Aref Assaf, 12-05-2007

A recent survey by the Council on Higher Education, CHE, reported that Arabic is the fastest-growing major language, breaking the top 10 for the first time with just under 24,000 enrollments, compared to about 10,600 in 2002. The number of institutions offering Arabic has nearly doubled to 466, including both two- and four-year colleges. Enrollment in Arabic more than doubled from 2002 to 2006. The latest figures from the Modern Language Association of America reflect a major push toward internationalization on college campuses, more government support for language study and simply more interest from students. Over four years, total enrollment in language courses has grown 12.9 percent.

One of the best ways to gauge the growing interest in Middle Eastern languages is to look at recent federal funding increases. Education appropriations for fiscal year 2006 included a 26% increase for Title VI of the Higher Education Act and the Fulbright-Hays International Studies Program. This added $20.5 million in new funding to the nation’s Middle East studies centers. In August 2002, the U.S. Department of Education announced the creation of the National Middle East Language Resource Center at Brigham Young University, the first Title VI Language Resource Center to focus solely on the languages of the Middle East. The center focuses specifically on Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, and Turkish (National Middle East Language Resource Center, n.d.). This new funding reflects the federal government’s growing awareness of the need to enhance our understanding of Middle Eastern affairs and languages.

While the CHE's survey revealed that Arabic is one of two world languages being offered and taught at many universities in US, New Jersey ranked second after Connecticut in the number of sites offering various levels of Arabic instruction. National data on Arabic education in kindergarten through 12th grade is spotty. But the Center for Applied Linguistics, a research group in Washington, estimates that there are roughly 25 full-credit programs in public and non-Islamic private schools nationwide.

A recent article in the Bergen Record alluded to the growing demands for Arabic but it failed to reveal any data on the hurdles facing Arabic teaching. Unlike Chinese, teaching Arabic is fraught with political considerations waged by right wing ideologues such as Arab hater Daniel Pipes. Recall what happened to the KGIA in Brooklyn, NY?

We at the AAF have begun a major study to evaluate the state of teaching Arabic in New Jersey's colleges, high schools, and private and parochial schools. Extensive research has been conducted and random and scientific surveys have been completed. As data and research are deciphered and tabulated, we hope to publish our study results early in the first quarter of 2008.

Interestingly, I talked recently to an executive of the World Languages and International Education Department -a department at the NJ Department of Education, DOE. She was almost apologetic that she does not know of any school district in New Jersey that teaches Arabic and or has been so certified by the DOE. While the DOE encourages the teaching of foreign languages, it has no mandate over what is finally decided on by the over six hundred school districts in NJ. 

Curiously, an exhaustive  2005 report  containing 116 pages on the state of word language implementation in NJ makes little reference to the teaching of Arabic and offers no recommendations on how to promote it.  The great news is that this state of affairs is easily remedied. This objective is one key goal of the American Arab Forum for 2008. We hope our study will provide the impetus and credible data for a grant proposal to be finalized soon. It is our hope to earnestly start a district-wide Arabic teaching program in Passaic County.

Nationally, Arabic is the fastest growing spoken language of study at U.S. colleges and universities. It is gaining traction in K–12 education as well, due in part to grants available from the U.S. State Department as part of the President’s National Security Language Initiative (NSLI). The NSLI, announced in January 2006,  has earmarked $114 million for 2007 to expand the number of Americans mastering critical-need languages such as Arabic. The program is also focused on introducing students to these languages at a younger age by providing $24 million to create incentives for the teaching and studying of critical-need languages in grades K–12 and by refocusing the Department of Education’s Foreign Language Assistance Program grants. In particular, it encourages the building of continuous programs of study from kindergarten to university through a new $27 million program due to start in 27 schools in the next year. Plans are to expand the program to additional schools in the future.

Once these program are in place, the next phase will focus on increasing the number of certified teachers and expanding resources for creating advanced-level speakers. Both national security and economic factors are putting pressure on American educators to find ways to introduce students to these vital and difficult languages earlier and more intensively. Still, the barriers are many: The languages are difficult to learn, certified teachers are scarce, and time allotted for any language curriculum is shrinking in the face of high-stakes reading and math testing. But despite these obstacles, we hope to encourage certain districts to  push forward, knowing that to stay competitive in the future, their students will need those languages.

Arabic teaching is not important for Arab and Muslim Americans alone. No wonder, then, that the United Nations has designated 2008 as the year of International Language.  Arabic is vitally needed for a host of other venues, and security is not the only area where Arabic is in high demand these days. Arabic enhances the linguistic understanding of many of today’s modern languages. Studying Arabic facilitates a historical understanding of not only languages, but also of all major fields of study – medicine, science, mathematics, engineering, religion, politics, and literature. Arabic is a very expressive language and hence, it enriches the thought patterns of any person who studies it and affects the entire paradigm of thinking and feeling.

After complimenting my command of the English language, The NJ educator warned that Arabic, like Chinese, is a "level four foreign language," meaning it is very difficult to learn. I comforted her by saying that if she speaks and reads English, she is well on her way to perfecting Arabic. Just recall the over 1000 English words we use and recognize that they all have Arabic origins such has alcohol, magazine, zero and almanac.  Read more. 
Related: General background on Arabic.