StarTalk Summer Courses

The 2008 BYU Summer Arabic camp will consist of one session running from Monday, 23 June to Wednesday, 16 July and another from Monday, 21 July to Wednesday, 13 August. Both of these sessions will offer two tracks: a fast-track option will allow approximately twelve experienced or gifted language learners to complete the equivalent of BYU’s Arabic 101 course and receive four university credit hours for their efforts; a parallel but more moderately-paced track will allow another group of approximately twelve students to complete the equivalent of a rigorous year of high school Arabic and receive the corresponding credit. All students will come away with a solid repertoire of pragmatic speaking and reading skills, and a first-class introduction to Arab culture, popular and high. Students who are accepted are strongly encouraged to continue their study via Arabic without Walls, a distance learning course developed by the National Middle East Language Resource Center (based at BYU) and the University of California Consortium on Language Learning and Teaching. In short, this StarTalk program is designed for those who are serious about acquiring high levels of proficiency in Arabic language and culture.

The cost of the program will be $800, with scholarships available for students for whom this sum would constitute a hardship. Eligible students include those who will have completed at least the eighth grade on up through those who will graduate this year. Younger and older students should possess the maturity, work habits, and sense of responsibility that will enable them to make the most of this valuable opportunity.

The first session is full, but we still have room in the second. Please send questions to arabicstartalk@byu.edu.

Apply Now for StarTalk 2008!

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NMELRC Leadership

Director
Kirk Belnap, Brigham Young University
(801) 422-6531

Central Office
Stan Jarvis Coordinator
214 HRCB
Provo, Utah 84602
Phone: (801) 422-7192
FAX: (801) 422-0382
E-mail: nmelrc@byu.edu

Associate Director and Chair of the Arabic Board
Mahmoud Al-Batal, Emory University
(404) 727-6438

Associate Director and Chair of the Hebrew Board
Shmuel Bolozky, University of Massachusetts
(413) 545-6780

Associate Director and Chair of the Persian Board
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Maryland
(301) 405-3147

Associate Director and Chair of the Turkish Board
Erika H. Gilson, Princeton University
(609) 258-1435

ARABIC Board
Mahmoud Al-Batal, Emory University
Micheline Chalhoub-Deville, University of Iowa
Salah Hammoud, Air Force Academy
Martha Schulte-Nafeh, University of Arizona
William Granara , Harvard University
Michael Cooperson, UCLA

HEBREW Board
Shmuel Bolozky, University of Massachusetts
Ruth Adler Ben-Yehuda, Brown University
Esther Raizen, University of Texas—Austin
Vardit Ringvald, Brandeis University
Benjamin Hary, Emory University
Dorit H. Kaufman, Stony Brook University, SUNY

PERSIAN Board
Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, University of Washington
Mohammad Ghanoonparvar, University of Texas Austin
Mehdi Marashi, Defense Language Institute
Mehdi Khorrami, New York University
Kamran Talattof, University of Arizona

TURKISH Board
Erika H. Gilson, Princeton University
Sylvia Wing Onder, Georgetown University
Guliz Kuruoglu, UCLA
Roberta Micallef, University of Utah
Selim Kuru, University of Washington

NMELRC News

2004 ACTFL conference. November 19-21, 2004 in Chicago, IL http://actfl.org/

2004 MESA conference. November 20-23, 2004 at the Hyatt Regency, San Francisco, CA. http://fp.arizona.edu/mesassoc/

This year NMELRC will run a concurrent session at both conferences on the topic of professionalism issues. The topic is of importance to not just for Middle East languages but to language professionals in all LCTLs. The sessions at both conferences on Saturday afternoon, November 20 will be linked with audio and video. Watch for more details here and in the program guides from both conferences.

Turkish Classroom Video support materials. A team led by Suzan Ozel and Filiz Cicek (U. of Indiana) and Sylvia Onder (Georgetown U.) has just completed production of Turkish video support materials for beginning and intermediate learners and teachers.

The Turkish Film and Video Project was funded by Fulbright-Hays Group Projects Abroad Program (GPA) and NMELRC with support from the American Association of Teachers of Turkic (AATT) and Bilgi University, Istanbul. These new materials will be developed and released in various forms and products over the next few years to fill a long-standing need for such materials.

To enable language students to watch and listen to a large number of Turkish speakers, several collections of video recordings were produced for use in Turkish language programs. The purpose of this project was to collect speech samples that meet the pedagogical needs of language instruction, both from the linguistic as well as cultural perspective. The samples were filmed primarily in Istanbul but also in southwestern Turkey.

The first collection contains materials intended to provide easy access to images and voices of spoken Turkish for beginning and intermediate-level learners and teachers. The main focus was on shooting a film with a story and actors. The principal parts of Murat, Sema and Pinar were played by professional actors, with over 30 volunteer actors from different walks of life also featured. The story tells of Murat's return to Istanbul and his journey through past and present aspects of both his family's and the city's life. The language and situations featured in the film cover a substantial portion of contents taught in elementary and intermediate-level courses, for example, greeting, self-introduction, asking for directions, shopping, explaining, expressing regret, etc. Some scenes place an emphasis on displaying cultural notions, such as Murat's interaction with a fortuneteller, a Mevlevi performance and a Tavla game.

The immediate goal is to edit the first collection (Murat's story) in time for use during the upcoming fall semester. Initial release of the first materials on DVD will go to many universities who responded to an AATT survey who expressed immediate interest in using the raw materials in classes this fall.

The second collection contains interviews with more than 50 individuals. These clips present speech on a variety of topics including family, work, education, transportation, and city planning. As a larger number of these speakers also appear in the film, many clips are intended as a supplementary video bank to the film. A number of interviews feature language beyond the intermediate level.

The third collection consists of short clips on topics like buying a ticket, going to the post office, ordering food. These are independent from the film and will further supplement the list of topics covered in the film.

The fourth collection consists of conversations and discussions among two or more speakers. These capture speech that, unlike in the film, does not follow a storyline. Therefore, these clips gave greater freedom to speakers in their choice of topics.

The fifth collection consists of background footage that features glimpses of life in the streets, on piers, cafes, in short, a collection of humanscapes and landscapes.

We hope that in the near future we will have the time and funds for further processing of the film, using not only the supplementary materials of the other collections mentioned above, but also by designing interactive lessons that will turn this raw material into an effective learning tool. When available on DVD and/or online, all of the audio-visual materials collected can be further exploited and adapted for a multitude of instructional purposes by incorporating further textual or graphic material. Come back or visit NMELRC.org for updates on this project.