MUALIMI, ARABIC LANGUAGE AND EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE My Arabic Teacher, Mualimi v4.4 My Arabic Teacher v4.4 for Windows is an extensive Arabic language tutoring and educational software for beginners as well as for advanced speakers of Arabic. Ten years in the making, Mualimi was developed for non-native Arabic speakers with special emphasis on interactive details that meet the user's expectations. The curriculum will bestow an advanced working knowledge of the Arabic language in less than one year for the serious student and it is the perfect complement to any college or university language lab or Arabic language course. The software is also an excellent source of learning Arabic for overseas employees, businesses, or for personal education. Pearlink Software first introduced My Arabic Teacher for the Macintosh at the 2003 "ACTFL" exhibition in Philadelphia, USA, and then at the "A2 International Education Fair" in Casablanca, Morocco in 2005. Re-Introducing My Arabic Teacher Mualimi is an extensive e-learning tool, serving both the self-taught, the teacher and pupils in a learning environment. There is no other Arabic language-learning program like it. Mualimi is a comprehensive, full multimedia, multi-year curriculum state-of-the-art Arabic language tutoring e-learning software program that meets with international academic standards, and is suitable for all students of all levels and ages, and can be used with its unique bilingual Arabic-English interface as an essential audio-visual complement to any language lab. Fig. 1 Screenshot of the bilingual Mualimi Help Center running on Windows Vista Mualimi v4.4: My Arabic Teacher, Mualimi v4.4 is a bilingual English-Arabic language tutoring curriculum based on International Academic standards for teaching the Arabic language both in an Arab country or in Western schools. The program has a most complex but user-friendly interface that serves the students' needs and provides standard teaching materials teachers can reference. It took Pearlink Software ten years to design and develop Mualimi before its Macintosh release in 2002. The new Windows XP and Vista release represents a new advanced professionally developed program featuring over 1,000 audio-visual language tutoring lessons, libraries, an English-Arabic talking dictionary, on-the-fly translation, sound recording, voice comparison and interactive games. Mualimi contains over 4,000 images, an over 17,000 audio files and video clips, plus interactive bilingual talking menus and lists, tables, bookmarks, email and an internet browser. The software also teaches the language from the basic introductory level to advanced academic levels, and eventually issues a Certificate of Completion after 400 hours of study. Pearlink Software is now preparing to release two new versions for native French and Russian speaking students, planned for the fall of 2007. Fig. 2 Screenshot of the login screen which connects to a database and allows teachers to monitor student's progress. The Program: Beginning students are exposed to reading and writing exercises with audio-visual animated writing examples from right-to-left. Usually, this portion of the program should be completed in approximately two weeks of practice in class and at home. After that, hundreds of reading and dictation exercises that are available throughout the program will prove the value of this test. They include slow, normal and fast reading and writing levels. The study materials include a basic level with elementary math exercises, animated games, reading, conversation, and elementary grammar. The secondary and advanced levels feature advanced grammar with a comprehensive bilingual index of grammatical terms, classical text reading, children stories, games, geography with interactive maps, atlas of the Arab world, timeline, and extensive biographies. The Reading Topics section features some eighty classical abridged essays by renowned linguists, scientists, travelers, historians, grammarians, and writers. Each lesson in the Reading section as well as in the Advanced Arabic section can be read by the program for the student with on-the-fly English translation with just one click. The program is one hundred percent bilingual and it serves students as well as advanced Arabic language speakers with a complete Arabic grammar references, diagramming and an extensive bilingual index of grammatical terms, as well as audio for each word and sentence with instantaneous on-the-fly translation and audio. Fig. 3 Screenshot of the main navigation screen of Mualimi. The front page shows links to all chapters while an additional window shows direct links to all sections and sub-sections in each chapter. The Interface: Most software products have a single interface that deals with their original intent. Mualimi, My Arabic Teacher used 124 windows in its 2002 Macintosh version, and 52 windows in Windows XP and Vista version. Seven of these windows resemble each other with varying points of subject specialized differences, and the other 45 windows are fully independent with each one having its individual interface. Yet, altogether, Mualimi interface is most intuitive and user friendly. Just point and click for a fun audio-visual language learning experience. All of these windows are global and inter-active. The most important part of My Arabic Teacher is that it teaches something beneficial for all levels and ages, and that is the purpose behind its development. Mualimi's Windows version uses a kiosk format as did the Macintosh version, and both versions are in active used by individuals as well as institutions around the world since 2002. Mualimi is a self-paced Arabic language-tutoring program, and some universities recommend it to its students as an Arabic language study support material. List fields are used to display English/Arabic entries for the dictionary and the index of grammatical terms. All 70,000 entries, more than the 52,000 of the Arabic Larousse, are displayed in both English and Arabic in the Arabic-English talking dictionary, with "Find" and "Find Again..." capabilities. To make sure that all Windows language add-ons are available, Mualimi checks the installed language components on the user's computer at each start-up. Using the shell function, the program reads the necessary registry keys and inform the user about absent components before the application starts. Fig. 4 The bilingual Mualimi Help Center - Arabic Menu items pronunciation screen running on Windows Vista. The Site License: The new Windows XP and Vista release features a new renewable multi-user Per Seat License system. Once a license is purchased online and the initial site license agreement is signed with the company, the institution will receive a number of multi-user PINs via email. During the online installation, a unique license key is emailed for each licensed computer to the particular school. A multi-user site license also comes with two extra software applications: A Server application and a Teacher application that become handy for the teacher or the language lab administrator in a multi-user learning environment. Fig. 5 Screenshot of Mualimi Server App. and Mualimi Teacher Log. . Conclusion Mualimi v4.4 is easy for teachers and students to use as a standard Arabic language tutoring program for a single academic year curriculum, or as a multi-year language learning and educational program in regular k-12 schools, while it is sophisticated as one would expect from a professional software development firm. The program was developed by a teacher who worked for over thirty years with students of mixed educational and ethnic backgrounds, and it combines the needed teaching tools and educational learning materials for standard Arabic learning that can be most useful in pursuing higher education in an Arabic speaking country as well as for knowledge seekers in a Western culture. Moreover, educators can be actively involved in the subject level selection and the teaching process using Mualimi. Note For more information, please visit our website at http://www.arabicteacher.com.