Category: Events

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The North Carolina Arabic Teacher Council is pleased to host a conference for Arabic language educators this fall: FIKRA: IDEA — Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility in Arabic Language and Cultures. Held Oct. 22-23, 2022, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, this gathering will convene K-16 Arabic educators from diverse institutions to explore and expand the ways in which we teach Arabic language and cultures. Featuring grade level-specific sessions as well as keynote presentations, the conference will generate discussion and action steps to more closely align our classrooms and teaching content with IDEA principles for the future. 

The conference will highlight such topics as multilingualism and translanguaging, linguistic inclusion in the language classroom, navigating Arabic as a historically gendered language, the exploration of less commonly taught Arabic dialects from the SWANA region, Arabic speakers in diaspora, and how to engage students in relevant, social justice issues from the region. Attendees will discuss methods, curricula and pedagogy with colleagues to critically evaluate if our current efforts truly represent IDEA.

Marhaban bikom (Welcome to all!)

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The NCATC is pleased to welcome Lena Krause to lead a workshop on using Playaling in your classroom. She will not only discuss the relevance of culturally authentic and level appropriate digital resources, but will also lead teachers through envisioning how they might easily and effectively employ Playaling in their classrooms!

 

The beauty of Playaling.com is its simplicity: imagine a glorified Arabic YouTube with clickable subtitles. But how to use it in the classroom? This 90-minute interactive virtual workshop will demonstrate several ways to use the Arabic learning website and guide educators in deciding how it can fit into their curriculum. Some of the activities will include identifying objectives, analyzing text genres, and developing listening strategies. Through Playaling, we will also explore questions such as how to expose students to the dialect spectrum and what constitutes an authentic resource. Come with your headphones and mics on for a collaborative discussion on using digital resources in the Arabic classroom!

 

*Note: Workshop will be conducted primarily in Arabic.

 

Lena Krause teaches Arabic and French at Beacon Academy, a Montessori high school in Evanston, IL. She founded the Arabic program in 2019 which now includes levels 1-4 and also offers the International Baccalaureate. In her classroom, she experiments with an integrated curriculum that includes both Fusha and elements of Moroccan Darija. The curriculum also includes an annual exchange with Moroccan high school students at the American Language Center in Tangier.

 

Outside of school, Lena was the first Darija translator for Playaling.com which is central to tonight’s talk. Last summer, she also began developing an online Darija curriculum called “derrej m3aya” and tested it with a small cohort of foreigners living in Morocco. In June, she will be returning to Morocco as Resident Director with the Critical Language Scholarship in Meknes.

 

Wednesday, April 27 at 5:30 – 7:00 p.m. EST

Register: https://go.unc.edu/NCATC

 

Hosted by the NCATC and co-sponsored by the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies

 

Come Together: The Future of Arabic Language in North Carolina
هيا بنا نجتمع: مستقبل تعليم اللغة العربية في نورث كارولينا

November 13-14, 2021
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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The Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies is pleased to host a conference for Arabic language educators this fall: Come Together: The Future of Arabic Language in NC. This conference, held November 13-14, 2021, at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will gather educators, administrators, and other representatives from K-16 institutions all working to expand Arabic as a world language offering. Featuring grade level-specific sessions as well as keynote presentations, the conference will connect Arabic language educators across the state and address how lessons learned from the past year of pandemic virtual learning can positively translate to the classroom moving forward.

The purpose of this conference is two-fold: First, the conference aims to provide quality professional development to serve the needs of Arabic educators across K-16 levels as we navigate the similarities and differences between online and in-person learning. Attendees will discuss methods, curricula and pedagogy with colleagues.

Second, this conference aims to generate connection and community among Arabic language teachers in North Carolina by serving as the inaugural event of the newly-forming North Carolina Arabic Teacher Council (NCATC). Membership and structure of the NCATC will be discussed at the conference. The NCATC will coordinate annual professional development to serve the needs of underrepresented Arabic teachers.

Marhaban bikom (Welcome to all!)

MORE INFORMATION & PROGRAM.
REGISTER.