Non-Arab students in Dubai top global online Arabic language competition

Dubai - The competition held between November 4 and 11, saw students respond to more than 11 million questions across four skills — reading, writing, speaking and listening.

A Dubai school with mostly non-Arab students topped 324 schools worldwide in a global online Arabic language competition.

JSS Private School was declared the global winner of the seven-day Federation of British International Schools in Asia (FOBISIA) Languages Perfect Competition 2020 where 744 students (all non-Arabs) from Grade 4 to Grade 9 were tested on four different skills in Arabic language.

The competition held between November 4 and 11, saw students respond to more than 11 million questions across four skills — reading, writing, speaking and listening. JSS School students secured the highest total score of 174,110 points. The school managed to beat a number of Arab schools, some of which are located in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Dr Marwa Ali Maher Mahiaa, head of department for Arabic at JSS Private School, said: “This is a huge achievement for our school as all the participants were non-Arabs and we did not have a syllabus to follow for this competition. It was purely based on the fluency of the students that they topped the various levels. I am proud of my staff and students who have shown their love for the Arabic language by practising and excelling in it. Participants spent up to eight hours a day clearing various difficulty levels of the competition and earning points.”

“Thirty-four of our students got the highest scoreboard rating; followed 116 in the second-highest category; 128 students bagged the gold rating; 179 silver, 577 bronze and 1,103 in the last category,” she added.