WASHINGTON — The United States has designated Arabic a strategic
language and promoted its instruction in schools throughout the
nation.
Officials said federal funds for international education programs,
including Arabic, have increased by 33 percent since 2001 to $103.7 million
in 2004. They said the U.S. Education Department has also provided opportunities
to finance students and educators to learn Arabic in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Tunisia.
The result has been a sharp rise in Arabic courses and school enrollment
over the last six years, Middle East Newsline reported. Officials said Arabic has now replaced Hebrew as
the main Middle East language taught in schools.
From 1998 to 2002, the Modern Language Association reported a 92 percent
increase in Arabic enrollments in schools. This has amounted to 10,600
students.
Officials said Arabic has been promoted in U.S. schools while students
have been encouraged to study the language in the Middle East. They said
federal and state funds have financed teachers, textbooks and other tools to
teach Arabic to youngsters from elementary school onward. Middle East
countries, particularly Egypt, have also been employed as a venue for the
teaching of Arabic.
Ralph Hines, director of international education programs at the
Education Department, said 480 Americans have been studying at the
American University in Cairo, Egypt — double that of 2001. Hines said 40 of
the students were studying advanced Arabic through the Center for Arabic
Studies Abroad, funded by Washington since 1967.
In 2002, the Education Department began funding the National Middle East
Language Resource Center, which helps provide resources for the study of
Middle Eastern languages throughout the United States. In 2004, officials
said, 17 Middle East studies centers and 9 African studies centers in the
United States were offering Arabic language, culture and study abroad as
well as community outreach programs to students and teachers.
Officials said federal and state governments have cooperated to increase
Arabic language instruction in the United States. They said the Defense
Department has teamed with the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign
Languages to publish an assessment of the linkage between foreign language
awareness and national security. The assessment determined that foreign
languages mark "a core academic subject" in national security.
The federal government, particularly the Pentagon and military, requires
Arabic for government or contract employees deployed in the Middle East. The
U.S. military has increased the use of Arab immigrants for intelligence
duties in the Gulf. U.S. Central Command employs Arab natives who have
acquired U.S. citizenship as translators and interpreters at the Strategic
Engagement and Response Center, located in Camp A-Saliyah in Qatar.
The civilian staffers monitor and translate Arab electronic and Internet
media and provide analysis at the center. The staffers include former
Egyptian, Iraqi and Lebanese nationals who volunteered for the jobs.
"I don't know what I would do without them," Lt. Col. Nancy
Gruttman-Tyler, who directs the effort at Central Command's center, said.
"Their help is very valuable. I not only rely on their language skills, but
also on their knowledge of the area."
Still, Americans struggle with the challenges of learning Arabic, deemed
by the Education Department a "super hard" language that requires more than
2,200 class hours to achieve relative fluency. The Washington-based Center
for Applied Linguistics said that despite increased federal funding only 70
U.S. elementary and secondary schools — most of them private Islamic
schools -- have been teaching Arabic.
As part of its efforts to promote Arabic, the government has overseen an
effort to develop standards for learning Arabic in the United States.
Officials said a report on standards would be published around April 2005
and tested in Dearborn, Michigan, the location of the largest Arab-American
community in the United States.
"We're living in a global society," Wilbert Bryant, deputy assistant
secretary for higher education in the Education Department, said. "We must
be able to speak the languages of many countries. The only way is to start
at K-12. It's the only way to remain competitive and retain our position as
the superpower in the world."
