The Diplomatic Arabic track is a highly-specialized, intensive language-training program offered by Qasid to qualified career diplomats, governmental agency officials or those looking to establish themselves in the diplomatic field. For over a decade, Qasid has been training and preparing diplomats and officials from a number of embassies and foreign ministries in exactly the mode of Arabic language (formal and dialect) they will need for their roles, through customized curricula and the use of relevant topics that most concern those involved in diplomacy in the region. Qasid has trained diplomats from the US, UK, Canada, Australia, China, Norway, Singapore, UAE, Sweden, Spain and other countries, with some governments setting up an exclusive, continuous training program for any of their officials set to take up posts in the region. This lengthy experience with a wide variety of governmental needs and requests has allowed Qasid to design a rigorous and state-of-the-art program that has proven to prepare diplomats for qualifying exams and to successfully take up posts across the region, whether in consular, political, media, economic, security or cultural-related capacities.
The Diplomat Track, as it is often called, is based on a series of in-house textbooks and materials prepared by Qasid’s academics that guide the student from the A2 level up to C1 and even beyond to C2 of the Common European Framework (CEFR) language proficiency scale, mapping onto the US-based ACTFL (to Advanced High and Superior) and ILR scales as well. What distinguishes the Diplomat Track from normal Modern Standard Arabic tutoring however is the focus of the topics discussed, as well as the specific skills practised and scenarios used that are relevant to the diplomatic field, such as reading for gist, negotiation, public speaking, document analysis, news media comprehension, code-switching, interview and press conference training, role-playing practice and more. The eventual professional duties of the diplomat at post and their ideal goals in language usage and cultural expertise are taken into consideration as a program is then completely tailored and reverse-engineered to guide the diplomat-student along the course towards mastery. No two programs for diplomats are exactly alike.
