Arabic-L:PEDA:Report on experimental study abroad: Arabic and geology

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Mon 30 Jun 2008
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1) Subject:Report on experimental study abroad: Arabic and geology

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1)
Date: 30 Jun 2008
From:Mustafa Mughazy <mustafa.mughazy at wmich.edu>
Subject:Report on experimental study abroad: Arabic and geology

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to report to you on a study abroad program that I led to  
Egypt this summer. This program was different from anything I have  
done or seen before. I would really appreciate your feedback.

This was an intensive Colloquial Egyptian Arabic program (64 hours of  
instruction in four weeks). Of course the colloquial-first students  
reached a solid ILR level 2+ by the end of the fourth week. You could  
actually have an involved conversation with them in clear Arabic. Do  
not worry. They finished Al-kitaab 1 before leaving for Egypt and they  
will spend the next year working on MSA to catch up with their peers  
in other universities. The program was hosted by TEFL International in  
Alexandria, Egypt (highly recommended).
http://www.teflintl.com/egypt_alexandria.htm

The main mission of the host institute is to certify teachers of  
English as a foreign language, mostly American and European recent  
graduates who want to get certified to teach English in the Gulf or  
East Asia. That guaranteed the quality of instruction, since the  
instructors were well versed in both Arabic (MSA and EA) and up to  
date teaching approaches/techniques. The shift to instructors with  
TESOL background was very effective. It also gave students new ideas  
about what to do after graduation.

The innovative part was the culture/geology component. The program  
also included a three credit hour Gen-Ed course on the Arab World. I  
team-taught this class with a colleague from the Geosciences  
Department, whose specialty is the geology of the Middle East. In  
addition to regular classroom instruction, every excursion included  
lectures on the land and its people. For example, the trip to the High  
Dam in Aswan included a lecture by my colleague on the geological  
history of the region, the rock formation of the river basin, and the  
process of building the dam. I talked about the socio-political  
history of the dam and how it affected the Egyptian nationalist/ 
socialist identity. We even discussed the propaganda machine at the  
time and why Abdel Halim Hafiz was an engineer in many of his movies.  
That was followed by a discussion of how the dam affected the  
development of the middle class and the current economy. Having these  
lectures after reading Whatever Happened to the Egypti ans by Galal  
Amin (translated by David wilmsen) had the effect of magic; it all  
came together.

I was thrilled to see students collecting rocks everywhere the same  
way they were collecting idioms and slang expressions. Everything  
involved rocks and words, and making the links between rocks/words and  
family relations, wedding ceremonies, burial rituals, or diet was  
always interesting.

We are now working on another Colloquial Arabic study abroad program  
for next year. This will be designed for geology students who want to  
work in the oil industry after they graduate. The program will have a  
home base in Alexandria, but all the instruction will be on the road.  
The faculty leaders and the language instructors will join the  
students on a tour of the major geological areas in Egypt while  
learning Arabic.

What do you think?

Mustafa Mughazy
Associate Professor of Arabic
Western Michigan University


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