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teaching
Teaching Arabic:
the view from the United States
As interest in studying Arabic continues to grow in the UK, Lisa Bernasek draws on her
own experience and interviews with colleagues to describe the evolving status of
Arabic programmes in the US.
In the past ten years the number of
American undergraduates studying
Arabic has skyrocketed.
Programmes around the country are
increasing their capacity, and
universities are rapidly adding Arabic
to their roster of languages. According
to figures published by the Modern
Language Association, the number of
institutions offering courses in Arabic
rose from 264 in 2002 to 466 in 2006
(Furman et al. 2007).This article, based
on email interviews with current
directors of Arabic programmes in the
US as well as my own experience as a
student of Arabic before this boom
and as a teacher of Arabic since, gives
an overview of the current state of
Arabic teaching in the United States.
When I began learning Arabic in the
autumn of 1992, the first-year Arabic
class at my university was held in a
room normally used for upper-level
seminars.Ten or twelve students sat
around a long table in a room with
leaded glass windows and carved
wooden cabinets set into the stone
walls, a setting that evoked earlier
generations of students in Princeton’s
relatively long tradition of Near
Eastern Studies. By the second year,
our class had dwindled to seven or
eight students; in the third and fourth
years the remaining students were
able to fit around a small table in the
professor’s office for class. In contrast,
in the autumn of 2006, without a
significant change in overall student
body numbers, Princeton reported
109 students enrolled in first and
second-year Arabic classes, and 24 in
upper level classes (Modern Language
Association 2007).
This dramatic increase in student
enrolments has been mirrored across
the country: according to the Modern
Language Association, total enrolment
in Arabic classes in 1990 was 3,475; by
2006 this number had risen to 23,974.
Most of this expansion has taken place
since 1998: between 1998 and 2002
total enrolments rose by 92.3%, and
between 2002 and 2006 by 126.5%.
The MLA’s statistics also show that the
increase in student numbers is
primarily in first and second-year
classes, with a ratio of 8 to 1 of
students in lower versus upper level
classes in Arabic (Furman et al. 2007).
This ratio reflects the flexibility of
the American undergraduate
curriculum, as the large number of
students studying Arabic does not
necessarily translate into students
graduating with degrees in Arabic or
related subjects.These numbers have
risen as well in the past ten years,
though they are still relatively small: in
2005-06 24 students graduated with a
BA degree in Arabic language and
literature (up from 8 in 1995-96); and
158 received a BA in Near or Middle
Eastern Studies (compared to 84 in
1995-96) (National Center for
Education Statistics 1998; National
Center for Education Statistics 2007).
Many students of Near or Middle
Eastern Studies will have studied
Arabic, but they may also have focused
on Hebrew,Turkish or Persian.
The size and timing of this increase
in students taking Arabic at university
reflects the increased prominence of
Islam and the Arab world in global
events. Although most universities had
already finalised registrations for 2001
by September 11, numbers in Arabic
classes the following year jumped
dramatically. One university reported
an almost threefold increase in the
number of students enrolling in firstyear
Arabic in autumn 2002
(Sombuntham 2002). Indeed, interest
in less commonly taught languages
often follows current events, with
Russian having an important following
during the Cold War that dropped
significantly after the collapse of the
Soviet bloc, and interest in Chinese
currently on the rise as China
becomes an important economic
actor (Bollag 2007).
However, according to current
directors of Arabic programmes in the
US, not all students are taking the
language for purely instrumental
reasons. Cigdem Balim, director of
language instruction in the
Department of Near Eastern
Languages and Cultures at Indiana
University, estimates the proportion of
students studying Arabic for career
purposes, especially government or
military jobs, to be around 60% at her
Liaison magazine • llas.ac.uk •33