Here's some more information about our program:
The course provides students with an introduction to Modern Standard Arabic and Arab culture. It is designed for students who have never studied Arabic before and begins with an introduction to Arabic sounds and letters. The teaching and learning emphasizes the functional use of Arabic and communication in context by means of listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Students acquire enough familiarity with the Arabic language and culture to interact with Arabic-speakers at a basic level. Students end the course with greater curiosity and cultural sensitivity towards the Arabic-speaking world, from coursework and co-curricular activities, including an outing to Arabic restaurant, guest speakers, subtitled movies.
Although Arabs represent only 1% of Boston’s population, and a tenth of a percent nationally, the Arabic language has become a national security priority. As a nation, we are unprepared to meet the sudden and pressing need for citizens familiar with Arabic. Our education system also lacks the infrastructure to produce a generation of culturally and linguistically literate graduates of Arabic. At a time when students are eager to make sense of global events, Charlestown High School has developed a program that both fills a void and seeks to act as a leader in preparing students to become responsible global citizens.
Charlestown High School’s Arabic program uses texts that teach students the alphabet, basic grammar structures, and how to comprehend simple statements and questions that relate to their immediate environment and familiar subjects. The books cover a wide range of topics such as Arabic greetings, gender forms, Arabic signs, forms of address, and holidays. Our teaching methodology is adapted from a pedagogy that is internationally recognized for its excellence. During the 2006-2007 school year we had 60 students in two first-year classes, and we expanded this year to 100 students in three first-year classes and one second-year class, a clear indication of the classes’ high interest among students.
Our intensive non-residential summer language course is designed as an enrichment program, not a remedial program, for students enrolled in the Boston Public Schools. Students earn credit for first-year Arabic over five weeks, studying Monday to Saturday, encompassing 132 instructional hours on Arabic language and culture and awarding high school credit through the district’s Office of World Languages. After the summer course Charlestown High School students can continue with the second-year Arabic track at the school, and our continuing community mentoring project will allow students from other schools the opportunity to develop their language proficiency free of charge.