With the Middle East an increasing focus of global attention on many issues, there is an urgent need to expand the pool of individuals who can communicate in Arabic. The US Department of Education’s Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE) has awarded the University of California Consortium on Language Learning & Teaching and the National Middle East Language Resource Center, a $452,622 grant to develop “Arabic Without Walls,” (http://arabicwithoutwalls.ucdavis.edu/aww/info.html) a distance-learning program that will allow anyone to study Arabic — no matter where they live.

A team of curriculum developers and experts is in the process of designing and launching Arabic Without Walls to take advantage of the latest technology, while simultaneously ensuring the critical human contact that is essential for successful language learning. Arabic Without Walls is to be based on the widely-used textbook Al-Kitaab Fii Ta’alum Al-Arabiyya (Brustad et al., 2nd Ed., Georgetown University Press, 2004).

The Arabic language and culture course is to be taught over a one-year period. Robert J. Blake, professor of Spanish at UC Davis and director of the consortium, and Kirk Belnap, professor of Arabic at Brigham Young University and director of the Title VI National Middle East Language Resource Center, are the principals on the project.

Professor Blake, an expert in distance learning technology, was the principal developer of an earlier FIPSE grant that produced “Spanish Without Walls.” Professor Belnap is a leader in the creation of computer-assisted learning technologies for Arabic.

Under the direction of Blake and Belnap, a team of Arabic experts, including Dr. Sonia S’hiri (UC Berkeley), Dr. Mahmoud Al-Batal (Emory University) and Dr. Muhammad Eissa (NMELRC), are producing the DVD-ROM master class and the web-based materials that will form the foundation of the project. A hallmark of the project is a plan to incorporate native-speaker mentors who will provide the personal interaction considered essential to success in online language learning.

Arabic Without Walls will be offered for the first time in the Fall of 2007 from UC Berkeley. UC students from all campuses will be able to register for the course using cross-registration for system-wide courses. Non UC persons will be able to register through UC Berkeley Extension.