Academic Accountability
One of the many secrets to KAP’s success comes from our unique system for holding students accountable academically for full immersion training experience. We expect each of our students to come to Jordan prepared to engage full time with the Arabic language in both of its forms (i.e., Levantine dialect and Modern Standard) for between 30 and 40 hours per week. This total time includes:
- 16½ hours of class time,
- five hours minimum visiting with friends or neighbors,
- eight hours minimum personal study time at home.[1]
Additionally, each student should attend at least one 60–120-minute visit to a local Arabic speaking church, where they can build relationships with local believers before and after the service and participate in an Arab worship service.
However, we don’t just “expect” our students to be this involved in learning Arabic, we hold them to this expectation by offering KAL certificates and student reports at the end of each semester. These certificates and student reports are based in part upon the numbers that students submit each week to Kelsey Administration during a period of class called Family Time.
The KAL certificate is issued to students who demonstrate a high level of commitment to studying Arabic during their whole semester with us. We measure this commitment in four basic areas: Religious, Scholastic, Community and Attendance. Within each of the first three categories, students can choose from two possible activities (please see the KAL chart on next page for more details).
Student attendance is taken at the beginning of each class, and—since we consider their presence in class to be essential for their academic success—no student can receive a certificate from us if they miss more than 10 class hours[2] during any semester without officially making the classes up (see our absence policy for more details). Students can also choose which level of certificate they desire to attain: Academic or Honors.
We believe that the variety of activities required to earn a KAL certificate will provide our students with the most well-balanced strategy for learning both Levantine and Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) simultaneously. Moreover, through this part of our program we hope to invest the kind of discipline and motivation that our students will need to successfully continue their studies of Arabic far into the future.
[1] It is important to note that historically the most successful KAP students may spend double these amounts in both visiting friends and studying at home, bringing their weekly immersion in the Arabic languages to as much as 42-46 hours or more.
[2] Please note that our honors students can only miss five class hours during their semester.