Saturday, July 12, 2025



More Arabic classes necessary

During the Cold War, Eastern European immigrants provided critical language skills that allowed the U.S. to defeat the Warsaw Pact. In the years since 9/11, Arab-Americans have found it difficult to offer their services to the government, which has security concerns. The only other source of Arabic speakers is from the few Arabic language programs at American universities. Since 2001, grants from the Departments of State, Education, and Defense for the teaching Arabic have exploded. Liberal arts colleges such as Dartmouth, Amherst, and Williams have taken advantage of this to establish well-funded programs. Wesleyan has not.

During the fall of 2003, Wesleyan finally began its Arabic program. As a Less Commonly Taught Language, it was only offered three times a week for fifty minutes, taught by a Sudanese immigrant. In order to have a second year, students had to file forms to get a Self-Instructed Language Program, meeting twice a week, with no resources. Before the “third year” of the program, the remaining students went abroad, or spent the summer relearning the language. At the start of this year, Wesleyan added a crippled second year of Arabic, modeled on the first—three times a week, fifty minutes—and even added a TA who had spent time in Egypt.

Although third-year Arabic would have been larger than third year German or Korean, no such class was created, despite significant student interest and investment. Instead, history professor Bruce Masters, fluent in Standard and Colloquial Arabic, taught a student forum for fifty minutes once a week.

On a scale of one to five, the State Department rates Arabic, Chinese, and Japanese as fives: the most difficult for native English speakers to learn. Chinese and Japanese have classes every day, as well as mandatory time in the language lab and TA sessions.

Wesleyan has a long tradition of political activism in the U.S. and world community. The choices of the current administration have positioned the United States and the rest of the world to be engaged in a global war on terror for decades; the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan have no end in sight; NATO may take up a role in the Sudan. Given the prolonged engagement in the Arab world, it is critical that the United States develop Arabic-speaking personnel; Arabic messages on the 10th of September, 2001 indicated what was to happen the following day, but were not translated until September 12.

At a time when the U.S. has been engaged in torture and other ill-conceived adventures abroad, there can be no doubt that as citizens of the United States, and as members of the global community, Wesleyan students should have access to the resources that will let them make a difference. Interest at Arabic at Wesleyan is high; it is time for the resources committed to it to match that interest.

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