Tech Gadgets Aid Language Teaching

‎I love this article because it describes exactly the way I believe ‎language should be taught, or at least how to use some of the high tech gadgets out there ‎in language teaching. Eventhough I believe that the computer lab in a school environment ‎is great, I also believe that students should be able to carry their language learning tools ‎with them wherever they go. I have an HP iPaq on which I added a 1 GB SD memory ‎card. On the card I keep my audio lessons (Berlitz, Pimsleur etc.) I also keep my ‎vocabulary lists and some other stuff. I use Wikipedia to access Farsi articles and read blogs ‎to sharpen my knowledge of spoken Farsi and how it is expressed (much better and richer ‎than formal news sources). I also use a Walkman for some audio tapes that haven't been ‎digitized yet.‎
I talked about the Rosetta Stone program the other day and I love it but I don't think they ‎have it in MP3 format. Pimsleur on the other hand have converted their lessons to MP3 ‎format and they sell it along with an MP3 player. As I said before, I love both, but I ‎prefer the mobility of the MP3 format.‎

How To Find An Arabic Program That Meets Your Needs

‎New Arabic Programs seem to be ‎everywhere. Universities hungry for federal funding or those that want to capitalize on ‎the interest. So how do you know what to choose? I would investigate first of all the ‎infrastructure provided by the university and how long this infrastructure has been there. ‎By that I mean: Is there a language lab? Does the program seem innovative enough? or in ‎other words what is unique about the program? does it offer more immersion, unique ‎curriculum, seasoned professors or all the above? I would look at the syllabus and try to ‎find the value proposition. There are many Arabic programs out there but extremely few ‎have any declared value propositions (or in other words the thing that makes them unique ‎and useful for the student). I they have a unique method or idea then by all means sign up ‎otherwise don't waste your time and keep looking. ‎

Chu Interview

Media Roundtable with Dr. David Chu, Under Secretary of Defense (Personnel and Readiness)
Interesting interview...

Learning Arabic Abroad

Learning Arabic abroad is a good idea if you have lots of money and you know your way around. I happen to be from Jordan and I have known many people who went through the UOJ Arabic program and who told me later that they didn't get much out of it. But being in Jordan they ended up hiring private tutors (less than 7 dollars an hour) and built their own immersion course. Those courses abroad, according to the experience of many, still leave much to be desired despite their benefit of letting the student understand the culture better. It all depends on needs and what results are desired.

I like the Rosetta Stone But...

Army offers foreign language training - Minnesota Daily

Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, Berlitz and anything you can get your hands on in the initial stages of learning is great. I love all of it. I have been working on my Farsi and Dari for the past year and a half and I have used the Farsi curriculum from all the above and the results were amazing. But I am a linguist and a language teacher. I know how to motivate and guide myself and how to avoid the trappings of frustration when you're stuck. Online learning is a great idea but giving our soldiers and language learners in the armed forces the Rosetta Stone without any further instruction or interaction is not sufficient and will not produce the desired results. RS needs to be supplemented with classroom instruction and the human touch. Maybe the military is doing this already, I don't know because I don't have access. But what I know is that commercial grade language materials should be supplemented by things like online conferencing, Podcasting and voice enabled instant messaging. If you have some good feedback on the subject I would love to hear from you.

National Security language Initiative

I still haven't had time to look at the text of the initiative, but for those of you who have the time to look here is this link and this link to the fact sheet.
I also found a good discussion of the initiative on this link. The writer has a unique idea but I am not sure he is familiar with the needs of the military and other agencies as far as languages are concerned. The military language student is a unique individual with extremely unique needs. Following a strict academic and scholastic approach to language teaching and learning with military and security students DOES NOT work. Following the strict academic and scholastic approach is slowing down the production of capable military intelligence students. I have proven that point several times. Most recently I did a 53 weeks project for the US Navy where we managed to get the students to graduate in 46 weeks (down from 72 currently at other institutions). I hae developed my methods now to where it can be done in 36 weeks. I also managed to raise the scores of a refresher class by one full point into the 2+ and 3 territory in 15 days. I will not go into the technical details of that but it is sufficient for me to say that things like that are doable by NOT following the academic approach.
The language trainer that is needed for projects like that is a unique breed and I doubt that they are bred in the Middle East either. For language instructors to produce results they must be familiar with a wide range of fields and skills including psychology, motivation, communications, computer science, curriculum planning and development, knowledge of the Internet and technologies that can be used in the class room and above all fluent, level 5, knowledge (and cultural awarenes) of the English language and English-speaking people so that they can communicate freely with their students. My advice is to spend some of that money the President is authorizing on developing such teachers and teacher-training networks. The worst thing that can happen is for the money to end up in the hands of teachers' unions who still cannot produce kids who can read English from our public schools.

GREAT NEWS!

LINGUISTIC NEED: A step in the right direction. "Lost amid the debate over English as America's 'official language' is the fact that foreign language study in U.S. schools and universities has been on the decline.
Not only has a serious shortage of linguists resulted, but some experts contend it poses national security issues in the wake of 9/11.
The Bush administration is seeking $114 million to boost foreign language study in fiscal 2007. Although this isn't a lot of money by federal standards, it is a step in the right direction, one that also should include granting more visas for foreign students to attend American schools.

Different countries of the world, particularly those that don't agree on very much, need to learn more about what makes each other tick. Language skills and rubbing shoulders with one another can only improve the channels of communication."

Arabic Program At University of Jordan

Not a bad program and it seems that many people like it. I have friends go through it and never heard any complaints but I remember not being very impressed with the curriculum.

School Officials Propose Adding Arabic and Chinese - News - Arlington Connection - Connection Newspapers

School Officials Propose Adding Arabic and Chinese - News - Arlington Connection - Connection Newspapers: Not a bad idea. The challenge will be having proper curriculums and enough trained instructors. "This fall Arlington middle school and high school students will be able to enroll in Arabic and Mandarin Chinese courses, and earn college credits, if the School Board approves a proposal it is set to vote on next week.
The school staff is recommending the two languages be taught in a countywide after-school program, to be held at a Northern Virginia Community College facility in Arlington and conducted by the college’s professors. "

Unfortunate

WTOP: U.S. suspending publication of Arabic language magazine
This is a really unfortunate piece of news. I think the content of the magazine as well as the name 'Hi' should be changed. Hi is a word used by people who are considered the aristocracy and is looked down on by the people we really need to be changing. Give the magazine a stronger name, give it more daring and thought provoking content and you got a winner.

Perfect Pairs

Is English the world’s oyster?: The following quote is interesting. While the need is great now for the Arabic/English pair due to the war on terror, I totally believe that knowledge of a third language always increases your value and effectiveness. I can see the need for the Arabic/Chinese or Arabic/Farsi skill or even Arabic/Russian. As the world grows and commercial ties increase knowledge of two or three languages will be your greatest asset. Here is the quote or you can click above to go to the full article which is very interesting.
"Huang You Yi, vice-president of the Chinese Translators Association, stressed that the greatest need was not for more English-speaking, but for more Spanish-proficient Chinese, due to the rapidly expanding trade ties with South America. For the same reason, he added, Arabic language skill would soon become equally important. The national television organisation CCTV has recently complemented its established English-speaking channel with a new one operating in French and Spanish. In 2004 German joined English, Japanese and Korean as a specialisation at the huge college where I taught. French, in particular, is likely to gain a strong following since France and China have just shared a Year of Cultural Friendship and signed an extensive economic and trade agreement."

Military Triples Its Spending on Arabic Language Acquisition

ReutersU.S.

military seeks linguists to fight terrorism
Fri April 8, 2005 2:05 AM GMT+05:30
By Caroline Drees, Security Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military needs a new corps of linguists for the war on terrorism who can catch hidden meanings in a mix of dialects, even over a crackling cell phone line, a senior Pentagon official said on Thursday.

The "Defense Language Transformation Roadmap" announced last week is seeking to forge such language skills as well as greater regional knowledge, along with more basic language abilities among a broader section of the military, said David Chu, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness.

"The secretary (of defense Donald Rumsfeld) for some time has been concerned that the department's linguistic capacity is not what it used to be," said Chu, referring to the Cold War when the military felt it had the skills it needed.

Chu told a small group of reporters at the Pentagon that during the Cold War, the military generally needed to be able to translate or understand fairly straightforward "order-of-battle information," such as military documents or commands spoken in standard dialects.

"What we recognize in the war on terror ... is (that) at least for some of our linguists, that's not good enough," he said. "If you're dealing with people speaking on cell phones, who are deliberately camouflaging what they have to say ... boy, you've got to be at a different (skill) level."

"It's not just straightforward 'where is the power station' kind of stuff," he added.

The Pentagon, CIA and other agencies have often bemoaned a shortage of linguists in Arabic and other "exotic languages" and said there was a backlog of material obtained by satellites, bugging and spies that needed translation.

Memories are still fresh of two messages intercepted from suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network on Sept. 10, 2001, that said, "Tomorrow is zero hour," and "The match begins tomorrow." They were translated on Sept. 11 and only given to policy-makers on Sept. 12.

ARABIC SPEAKERS WANTED

The Cold War focus on Russian and other Eastern European languages has given way to a need for speakers of Arabic, Persian, Pashto and other languages spoken in countries linked to the war on terrorism. Chinese and Korean are also gaining prominence.

As part of its efforts to beef up language skills, the Pentagon increased the budget of its language school by about $50 million in fiscal 2005 to $153 million. The 2006 budget requests an additional $45 million, with a further increase of $330 million projected from 2007 to 2010.

The military is also planning to offer incentive pay of up to $12,000 a year for language skills, link those skills to promotion and make them a requirement for officers, Chu said.

Announcing the major shift in its language training and recruitment policy last Thursday, the military said languages were now being considered as important as weapons systems.

The military is seeking to recruit staff from immigrant communities within the United States that speak the needed languages, while hiring and training non-native speakers to reach greater proficiency.

Chu said an Army program had already recruited about 200 people from Arabic, Pashto and Dari-speaking communities in the United States over the past two years, adding that 50 of the recruits were already deployed in the field.

Arabic language is in demand

By G. Jeffrey MacDonald, Special for USA TODAY

Purdue University sophomore Brent Forgues is chasing an academic dream that was a rarity on this West Lafayette, Ind., campus just four years ago: He's determined to be a strong speaker of Arabic.

Foreseeing a career in journalism, Forgues, 20, hopes expertise in what he calls an "obscure" language will boost his marketability in a competitive industry.

To get there, he's mastering a new alphabet and lots of unfamiliar sounds alongside similarly ambitious students, from South Asian Muslims to Indiana natives in ROTC who often come to class in fatigues. To meet the demand, Purdue's program has ballooned from just two courses to 12 since fall 2003.

"As long as Purdue keeps adding Arabic classes, I'll keep taking them," Forgues says. "Everybody who's in this (Arabic 102) class now has an exact purpose in why they're taking it and how it will apply to their careers."

Across the USA, a surge of student curiosity about Arabic after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is maturing into a demand for more courses, especially upper-level classes as novices resolve to master the language. A full 73% of 640 Arabic-language students surveyed at 37 institutions in 2004 said they were "determined to achieve a level of proficiency in Arabic that would allow me to function in it comfortably in my professional activities," according to the National Middle East Language Resource Center at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.

Only a minority of students reach proficiency. One in four first-year students in the best programs eventually reach the third-year level, says center director R. Kirk Belnap. In weaker programs, he says, the dropout rate is even higher.

To meet the demand, schools that already offer Arabic are expanding old programs, creating new ones and scrambling, sometimes in vain, to find qualified teachers. Purdue relies on six grad students to teach its courses. Vermont's Middlebury College recruits from Syria and Egypt to staff its summer language program. Yet even with extra efforts, various constraints are making it a challenge for schools to keep up.

"More students have begun to realize they have to study it for a number of years to be really proficient," says William Mayers, coordinator of the Arabic Language School at Middlebury College's Sunderland Language Center.

"We get enough good applicants from the really high-caliber schools — and these are straight-A students — and a lot of them we're turning down because of limited space."

The numbers help show how interest in Arabic keeps growing. Enrollment in Arabic courses nationwide jumped from 5,500 to 10,600, a 92% increase, from 1998 to 2002, according to the most recent data from the Modern Language Association. Only American Sign Language boosted enrollments by a larger percentage in that time period. Since 2002, enrollments have climbed again by an estimated 15% to 25%, the Middle East language center says.

To keep pace, some institutions are beefing up what they offer on an advanced level. The Center for Advanced Proficiency in Arabic, the nation's first intensive program offered for a full academic year, opens this fall at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Middlebury College is expanding its summer program by about 10% this year and is planning to start offering third-year Arabic during the academic year as soon as this fall.

Yet with fewer than 10% of U.S. colleges offering any Arabic courses, some fear that higher-learning institutions on the whole aren't doing enough to adjust.

"Demand is there, but they're not offering (courses) because of budgetary constraints or whatever," Belnap says. "These are very curious things in a time when your country is clamoring for more foreign-language expertise."

Though many people study Arabic to enhance careers in business or government, a good 20% are "heritage speakers" with a purely cultural or personal interest, says Mahmoud al-Batal, director of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad and an Arabic professor at Emory University in Atlanta.

As Muslim-Americans who pray and read their holy scriptures in Arabic, Batal says, they sometimes bring a sense of purpose that goes beyond any economic quest.

"They see themselves as a bridge to connect people and cultures of the Arab world with the American public," Batal says. "And they see the language piece as critical to achieve this goal."

Finally, My First Book Is Done!

This book might as well be my baby! Nine full months of non-stop work, design, and a very hard labor. I realized last year while working for the Department of Defense that our military students of Arabic lack a real resource they can use to prepare for their Defense Language Proficiency Test (DLPT). Something that they can use when they have no access to the Internet or when they don't want to travel far for a refresher course or even when they don't have the resources to prepare for a refresher course. Many of our National Guard don't even have abundant resources to prepare for the test other than the six hours a month that their local unit provides, which is by no means sufficient to prepare. ACE The DLPT, Arabic Edition was created to fill that void. It is a book and a companion CD you can take with you wherever you go and use to conveniently prepare for the test. You can purchase the book at Global Language System's website and use this companion blog as a resource while you prepare for the test. On this blog I will have news relating to the Arabic Language, links to websites that I suggest students use while preparing for the test or working on their Arabic plus a multitude of other thing related to the language. I hope that you will enjoy the experience!