22.4050, FYI: GT Web-based Arabic Language, Culture and History

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LINGUIST List: Vol-22-4050. Mon Oct 17 2011. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 22.4050, FYI: GT Web-based Arabic Language, Culture and History

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1)
Date: 14-Oct-2011
From: Rajaa Aquil [raquil at gatech.edu]
Subject: GT Web-based Arabic Language, Culture and History


-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:05:29
From: Rajaa Aquil [raquil at gatech.edu]
Subject: GT Web-based Arabic Language, Culture and History

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=22-4050.html&submissionid=4534263&topicid=6&msgnumber=1
 
Dear colleagues and friends,

I would like to introduce to our community the Georgia Tech Critical 
Languages Song Project.  Under the auspices of a US Department of 
Education International Research and Studies grant we are developing 
semester-long web-based courses in advanced Arabic, Mandarin 
Chinese, Japanese and Russian culture and language through song. 
Our website is clsp.gatech.edu. I am Co-IP of the program and 
designer of the Arabic materials.  I write today because we are seeking 
programs and instructors at other universities who would be interested 
in piloting our materials, ideally during this coming spring semester.

>From here on, I will refer specifically to the Arabic course.  This is a 
fourth-year culture course with a serious intellectual component to be 
taught in Arabic. It is based around a corpus of 20 songs ranging from 
religious, romantic, patriotic and popular songs as early as the advent 
of Islam period to the modern times represented by Jan 25 revolution in 
Egypt.

The songs are mainly of Egyptian dialect and Modern Standard Arabic. 
The course is divided into 15 units that are intended to conform to a 
university semester.  

The songs form compact platforms from which we branch out to 
explore in depth facets of Arabic culture and history. Each unit 
progresses through an introduction, listening exercises, text-notes-
context, questions for understanding, topics for discussion and writing 
and suggestions for further listening. 

One of the key challenges that these materials are intended to meet is 
the great diversity of proficiency levels in the fourth-year classroom 
from students who have spent an entire year abroad studying in their 
discipline at a university in the Arab world to heritage speakers to 
students who have the minimum on-campus preparation. Computer-
based delivery of a rich web of content/context surrounding the 
carefully annotated main corpus of songs allows for engagement by 
less proficient students and guided exploration of cultural context on 
the part of more proficient readers-listeners who have spent significant 
time abroad. All can then come together in a single meaningful 
conversation in class.

If you might be interested in participating in the pilot and would like to 
review materials, please contact me off-list at raquil at gatech.edu.

With best regards,
Rajaa Aquil

-- 
Rajaa Aquil, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Arabic, &
Director of Arabic LBAT
School of Modern Languages
Georgia Institute of Technology
613 Cherry Street
Swann Building #317
Atlanta, GA 30332
Phone: 4043857252
Fax: 4048940955
Email: rajaa.aquil at modlangs.gatech.edu 



Linguistic Field(s): Applied Linguistics





 





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