NCLRC Arabic K-12 Bulletin - October 28, 2013 Ahlan ya colleagues, Welcome to the Arabic K-12 Bulletin, a biweekly resource for elementary, middle, and high school Arabic teachers, administrators, and researchers. In this issue, you will find some new resources for your students, and an opportunity for public school Arabic teachers to apply for small Teacher Initiative Grants to fund the purchase of materials, take students on field trips, and more. As always, if you would like to reach us please send a message to arabick12@gmail. Lucy Thiboutot, Editor The Arabic K-12 Teachers Network consists of more than 1,000 educators, administrators, and researchers interested in the Arabic K-12 field in the U.S. It is a free membership provided by the National Capital Language Resource Center’s Arabic K-12 Project. Recent issues of the Bulletin are archived here: bit.ly/10KRZi3 . All members are welcome to submit posts in English or Arabic and may do so by e-mailing their content to arabick12@gmail specifying their content for the listserv. This listserv is focused on elementary, middle, and high school Arabic teaching. Job openings at the university level can be found on the AATA’s website . *** Contents PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITIES NEW RESOURCES FOR YOUR STUDENTS AND CLASSROOM GRANT OPPORTUNITIES AND JOB ANNOUNCEMENTS NADAS WEBSITES: ScreenR BELALS ACTIVITIES: 100-Foot Race MEOC BOOK RECOMMENDATION: A Brief History of Saudi Arabia CURRENT RESEARCH: The Ideal Mentoring Relationship for a New Teacher FOCUS ON LEARNING: High school in Portland becomes first in Maine to offer Arabic language class *** Professional Development Opportunities Workshops and Webinars The ACTFL Arabic SIG is currently conducting a survey to collect more information about Arabic teachers experiences and their role as representatives of Arabic language and culture. It takes no more than 10-15 minutes, it is totally anonymous, and there is no identifying information required. To take the survey, follow the link: https://surveymonkey/s/FNB3WS5 For any further questions, please send an email to: arabicsig@gmail . Primary Source announces a new online course Windows to the Islamic World: Art, Architecture, and Music that will run this fall. This is a 4-week course open to all K-12 educators running from November 6, 2013 – December 10, 2013. Participants in this course will learn about the key features of Islamic art, Arabic calligraphy, Arts of the Book, Islamic architecture, and the music or soundscapes of Islam. More details and registration information can be found at bit.ly/1fS7MBg . The Center for Advanced Study of Language (College Park, MD) is interested in seeking participants for a study on how learners of Arabic understand and decipher cultural allusions in Arabic. Participants who are native speakers of English, at least 18 years old, not native or heritage speakers of Arabic, and have completed at least 3 years of university-level Arabic courses are welcome to apply. Each participant receives $25 cash after right taking the test. Testing will be conducted at a convenient location near the participant. Contact [email protected] for more information. Professional Conferences The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) conference will be held November 22-24, 2013 in Orlando, FL. ACTFL is dedicated to the improvement and expansion of the teaching and learning of all languages at all levels of instruction. Register online by Oct. 30. For more information: bit.ly/12dLiY5 . Call For Proposals and Papers Stay tuned for more calls for proposals and papers in future issues of the Bulletin! *** Resources For Your Students and Classroom Your advanced students may enjoy this new simplified version of Lebanese author Hoda Barakats novel, Sayyidi wa Habibi, which comes with a set of pedgagoical activities and a companion website: bit.ly/16vBpEc Marhaba! Level 2 curriculum guide, by Steven Berbeco Ed D (Cheng & Tsui publishers) will be released on Nov. 1. Marhaba! Level 2 is designed for second-year Arabic language students in high school or middle school. Marhaba! is not a traditional textbook, but a toolkit of teachers materials. The curriculum is centered around the daftar, or notebook, that students fill with content and use to track their own progress in the language. For more information: bit.ly/18K3yKL Al-Jazeera news is currently developing a special news site for Arabic language learners. Although some of the features are still in progress, it may be worth keeping an eye on as a resource for your classes: learning.aljazeera.net/arabic The Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) Abroad Program offers scholarships to American high school students to spend the 2014-15 academic year in countries that may include Bosnia & Herzegovina, Egypt, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali (semester), Morocco, Oman, South Africa, Thailand, Tunisia, and Turkey. This post 9/11 program focuses on increasing understanding between people in the U.S. and countries with significant Muslim populations. For more information: yes-abroad.org The National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) offers merit-based scholarships to U. S. high-school aged students for overseas study of seven critical foreign languages: Arabic, Chinese (Mandarin), Hindi, Korean, Persian (Tajiki), Russian and Turkish. The NSLI-Y program is designed to immerse participants in the cultural life of the host country, giving them invaluable formal and informal language practice and sparking a lifetime interest in foreign languages and cultures. Applications for summer 2014 and academic year 2014-2015 programs are due November 5, 2013. For more information: nsliforyouth.org The National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC), in cooperation with Qatar Foundation International and Brigham Young University Independent Study, is offering a hybrid online course for high school students. The high school implementation of Arabic Without Walls, winner of the 2010 Distance Education Course Award, covers the basics of both spoken and written Arabic and enables students to acquire real-world communication skills. This process starts with students attending a one-day course in their region and continues as they work online with a tutor and a cohort of students who form a tight-knit learning community. Students who have done so have gone on to win NSLI-Youth Scholarships to study in the Arab world. For more information on registration, cost and credit please visit: bit.ly/1bfmfcG . The Institute for Middle East Studies (IMES) Title VI Outreach Program at The George Washington University (Washington, DC) maintains a film and book library and Skype-a-Scholar program that is free and available to area educators. You can view a list of all of the library resources and find out more about the films using our new Film Guide which contains synopses of the films and classroom usage ideas for educators. The Skype-A-Scholar program brings university experts to your classroom through Skype, to converse with students for an in-depth, innovative learning experience. Contact [email protected] for more information on these programs. Wikispaces (bit.ly/1fbMfTM) offers free wikis for K-12 teachers. Wikis are simple group websites that are easy for anyone to edit. They are great for classrooms, work groups, clubs, and more. Wikis can be public or private, have no advertising on them, provide unlimited usage, and are completely free. Created by Bill Zimmerman, Make Beliefs Comix (bit.ly/1dfZYgu) is a free site that allows users of all ages to create educational comic strips. Visitors can choose their characters, their characters emotions, and add talk or thought balloons. The site is great for language learners and creative types. American Councils for International Education coordinates the U.S. Department of States FLEX, YES, and A-SMYLE programs, where students from the Middle East and other areas of the world have competed against their peers and earned a scholarship to come to the U.S. for a full academic year. The students live with an American host family, attend school and become a part of the family. Anyone interested in hosting an exchange student for a period of two months to a full academic year, and the ability to provide a safe, supportive, English-speaking environment is welcome to contact the programs for more information. For more information: inbound.americancouncils.org . The Peace Corps offers the World Wise Schools website, with cross-cultural learning resources including lesson plans, videos, publications, an online game, and more. Take advantage of these free resources to develop your students’ global competencies and prepare them to be engaged, 21st century global citizens. Connecting With Teachers Connect with hundreds of Arabic teachers in America and from around the world on the Teachers of Arabic Language K-12 (TALK12) page on Facebook. Teachers can chat, swap ideas, and give each other advice: talk12.org . *** Grant Opportunities and Job Announcements Grant Opportunities Qatar Foundation International has announced Teacher Initiative Grants (maximum award: $1,000) to enhance Arabic programs and promote excellence in the classroom. Arabic teachers working in U.S. public or public charter schools may apply for funding to purchase books and materials; host cultural events or workshops; take students on field trips; or attend professional development conferences. Applications are due on the first of each month for awards to be announced by the end of that month, from Nov. 1 until April 1. To receive the complete Request for Proposal, please contact Kelly Doffing at [email protected] Hope Street Group now has the application for its 2014 National Teacher Fellowship. The Teacher Fellowship provides a platform to discuss ideas around and solutions for elevating the teaching profession, and provides opportunities to meet leading policymakers to present those solutions. In addition to their full-time teaching positions, Hope Street Group Teacher Fellows serve as paid, part-time Hope Street Group staff. They will receive a $5,000 stipend for a twelve-month fellowship period and will work approximately 20 hours a month. Fellows will also be given several opportunities to travel throughout the year. Applications are due by October 31, 2013. To apply: bit.ly/1hCBydY For more information, contact Wendy Uptain at [email protected] The National Foreign Language Center solicits proposals from schools, post-secondary institutions, school districts, state and regional educational agencies, language associations, and community-based organizations to participate in the STARTALK project. STARTALKs mission is to promote the learning and teaching of critical languages in the United States through summer programs that follow best practices in language instruction. To learn more and create a new proposal, visit STARTALKs proposal page: bit.ly/15rzc1u Job Openings The University of Oklahoma is seeking an Arabic Flagship Coordinator for their program. In order to view a complete listing of the position, please go to jobs.ou.edu and search for the requisition number: 18169. Orange Crescent School, a private, non-profit, Islamic School in Garden Grove, CA, is seeking a highly qualified K-8 Arabic Language teacher to teach for the 2013-14 school year. Teaching credential and successful teaching experience preferred. Respond to hr@orangecrescent The Tucson Unified School District is seeking a K-8 Arabic teacher for Safford School in Tucson, Arizona. Arizona Elementary Teaching Certificate required. To learn more information and apply, follow the link: bit.ly/1941IHl . Amana Academy Charter School (Alpharetta, GA) is searching for a curriculum designer to map the Arabic curriculum from K to 5th grade. For more information, contact Eman Maamoun . *** Nadas Websites Nada Shaath (Bell High School, CA) suggests: ScreenR (screenr/) A Web-based screen recorder that makes it a breeze to create and share your screen casts around the web by recording videos or screen shots that are not downloadable. Do you have a favorite website to share? Send us a link and a short description, and dont forget to include the name and location of your school! *** Belals Activities Belal Joundeya (Renaissance Academy, UT) suggests: 100-Foot Race Students are divided into teams and they line up between 3 or 4 boxes which are labeled with various categories. Students are given different colored flashcards that fall into these categories. The student at the front of each team line takes the first flashcard and runs up and puts their flashcard into the correct box. The first team to sort all of their cards wins. Afterwards the teacher can verbally check the boxes for accuracy. *** MEOC Book Recommendation a-brief-history-of-SA The Middle East Outreach Council (meoc.us) recommends the youth non-fiction book A Brief History of Saudi Arabia by James Wynbrandt. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has experienced changes that have both altered the internal structure of the country and affected its foreign relations, and many works continue to propagate stereotypes about what the Kingdom was, while paying little attention to recent developments. This title is written in a clear, concise style that is approachable to the younger reader (but informative enough for older readers as well), and manages to steer an even course through a subject that is often treated with skepticism or defensiveness. *** Current Research The Ideal Mentoring Relationship for a New Teacher By Kim Marshall | Marshall Memo #507, October 21, 2013, marshallmemo Besides kindergarten students and their parents, no one is more anxious on the first day of school than a new teacher,” say Donald Beaudette and Elizabeth Nolan in this article in Educational Horizons. Finding the right mentor is critically important, they believe – a colleague who has three or more years of successful classroom experience, is willing to commit to weekly meetings for up to three years, knows the resources available in the school and district, has coaching skills, and is positive, patient, and accepting. Ideally, the mentor teaches the same subject or grade level, shares instructional interests, and teaches in a nearby classroom. Here are some key functions a mentor can serve: - Welcoming the new teacher into the profession and taking a personal interest in his or her well-being, pointing the way to classroom and career possibilities; - Offering sympathy and support while challenging the newbie to reach for higher levels of performance; - Sharing ideas, perspectives, standards, values, and norms; - Helping with lesson and unit planning, materials, and district requirements; - Pointing the way for good classroom management; - Recognizing when the new teacher needs space. “Asking for Help: The Key to Career Success” by Donald Beaudette and Elizabeth Nolan in Educational Horizons, October/November 2013 (Vol. 92, p. 12-15), edhorizons.org *** Focus on Learning High school in Portland becomes first in Maine to offer Arabic language class By Seth Koenig | bangordailynews, October 1, 2013 Source: bit.ly/1dgHSKP PORTLAND, Maine — With a new course launched this fall, Portland’s Deering High School became the first public school in Maine to have an Arabic language class, the city school department announced this week. The new class joins a University of Southern Maine Mandarin Chinese course hosted at Deering in the school’s suite of world language offerings. Both are open to qualifying high school students. The Arabic class is taught by Abdullahi Ahmed, a Deering science teacher from Somalia whose schooling through college was done in the language. About 290 million people worldwide are native Arabic speakers, including majorities in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Syria. Arabic is also one of about 60 languages spoken by students of Portland Public Schools in their homes, with just less than 5 percent of the district’s 7,000 students calling Arabic their home language. That’s more than the number who speak French — 1.73 percent — or Spanish — with 2.95 percent. “One student in the class, who previously lived in Iraq and Egypt, can read, write and speak Arabic fluently,” reads a school announcement of the class, in part. “Several others have varying abilities in the language and two are rank beginners. That’s a challenge, especially given that students must master a new alphabet and learn to read in the opposite direction than English — right to left, rather than vice versa. “Ahmed has students use their iPads to practice writing a few new words every day,” the announcement continues. “He tailors assignments to their language abilities. On one recent day, beginning students practiced reading and saying numbers from one to 20, while others worked on inserting verb tenses into sentences. Ahmed plans to teach students about Arabic cultures as well as the modern Arabic language.”
Posted on: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 03:30:36 +0000
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