MSU’s Arabic program expanding across country

An award-winning program teaching Arabic language and culture at Montana State University has received a $431,000 grant to expand to other universities across the country.

MSU’s Office of International Programs received the grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Fund for Improvement of Postsecondary Education.

By MSU News Service

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2004/03/05/news/arabicbzbigs.txt

"We’ve put together an entirely new model for teaching less commonly taught languages," said Norman Peterson, MSU assistant vice provost for international education. "There’s nothing like it in the country. Maybe there’s nothing like it in the world."

MSU telecasts two semesters of Arabic language instruction to three other universities. It plans to use the grant to increase that number by 25.

This fall, 81 students in classes at MSU, the University of Montana, Idaho State University and North Dakota State studied Arabic simultaneously. In the last five years, the program has taught Arabic to 400 students.

The program has won several awards and honors. The National Security Education Program supported the first four years of pilot courses. Two years ago, MSU’s Arabic program won the Institute of International Education’s award for innovative programs.

MSU’s Burns Telecommunications Center provides the broadcast technology that allows students to learn from a first-rate professor of Arabic language and culture in another state. Professor Nabil Abdellfatah teaches from California State University at Hayward.

Abdellfatah teaches students modern standard Arabic through conversation, writing, culture and poetry in the first year.

Students who are native Arabic speakers work as teaching assistants at each campus. This year’s teaching assistant at MSU is Nabil El Ferradi, a graduate student in electrical engineering from Casablanca, Morocco.

El Ferradi is impressed with his students’ progress. American students, known for short attention spans, have risen to the challenge, he said.

"It is a cliche that American students are bad at language," El Ferradi said. "They can write better than people who have been writing Arabic 20 years. It’s all about listening, I think."

Students spend a semester abroad in an Arabic-speaking country. Students who have finished the first year at MSU can study at Al-Akhawayn University in Morocco.

Students take Arabic for different reasons. MSU student Masheeha Khaleel, a senior majoring in cell biology and neuroscience from Billings, has Indian Moslem ethnic roots and wanted to learn more about her heritage.

Students who take the Arabic distance-education course have scored as high or higher on standardized tests than students in traditional classrooms, said Yvonne Rudman, program manager.

MSU can offer the course at less than $10,000 per year per site, which is one-fourth of the cost of a traditional classroom.

"The instructional method allows universities, most of which are strapped for funds," Rudman said, "to offer instruction in less-commonly taught languages."