Funding

  Project Proposal:
  Arabic Language Distance Learning Project

  Participants:
  UCB, UCSB, and UCSC

  Principal Investigators:
  Dwight Reynolds (UCSB)

In this proposal, the collaborating faculty request $4,885 to hold a planning meeting at UCSB to discuss the feasibility of developing distance-taught Arabic language courses in order to effectively project language expertise that is currently concentrated at three campuses (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Santa Barbara) to the other campuses of the UC system. Building on an extant package of textbooks, audiocassettes, and videotapes (the Al-Kitaab series-Georgetown University Press), we wish to develop and implement web-based instructional materials, in combination with limited amounts of teleconferencing, so that Arabic can be taught throughout the UC system. This model could then be adapted for use in other less commonly taught languages (LCTLs) in the UC system.

  Nature of the Collaboration

The field of Middle Eastern Studies has a solid institutional base in the UC system. Two full-fledged departments (UCB, UCLA), one program (UCSB) and three federally-funded "national resource centers" (UCB, UCLA, UCSB) support the teaching of a wide array of Middle Eastern languages. Over 100 faculty on the nine UC campuses are engaged in teaching and/or research on the Middle East across different departments and disciplines. Despite the fact that resources in Middle East studies are scattered throughout the system, this faculty has developed an exemplary organizational basis. UCSB has now hosted three annual Middle East Studies conferences that have brought together faculty from all of the UC campuses and a total of over 20 regional universities and colleges. One of the primary features of these annual conferences are the pedagogical "working groups" that convene around themes such as Teaching Middle Eastern Literatures, Teaching Islam in the Undergraduate Classroom, and Teaching Middle Eastern Languages. The UC faculty have also produced collaborative grant proposals -- two and a half years ago, for example, a proposal to establish a multi-campus research group (MRG) in Middle East Studies was submitted to UCOP, but was unsuccessful.

The main institutional partners in this proposed project will be the Center for Middle East Studies (UCSB), the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (UCLA), and the Department of Near Eastern Studies (UCB). The principal investigators are Dwight Reynolds (Director, CMES, and Chair, Islamic & Near Eastern Studies program, UCSB) and Michael Cooperson (Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, UCLA). Arabic language & literature is currently taught in the UC system by five ladder-rank faculty (Michael Cooperson, Margaret Larkin, Ismail Poonawala, Muhammad Siddiq, and Dwight Reynolds), four lecturers (Magda Campo, Michael Fishbein, John Hayes. Sonia Shiri), with occasional supplementation by graduate student teaching assistants.

For the three main institutional partners listed above, developing Arabic language materials fits directly into existing programmatic needs both in terms of creating additional teaching resources and as an opportunity both to train graduate students in Arabic language pedagogy and to employ them as distance-based instructors.

In addition to the broad-based cooperation within the field of Middle East Studies at UC cited above, it should be noted that the two principal investigators and one of the two outside consultants have a solid history of collaborative work having together produced one co-authored volume, one special issue of a journal, one international conference, and two panels at national conferences. All of the above collaborative work has focused on Arabic language and literature.

  Purpose of the Planning Meeting

Our primary goal in this project is to produce an effective and efficient mechanism that allows us to offer Arabic language instruction from the base campuses (UCB, UCLA, UCSB) to the remaining six UC campuses. The planning meeting is a necessary step in developing this long-term project that will include both materials development and the technological vehicles for implementing distance taught Arabic language classes.

The meeting will be held in Winter or Spring Quarter 2002 and will bring as many of the UC Arabic faculty as possible for a day-long meeting at UCSB to meet with three consultants: Prof. Kirk Belknap (Brigham Young University) whose team is currently developing generic software templates for distance-taught language courses in a project that is using Arabic as its test case (we desire to coordinate our efforts with those at BYU rather than compete with them) as well as Prof. Mahmoud Al-Batal and Prof. Kristen Brustad (both from Emory University) who are the authors of the textbook with which we want to coordinate our materials development.

It is our hope that the basic elements of a rough draft for the project proposal will result from this meeting. Since the next stage or our project will involve materials development rather than implementation, we realize that TLtC cannot fund it. However, with the help of the UC Consortium for Language Learning and Teaching (UCCLLT), we hope to locate funding sources that are willing to support this portion of the project.

Although this project was conceived nearly a year ago, it is clear to all of us that in the wake of 9/11, the University of California, with its extraordinary resources in Middle East studies, can and should play a leading role in answering the need for increased instruction in Arabic language.

  Budget

Travel: $1,820

Housing: $1,350

Food: $1,450

Equipment: $265

TOTAL $4,885

The budget above has been calculated on projected costs for four participants from UCSB, two from Berkeley, two from UCLA, and three outside consultants. The three outside consultants would arrive one day earlier and meet with PI Dwight Reynolds previous to the arrival of the other participants. The full group of eleven participants would meet for a full day of planning, and the seven non-UCSB participants would leave the following day. The equipment listed will be used to demonstrate prototypes of the software being developed by consultant Kirk Belnap of Brigham Young University.