A Culture of Middle East

The student government played the video of our Palestine trip to the whole student body during an assembly today. I'm not sure exactly how everyone took it. My goal isn't for every student to take Arabic or to change anyone's mind. I hope that Provo High can become a resource for understanding at a public school level.

I'm excited about the way we're working with the school and building a solid reputation. Here's what we've built so far.

The Arabic program here is IB (International Baccalaureate) which, like AP (Advanced Placement) demands a high level of performance and quality from students.

Kirk Belnap and Maggie Nassif at the National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC) oversees our efforts and provides support and further teacher development.

I presented our Arabic program's involvement in the Palestine Exchange to the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Alina L. Romanowski over the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in Washington DC.

We work with and incoporate students from the national StarTalk summer program which trains high school-aged students in Arabic.

We are highly engaged in building connections with the Middle East. We work with Relief International: Schools Online to speak to Palestinian youth in Arabic. They sponsored students to travel to the region to meet the Palestinian youth. We also wrote letters to youth in Baghdad and corresponded briefly with a student living in Damascus.

We are highly engaged in our own community outreach. We have attended Utah Governor Huntsman's signing of the bill to fund critical languages. We have reached out to congressmen and women to support critical languages such as Arabic. We have reached out to local and state press and been featured in several articles. We have created an amateur documentary and a video essay of our experiences with the Middle East and Arabic specifically and shared them with a wide number of people including at today's assembly. We have distributed Arabic hoodies.

My most recent endeavor is to build up our Provo High library with quality resources in media, maps, and books to give the entire school a more unprejudiced view of peoples in the Middle East. The books should be arriving next week. I am very excited.

And yes, there are other things in the works but I am discovering that I can only reveal my successes after they have occurred.

Sentences we heard

Check out these sentences we heard on our trip then watch a video.


"Jet lag is when your feet hurt, right?" KO

"I do not fall asleep on moving objects." AE (5 minutes later he's fast asleep on the airplane)

"It's dark, let's go." YFK

"I don't like musical instruments anymore. I play them, I just don't like them." AE

"You missed out on Iron Man." AE to Beno because he had been in the Middle East for a year.

"I'm sorry I don't say anything funny." AF

"Finally someone who speaks Illuga Adam." JP

"I feel like the president." AE (his response to being driven around in bullet proof vans by Consulate guards into the West Bank)

"Everyone's good for something." NS

"It means whatever that means." AB (trying to explain an Arabic word)

"I've nothing in my head." JP

"The stinkier the better." YFK

"Let's eat your empty head." AB (who know where this came from)

"Meeting Canadians in England is different, they drink different water." AB

"I am talking about....what?" NS

"Are you seeing the glass half full or half empty?" JP AE's response, "I'm seeing the glass half and half."

"Dude! It's Evanescence. That's so cool." AF "I didn't expect Evanescence in the Middle East."

"I don't like birds. They should be flying." YFK

"If we don't hurry up, we're not going to make it to the Garden of Gethsemane." Sis Seely

"That's a frog!" KS

"He invites himself by himself." NS about Omar

"Uskut! You know what that means? SHUT UP!" JP

"No one can take me seriously in pink socks." AE (referring to how his clothes came back from the hotel laundry.)

"We look like those people who are on pictures for NGO's...oh wait...we are." AB

"I am not after the cute look." AE (still about his pink socks)

"We're girls, we're unmarried. It's ok." AF

"You have an equal chance of getting blown up as you do getting hit by a car!" Consulate intern guy

"I want something cold. I'm going to the yummy corner." KO

"How do you say check point in Arabic?" AF ..."Annoying." AE

"I can talk to my family but I can't talk to my tennis racket!" JP (speaking of things he misses from home)


"

West Bank Exchange

We went to the Middle East

more about "West Bank Exchange", posted with vodpod

Ramadan Dinner

We went to a Ramadan dinner at Rennaisance Academy yesterday to break the fast at sunset.

West Bank Trip in the News

Tuesday, 26 August 2008

Students return from West Bank trip

Janice Peterson - DAILY HERALD

Provo High School participates in Arabic study abroad program Four Provo High School students are returning to school this year with a unique perspective of the Arabic language they have been learning. The four students and their Arabic teacher recently returned from a three-week trip to the West Bank, sponsored by Relief International. The group has previously brought Palestinian teens to the United States, but the experience was a rare opportunity for the Provo High students. "This is the first time that they've actually brought American students over," said Audrey Bastian, the school's Arabic teacher. Bastian said she became involved with the organization last year, which enabled her to connect her students with Palestinian youth participating in Relief International programs across the world. The Palestinian youth would speak to her students through videos, and her students would send their video correspondence back. After a year of learning Arabic, the students were invited by the organization to visit Palestine and meet the youth with whom they had been speaking. The trip, which lasted from mid-July to early August, was a good opportunity for the students to learn first-hand about Arabic culture, Bastian said. "We were learning about people and interacting with them, but when we actually stayed in the homes, I think it solidified the exchange," she said. The two boys, Adam Evans and Josh Porter, stayed together in one home, and the two girls, Kathlene Ornano and Angela Ford, stayed in another. Each day, the group would meet their teacher and visit different organizations in cities around Palestine, learning about art, music and other culture. Bastian said the more-independent living situations helped the students to get a better feel for the way of life in Palestine. "We learn about the culture, then do it ourselves," she said. Bastian said the trip was an important learning experience for her students and the Palestinians they met. Both cultures tend to have strong opinions about the other, but meeting in person helps both sides to see they are actually very similar. "I'm guessing it will be a life-changing experience for them," she said. "They really enjoyed it." Provo High School Principal Sam Ray said that while the school did not sponsor the trip, the new Arabic language class opened the door for new experiences for the students. The school will be offering Arabic, Chinese and Russian this year -- all languages deemed critical by the U.S. Department of Defense. With current political tensions in many parts of the world, Ray said understanding such languages and cultures is important for Americans. "I think it gives them an insight into the world that they wouldn't have otherwise," he said. Adam Evans, a 10th-grader who took part in the trip, said the amount of security in the country was surprising to him, and he knows more about the turmoil in the region now that he has visited. Evans said he enjoyed visiting the Dead Sea and seeing the large wall separating Israel and the West Bank. "I now understand Arabic better because I actually went over there," he said. Kathlene Ornano said she enjoyed meeting Palestinian teens and finding similarities with her own culture. She said she was surprised to find they enjoy swimming and soccer and other activities that American youth enjoy. Ornano said getting to know another culture was fun for her, and she enjoyed learning Arabic better in her time abroad. "I've been living in two cultures my whole life," she said. "So to just see a third one, I love this!" Ornano said she believes many Americans are sheltered and do not understand other cultures throughout the world. She said this trip and others are important for other cultures to understand Americans, and for Americans to return home and educate others about their experiences. "I think that one person can change the world," she said.

Welcome back!

I am excited to start another Arabic adventure with you. During the summer students were involved in several different Arabic activities. One student did Startalk and is planning to take Arabic classes at BYU. Also, four students went to Palestine/Israel for an intensive language experience and to meet Palestinians and stay in their homes. They also made the Palestinian Ma'an newspaper. (Posted below)

MAAN NEWS AGENCY
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"This is what diplomacy should be;" Utah teens come to the West Bank

Date: 24 / 07 / 2008 Time: 15:53

Bethlehem – Ma'an – "This is what my job should be about," said Alistair Baskey, head of Cultural and Education Exchanges for the US consular office in Jerusalem, "not answering e-mails and phone calls."

This week Baskey has been overseeing a group of four American teenagers from Utah and more than fifty Palestinian youth from Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah and Jenin, as they connect in a language and cultural exchange. "This is real diplomacy," he said watching a basketball match between the teens.

The group is all part of a program funded by the US State Department that connects American youth with their peers in places as far away Tajikistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Palestine. The ongoing and primarily web-based events are organized by the Global Connections and Exchange Program in cooperation with Relief International Schools On-Line (RISOL). The program is multifaceted, and includes IT training for participants, cultural information exchange, and online Arabic lessons.

Majd Iwidat, a 17-year-old Hebronite, learned how to use several different software programs as he and his peers at a local community center put together an instructional video on basic Arabic for a high school class in Utah. His participation in the program has earned him more than just IT experience, however.

As a RISOL student Majd traveled to the United States, visiting Washington DC, Los Angeles and Seattle, where he met his peers from Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the United States.

Kathlene Ornano, a 16-year-old American from Provo, Utah, was one of four Americans taking part in the program's organized visit to the West Bank. Kathlene started learning Arabic when she was 12, after she discovered that it was the language spoken in Egypt, where she hopes to some day explore the ancient pyramids.

It was Majd's video tutorials that helped Kathlene learn Arabic in her high school class of 13 students, under the direction of teacher Audry Bastian. Ms Bastian has brought the tools from RISOL into her language classrooms, to help her students learn what life is like in the countries where Arabic is spoken, and expose the students to the language in a real and interactive way.

While Majd joined the program out of his interest in computer technology, hoping some day to study computer science at Harvard, Kathlene isn't sure what she wants to do with her knowledge of Arabic. "Right now I really just want to know more," she said.

This is the first group of youth under 18 that the US consul has brought into the West Bank since 2001. "Security concerns" are preventing the group from visiting Majd in Hebron, and the young man will not be able to join the group during their tour of the Haram Ash-Sharif since he was not among the ten participants selected to receive special permission to enter Jerusalem.

Indeed, the reality of the situation – the group is followed closely by at least four security guards, has restricted access to Palestinian cities, and faces the restricted access of Palestinians to Jerusalem – is going to be part of the experience for the visiting Americans.

For the moment, however, the students do not seem too concerned about the political ramifications of their meeting.

Majd says that despite the impact that the United States has on his country, he is happy to meet good people from the area. Kathlene is enthralled with the ancient architecture of the old cities of East Jerusalem and Bethlehem. She was amazed to discover, upon entering some of the old buildings that "everything is new and modern." She said that the trip has shown her "there is a different view on the inside," of the homes, at least.

Class

Reading the letters from Iraq.

Daily Herald covers the Palestinian Exchange

Friday, 02 May 2008

To the Mideast, with love

Brittani Lusk - DAILY HERALD

Students at Provo High have friends in diverse places. International Baccalaureate students studying Arabic have friends in the Middle East and they've found that they're a lot like themselves. "At first they are different, but not as different as we thought," said senior Allison Erickson. In order to give her students experience speaking the language with native students and a way to learn first-hand about the culture, teacher Audrey Bastian has students write letters to native speakers and video tape skits they write using vocabulary words and post them on a State Department-sponsored Web portal called the Youth Connect Worldwide Arabic Exchange. Then they receive comments from students in Palestine, and they can watch videos posted by Arabic students learning English as well. Until recently Provo was the only American School using the site. They have been joined by a school in Boston. In one video posted by the Palestinian students, a girl with her head covered used a yellow ruler to point to the words on a giant screen that say "Most people like to hear music," followed by the words in Arabic written in the English alphabet - "Mo'tham annas yoheboon sma' al moseeqa." Provo students use vocabulary about school and daily life they had been given by the Palestinian students and wrote a skit about studying. "Since we're at school we decided to do school vocabulary," said junior Jorgena Miller. Another group made up a skit about their daily activities including getting out of bed, brushing teeth and playing soccer. Reactions to the students learning Arabic have been positive and negative. Students said people have reacted to the sweatshirts they all have that feature Arabic writing. Senior Angela Ford said people sometimes ask questions like "Does your sweatshirt say 'terrorist' or 'I have a bomb' or something?" Bastian said other people are excited that the students are getting the exposure, which she said they need. "Because we are at war with Iraq it's important for students to have an understanding of that part of the world," Bastian said. Ford said she likes learning what Arab-speaking people are really like, not just how they are portrayed. "It's good to see the real culture," she said. "It's nice to break that stereotype that they're all terrorists." To the U.S. Department of State, languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Farsi (Persian), Russian and Turkish are important for national security, and the government is increasing funding to get programs that teach these languages into schools. Gregg Roberts, world language specialist for the Utah State Office of Education, said those languages aren't replacing other languages taught in schools like Spanish, French and German, but that there needs to be more options available to students. In addition to national security, language skills are needed in the world's economy. "We don't want to be left behind as far as the world. The world has global economy," Roberts said. Freshman Jared Ludlow said he enjoys learning to speak Arabic because he thinks it's more entertaining than other languages. "I think it's interesting, and it's funner than I would think other languages would be," Miller said. Ludlow's father is a professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University and his grandfather just returned from teaching at BYU's Jerusalem Center. Ludlow said he sometimes cross references his Arabic with his grandfather's Hebrew. "There's some similar words," Ludlow said. "Some words are very different." In addition to Arabic, Provo high also offers Spanish, Latin, French, Chinese, German and American Sign Language. Lori Rich, Provo's IB coordinator, said the school is thinking about adding Russian. • Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.

Our class meets the governor.

Yesterday we were invited to see Governor Huntsman sign the bill to fund Arabic, Chinese, and dual emersion programs in Utah. Our class is pictured above with the governor. One of the students was interviewed for radio. To the left we are pictured with the director and assistant director of the National Middle East Language Resource Center who made this all possible, Kirk Belnap and Maggie Nassif.

Our Arabic class makes headlines

http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8509194w.sltrib.com/ci_8509194

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Audrey Bastian teaches Arabic at Provo High School on Friday… (Al Hartmann/Salt Lake Tribune )”,”The only map in Audrey Bastian’s Arabic language class at… (Al Hartmann/Salt Lake Tribune
PROVO - It’s an accepted truth that speaking a new language requires that you first must listen. For the Western ear learning Arabic, that maxim reveals itself with almost every syllable. Whether she’s running through a list of plural nouns, or placing her hand on her lower throat to help students locate a particular sound, Audrey Bastian is accustomed to asking her Provo High School Arabic students the same question time and again: “Can you hear the difference?” To the layperson unfamiliar with Arabic, those differences are many, not to mention difficult. Where do you want to start? Arabic reads and writes from right to left. Whole canyons exist between its written form and spoken practice. Its dialects are so bewildering that both the CIA and the American Council For Teaching Foreign Languages rate it, along with Russian and Finnish, at the very top of languages taking the longest time and most effort to learn. The running joke about Arabic is that it becomes far easier to learn after your first 10 years of instruction. Why, then, spend hours learning the finer points of Arabic script on erasable pads when you could be learning Spanish or French, languages requiring four times less the effort for proficiency? As far as the 12 students in Bastian’s class are concerned, Arabic is where it’s at. Two were turned on to it by a family member in the military. One
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hopes to visit Egypt one day with her sister. Another became so swept up learning the language that his father ordered books and decided to study along with his son. For all of them, however, it’s Arabic’s exotic appeal that beckons. “I may understand only half the words in songs we hear in class, but it’s still beautiful,” said 17-year-old Aaron Holloway. For Utah lawmakers, who allocated $480,000 toward the study of “critical languages” in a surprise bill that passed the Legislature last week, beauty is beside the point. For them, the number of Utah students studying Arabic, along with Russian and Chinese, is crucial to the nation’s economic and national security. In prying open the state’s wallet to such an initiative, they’re also following the advice of the federal National Security Language Initiative, which also includes Farsi, Hindi and Korean on the list. That money could translate into more Utah students versed in Arabic, and more opportunities for teachers such as Bastian. Utah boasts a number of high schools offering Chinese, but only two high schools - Provo and Lone Peak in Highland, plus Lehi’s charter middle school Renaissance Academy - offer Arabic. Even by those numbers, Utah far outpaces other states. Brigham Young University Arabic professor Kirk Belnap estimates that fewer than 1 percent of high schools nationally offer Arabic instruction, while 10 percent of universities and colleges do so. More than six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, those figures either surprise or appall. As director of the National Middle East Language Resource Center, created and funded by the U.S. Department of Education in 2002, and based at BYU, Belnap would like to see the number and quality of Arabic-language programs everywhere improve. His efforts, along with those of Maggie Nassif, the center’s assistant director, have been central to Arabic’s early start in Utah classrooms, said Bastian, who will finish her first full year of Arabic instruction at Provo High School this spring. In the pipeline for a launch this fall is the center’s “Arabic Without Walls,” distance-learning program allowing anyone, high school student or not, to start study of the language. “Arabs believe deeply that Arabic is the hardest language to learn in the world,” Belnap said. “But if you believe that as a teacher, you have a way of making that come true for students. One of our biggest challenges is helping students and teachers realize that students can learn a lot of the language if you believe in them. A lot of teachers tend to coddle students learning Arabic.” The prospect of more Arabic in schools appeals both to those in government, who feel it serves national security interests, and those in education interested in bridging cultures. “There’s a serious need to open kids’ eyes to the fact that people are people. A lot of people outside the U.S. think America is this awful place where people get shot in schools or restaurants, so it’s important for us to overcome the stereotype that all Arabs are terrorists,” Belnap said. Gregg Roberts, world language specialist with the Utah State Office of Education, welcomed last week’s last-minute shot of foreign language funding, regardless of what Utah high schools choose among the federal government’s menu of “critical” languages. At the moment, he noted, Arabic has more foreign policy consequences than other choices, however. “When the U.S. arrived in Baghdad, out of 1,000 embassy personnel only 33 spoke Arabic,” Roberts said. “And of that 33, only six were proficient.” bfulton@sltrib.com SB41 * If signed by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., SB41 would provide $750,000 toward dual-immersion language programs, which includes $480,000 toward the study of “critical languages.” * Twenty Utah high schools and junior highs already offer either Chinese and/or Arabic. The bill would enable another 40 schools to also offer Chinese, Arabic and Russian. * In addition, it would help create 15 elementary school dual-immersion programs in Chinese, Spanish, French and Navajo. Beginning in kindergarten or first grade, students in the programs would spend half their time learning in English and the other half learning in the other language.