Olive Tree Dictionary

The Olive Tree Dictionary is one of the oldest Arabic English dictionaries. It was written to help people connect and communicate. This article features Yohanan Elihay the author of the dictionary. A good read. I have lost my OTD a while ago and now I want to go get one.

Language and Wealth

This article wonders whether there is a relation between wealth and language. It also makes other good points. A great read.

technorati tags:language, arabic

New Immersion Course for Arabic

Concordia Language Villages is adding Arabic to its successful language immersion programs. The article doesn't mention the audience for this program but historically they targeted youth. I believe that they should target adult learners also leveraging their experience in other immersion programs.
I don't have enough knowledge about their program and methodology or data about historical performance. Concordia historically used a mix of cultural and linguistic education. This style is usually the most successful. In general, a successful immersion program for Arabic that makes the language stick is harder to design and administer compared to other languages. Here in the United States we lack the skills and enough teachers who are experienced with this kind of teaching style, we lack the curriculum to make it successful and there is no effort that I am aware of for developing rapid acquisition-by-immersion curriculum. Having a group of students in a classroom or even living with a language speaker, and forcing them to speak the language has its advantages for sure but doing it for short periods of time (2 to 9 weeks) without the proper curriculum and methods rarely produces significant acquisition or reinforcement (personal opinion based on 15 years of experience). At any rate, good luck to Concordia. I will investigate the program and come back to you all with a better assessment of it or new information.

technorati tags:Arabic, training, immersion, dlpt

Explosion of Arabic Material on the Web

With Western news operations expanding into the Arabic market there will be more and more opportunities for Arabic language learners. What I am hoping is that some of these organizations would actually provide dual materials that display both the Arabic and English side by side. This would be very useful not only for the Arabic reader but also for the English readers trying to learn Arabic. I also hope that these organizations would go into areas like podcasting and other kinds of audio-visual material.

"July 5, 2006
Western News Operations Expand Into Arabic Market
By DOREEN CARVAJAL

PARIS — A media competition for minds and market share in the Middle East is evolving as a crowd of Western news organizations prepares to deliver headlines — and geopolitical views — in the language of the Koran.

Backed by government financing, Germany's public international broadcaster, Deutsche Welle, is poised to beam as much as 24 hours of daily news programming in Arabic this autumn. France's yet-to-be-named CNN-style channel is in development for a year-end opening, along with a Web site in Arabic and later in 2007 an Arabic television version. And the state-owned Russia Today has similar plans for an Arabic Web site and television presence.

From the United States, CNN is watching the development of its Arabic Web site, which attracts more than 300,000 unique visitors monthly, before it decides whether to pursue television plans.

'I'm losing track,' said Jerry Timmins, head of the BBC World Service's operations in Africa and the Middle East. 'There's pretty much of an announcement a week.'

The BBC World Service itself is also in the fray, with £19 million, or $35 million, from the British government for"

A Piece of Advice for Minnesota

This news from Minnesota is very encouraging. I just hope that this enthusiasm spells over to other states. It seems to me from this article that the people in charge are aware of the challenges, or at least most of them, namely:
1) Lack of qualified people to teach.
2) The need for training the teachers on modern teaching methods.
A third challenge I add here is that the students need to "learn how to learn". I am not aware of any current language program that takes this need into consideration. I am not talking here just about discipline and love for learning but more specifically about teaching student modern Psycholinguistic and memory techniques to help them memorize and understand. Pimsleur has the best approach in the field followed closely by the Rosetta Stone. These tools work directly with the student's memory and language control centers in the brain to aid the memorization experience.
Another problem I spot is that these classes might become to academic in their approach. The best experience a language student can have is to be able to communicate in class with peers and his/her teacher. Always communicate in class! Talk about anything and everything. Textbooks DO NOT have everything the students need to learn.
A final comment on the subject. My military students always complain that they have been taught the 'biggest words' like 'nuclear war' or 'conference' but in the meantime they don't know things like car parts' names and household tools, etc. Teachers should focus More on that during their in-class time.This could be done imply by using any of the 'commercial' material out there rather than academic Arabic text books. This commercial material is extremely valuable because its main focus is on the things that people 'must' know. Unfortunately, Academic teachers do not use such material in their in-class instruction and never take it seriously.

Success Story

I am against self-promotion when blogging but I guess a teacher and an author gets revived when receiving praise for his work. My book Ace The DLPT-Arabic Edition has been a success story in the military circuits and I am very proud of it. I designed it using the latest techniques in computational linguistics to guarantee that when you read it, and do all 406 exercises, you will pass any standardized Arabic test in existence with flying colors. Since the book got published, many people who followed my instructions have proven that Ace The DLPT delivers on its promise. Chief L.B is just one example. Here is what he says (some details were omitted to preserve identity):

Just wanted to relay a little success story for you and your book.

As you recall after attending your class in *** I achieved the highest scores ever in the 13 years I had been taking the DLPT I was a 3/3 (raw scores were 50/52) after your excellent instruction in December of '03.
After returning to *** I studied a bit, but not as much as I could have. In January of '04 I attended a 4 week class at our JLC. The instruction was good, but not up to the Jabra standard. Despite the one extra week I came out of the class with lower DLPT scores, 2/3 (raw scores were 44/52) My lowest listening score in a very long time.

Since January of '04 I have been extremely busy. My work did not afford me the opportunity to attend a class. I knew that I would not be able focus only on language. In October I started using your book almost exclusively. I read each night (almost). I loaded your audio onto my MP3 player and listened as I folded clothes, did chores, drove to and from work.

On Friday 3 March I took my DLPT, a bit nervous. I felt good about the listening and breezed through the reading, finishing the 65 passages in just under an hour. I've been waiting on pins and needles since then.

Today I received my scores. Without any formal training throughout the year, only your fabulous book to guide me I scored the highest I've ever scored in my 16.5 years as a linguist, 3/3 (raw scores of 56/54, 60 being perfect).

Small Mindedness @ Princeton

This article shows that small minded thinking can exist even at Princeton. For the good of this great country I only hope that Mr. Sheltzer is not a student of International business, Lawyer or, even worse, an International relations student. For one I am glad the PU has such intensive requirements for foreign language studies of all of its students. My personal belief , some of which has been confirmed by studies, is that when you study a foreign language you develop skills, as well as brain cells that you can use throughout your life. Have you ever tried to use your limited German, Arabic, Russian, or whatever to communicate with a native speaker? your listening skills are instantly magnified, your brain is thinking at rates much higher than it does usually. Trying to put those sentences together, using your memory. All of that and more happens also when you are studying a foreign language. Seeking to understand other cultures and being able to read, even gist, newspaper articles and news casts in other languages can provide you with real advantages in the real world. Princeton 'should' continue its language program especially now with the country scrounging for foreign language speakers and spending billions of dollars to produce them.

Helping Future Officers

I totally agree with this article, ROTC is a great place to start preparing if ‎you intend to join the military as an army officer. Not only would it save the military ‎billions of dollars it will also supply them with soldiers who have no need to spend time ‎at DLI or other military language schools.‎

Say No To More Subsidized Academic Language Training

This is the an article you must read. Aside from the politics involved, which I might address later, Mr. Kurtz, expresses very well a very important fact. Our security needs and Arabic language training needs are not going to be addressed through more programs financed by title VI subsidies. Those programs might have had value on university campuses but those same programs have NO or very little value in a military setting. It is time to try new things and more effective methods. It is also time to produce some programs and curriculum that addresses the practical needs of our soldiers. I just hope that the President doesn't give up the fight or yield to political pressures on this one.

Language Program Promises Culture and Linguistic Education

‎The Concordia Language ‎Villages program promises not only to teach you the language in an immersion ‎setting, but also to work on the cultural background of the target language. I believe that ‎there is much need for this kind of approach. I know that this kind of approach would ‎make a huge difference. My main concern though is the time period assigned for such an ‎‎'immersion program'. I don't believe that two weeks would be enough to ideally achieve ‎what is needed. But I have to say here that I have no idea what the curriculum is like, ‎how the material is distributed or how it is weighed. It also depends on the knowledge ‎and level of the students the program accepts. My gut feeling says that two weeks are not ‎enough. From my experience, immersion programs need to be at least 8-10 weeks long to ‎have any impact (moving from one level to the next). Still, the concept is great and I wish ‎CLV the best of luck. If I have time I will try to get more information on the program. ‎You can click here to go to their website and I am adding it to the blogroll as well.‎

University of Oregon Adds Arabic & Korean

New Arabic program announced at the University of Oregon. Looks like they also have a Korean resource.

Language Learning Software

Here is another article about the different tools out there that anybody from a beginner to an advanced student cn use to enhance their language learning process.

Rosetta Stone Review

This is a good review of the Rosetta Stone program. It emphasizes what I wrote about earlier; RS and other programs are great but a curriculum need to be constructed to give balanced instruction that covers all aspects of learning. The reviewer emphasizes that RS doesn't include a very strong grammatical component which I agree with. I use both Pimsleur and Berlitz since I find that they give the learner both the grammatical and the vocabulary components at the same time.

A Great Opportunity

making Arabic a part of a bushiness training program is a great idea. I pray though that the language portion of these programs at least would have some depth to them beyond teaching the basic alphabet soup and a few phrases. This will never accomplish what the military wants. Baylor University has a class that can serve as model for such education. Arabic language training in such a setting should include applications such as business negotiations, legal and business terminology, and extensive readings in business reports, etc. There is lots of opportunity here for an enlightened language trainer and an open-minded faculty.