and Sound Bingo with a create your own board page, prefilled Core Pathway boards, a teacher call list, and a caller record sheet

• 18 page teacher guide with plans for all 16 lessons, the two pathways, a print map, a dialect and routing guide, assessment guidance with a 4 point final sound performance rubric, and a complete audio index with the transcript of all 72 entries

• 18 page answer keys for the student packet listening checks and all three games

• Editable sound wall and mouth cards (PowerPoint, 35 slides): 72 sound wall cards, one for every entry, 21 watch out trap cards that print each trap with its correction, and 6 sound posters (the English vowel map, voicing and mouth positions, consonants, clusters and endings, stress and reduction, and connected speech)

TWO PATHWAYS, SIXTEEN LESSONS:

Core Pathway: lessons 1 to 7, 10 to 13, and 16 (12 lessons) in six 50 minute periods. Full Pathway: all 16 lessons in eight periods. Every lesson is a 20 minute core built on the same five steps, Hear, Discriminate, Produce, Transfer, Check. Two lessons plus a 5 minute exit ticket fill one period, and extension blocks bring each period to 65 to 70 minutes of material, so fast finishers always have real work and the period never runs short. The Lesson 2 self-check routes each class to the lessons it actually needs: lessons 8, 9, 14, and 15 are taught when the self-check or teacher observation shows the need. An optional ninth period of review stations is described in the guide.

SUPPORT FOR ARABIC SPEAKERS:

Every contrast is explained from the Arabic side, in English, in the teacher guide and in the deck presenter notes, so a teacher who speaks no Arabic can teach every lesson with confidence. Where the right answer depends on the student's variety of Arabic, a dialect note says so, and the self-check finds what each student's speech actually does instead of what a textbook predicts. Arabic meaning notes are not printed in this edition, so the pages stay focused on sound.

WIDA and CEFR alignment: Built for Arabic speaking learners at WIDA Levels 1 to 3 (Entering, Emerging, and early Developing) across listening and speaking for school English. The pack supports CEFR A1 to A2 phonological control: students learn to hear and say the English sound contrasts their variety of Arabic may not make, including the p and b and v and f contrasts, final voicing, the vowel contrasts, clusters and endings, the American r, word stress and the schwa. A self-check helps the teacher skip what students already control. The goal is clear, understandable English, and the pack makes no accent elimination claim.

ACTFL cross-reference: Novice Mid to Intermediate Low listening and speaking.

PRINTING AND AUDIO:

Print the student packet and the games file for each student. The print map in the teacher guide shows exactly which pages to copy for each lesson, and the pages print cleanly in color or grayscale. Print the sound wall cards and posters from the editable tools file, or project them. Play the audio from the controls inside the deck during the lesson, or play the MP3 files from the Audio folder with any classroom player. The teacher guide audio index lists every file with its deck slide number.

FILES IN THIS DOWNLOAD:

1. Teaching Deck (PowerPoint, 96 slides)

2. Student Packet (PDF, 43 pages)

3. Games (PDF, 9 pages)

4. Answer Keys (PDF, 18 pages)

5. Teacher Guide (PDF, 18 pages)

6. Editable Sound Wall and Mouth Cards (PowerPoint, 35 slides)

7. Audio folder (72 MP3 files)

TERMS AND SUPPORT:

For use by one teacher in their own classroom. Please do not share these files, post them online, or distribute them to other teachers. Questions about this pack? Send me a message through this listing and I will be glad to help.