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

Author:	Rajaa Aquil
Linguistic Field(s):	Applied Linguistics
FYI Body:	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@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@modlangs.gatech.edu