Joe Jordan - Arabic Language

I picked up a self-study guide to Arabic midway through college, but without the structure of a classroom—much less an instructor—the book sat in a box on the closet shelf above my socks. I didn’t abandon learning the language just yet, but the real impediment to my learning was based in geography: Arabic isn’t offered at the Anchorage campus, so the chance to learn the language seemed slim. Then I found an Arabic class offered through the Center for Distance Education.

The notion that a distance education class “doesn’t square� with the traditional sit-down, face-to-face setting of teaching is, in my experience, outdated—especially with the learning technologies available to us that can transcend the geography of classrooms as “locations.� The “Beginning Arabic� class I’m taking with Zeina Nehme has enabled me to put all the inchoate pieces of language learning into a real-time context via Elluminate Live!, or “ELive.� In our class, we listen, read, write, and discuss the Arabic language and Middle Eastern cultures much as we might in a “traditional� class, but the multiple tools available to class members—live voice, application sharing, graphical whiteboard, and public and private chat features—give us different avenues through which to participate in class exercises and pick up the language successfully. When educators consider the varied learning styles of students, ELive’s dynamic platform offers the kinds of choices—audio, visual, and kinesthetic—students don’t always get from note-taking in lecture halls.

Our class might not be traditional, but it’s a bona fide “community�— a radical retooling of what it means to learn with others in a “classroom� setting beyond what is bound by space and place.