Save Arabic Without Walls!

A few weeks ago, the Department of Near Eastern Studies voted to cancel the "Arabic Without Walls" program, a distance-learning Arabic language course that had been in development for the past several years on grants from the US Department of Education.

The Department, which offers no funding for the program and thus has no financial motive to cancel it, wavered in its reasoning, now standing by the assertion that the award-winning program, developed under Sonia S'hiri, drew resources away from the Arabic program at Berkeley. This claim, however, has not been explained and there is no convincing evidence to support it, as testimony from current and past students can attest.

As students, we support increasing accessibility to the Arabic language in America. "Arabic Without Walls" allowed students at other UC schools to enroll in the course on-line, if their University did not offer Arabic. Keeping with its tradition, UC Berkeley took the lead in developing this technology and expanding access to knowledge.

Please consider taking a few minutes to act now in support of the program. You may read more about the program and this campaign here, but you should also:

Sign The Petition

E-mail The Chair, Chancellor, and Dean

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E-mail the University!

Please select the people you would like to receive your e-mail:

NES Department Chair Carol Redmount
L&S Executive Dean Mark Richards
Chancellor Robert Birgeneau

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Name:
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Dear [Recipient's Name],

I was shocked to hear that UC Berkeley’s Near Eastern Studies (NES) Department has announced its intention to end its affiliation with the nationally recognized, award-winning program Arabic Without Walls. This decision is particularly surprising because the program, while providing a tremendous service to UC Berkeley students, as well as students throughout the UC system, is self-sufficient and does not impact the Near Eastern Studies Department in terms of funding, faculty, or class offerings. The Arabic language program at UC Berkeley is recognized for its continual quality and high standards, and the Arabic Without Walls online course has no negative impacts on the Berkeley campus classes. To the contrary, the online course is currently being used by both students and instructors of UC Berkeley’s Arabic courses as an additional technology-based teaching and learning resource, as it provides numerous high quality multimedia files including listening activities and videos, pronunciation exercises, and grammar review quizzes. I would expect that it is in the best interest of any UC Berkeley department, and the Berkeley campus as a whole, to not only support, but to take advantage of affiliation with such a highly respected program as Arabic Without Walls. The U.S. Department of Education highly values this program, as evidenced by their funding the program with a half-million dollar grant. The UC Office of the President agrees that the program is worthwhile, as they have financed the program through the upcoming academic year. Moreover, this program contributes to the prestige of the UC Berkeley campus, as it was nationally recognized for its cutting-edge pedagogical methodology and technology use by the Computer-Aided Language Instruction Consortium, the Esperantic Studies Foundation, as well as Lernu.net, and received the 2008 "Access to Language Education" Award. Arabic Without Walls provides a tremendous benefit to UC Berkeley students, as well as students on other UC campuses, who may enroll in the online course without additional registration fees. In addition to providing electronic resources for Berkeley Arabic courses, Arabic Without Walls also benefits the entire UC Berkeley campus through a collaborative exchange program between UC Berkeley and other universities: when Berkeley provides access to this online course to other universities, our campus can also reciprocally access their online courses, which is a great benefit for all Berkeley students. The resources are available for this program; the Berkeley Near Eastern Studies Department, which wants to cancel the program, pays nothing. Moreover, between 2002 and 2006, enrollments in university Arabic language courses have increased 126.5%. However, this exponential growth in classroom-based Arabic courses is still not sufficient to meet demands for Arabic language speakers in the United States. As stated by Derek Roff, chair of the Esperanto "Access to Language Education" Award evaluation committee, "If this program is being cancelled, we will have lost the best resource that exists in this country for training future Arabic speakers." Why is the NES Department cancelling the prestigious Arabic Without Walls program when it costs the department nothing and greatly benefits the entire UC Berkeley campus? As stated by Robert Blake, director of the UC Consortium for Language Learning and Teaching, “Most of their [NES Department’s] arguments didn't seem to hold any water in that we weren't taking away from local programs at Berkeley and we're not costing them anything administratively,” he said. “It was an opportunity for cooperation and innovation, and Berkeley seems to be losing that.” Please allow the Arabic Without Walls program to continue to operate, and the Arabic program at Cal to continue to flourish.

Sign the Petition!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION

Student Petition Requesting Berkeley's Department of Near East Studies To Reverse Its Decision to Abandon the Teaching of Arabic Without Walls

We, the undersigned, respectfully request that the Department of Near East Studies reverse its decision to abandon Distance Learning Arabic. Here are the main reasons for our request:

1. It has been cited as the nation's best Arabic course. In March the course won the prestigious "Access to Language Education" contest sponsored by CALICO, the Esperantic Studies Foundation, and Lernu. Derek Roff, the head of the selection committee, described the course as "the best resource that exists in the country for training future Arabic speakers."

2. The course is not only innovative, but rigorous - a course the Department should be proud to host. The Arabic Without Walls online course maintains the same high standards of the regular Berkeley Arabic course. The creative use of technology allows for teacher-student interaction, coordinated learning, and all of the staples of a solid educational experience.

3. The course benefits regularly-enrolled Berkeley students. Students enrolled in Berkeley Arabic classes are using content developed for the Arabic Without Walls course as supplementary material for learning Arabic. Furthermore, The Arabic Without Walls course engages currently enrolled Arabic students at Berkeley through its Berkeley Buddy program. Berkeley students and distance learners meet online and voice chat in Arabic, enhancing comfort with the language, as well as practicing specific grammatical structures and improving their Arabic typing skills. This is supervised by an instructor, ensuring that both distance learners and Berkeley students gain from this valuable interaction.

4. The course costs the Department nothing. The course's development was funded by the U.S. Department of Education and the University picks up the cost of hosting the class, so the Department actually has no financial reason to disband the program.

5. Distance Learning could mean substantial profits for the Department. Arabic is a much sought-after language but few resources are available to the numerous journalists, government employees, NGO workers, business leaders, and other professionals who are eager to learn this highly relevant language, but who face time and distance constraints. The distance learning offered through the Arabic Without Walls course will allow them to learn the language under the auspices of the superb Berkeley Arabic program, and their concurrent enrollment fees (50% net revenue) will benefit the NES Department and the University as a whole.

6. The host of the Arabic distance learning program will be the center of the University of California's system-wide Arabic program. The amendment of Regulation 544 to facilitate the seamless transfer of credits across the ten UC campuses has opened the door to a more integrated and innovative approach to education across the UC system. Students can now take advantage of all the resources that the University has to offer, not only that which is available at their particular campus. The Distance Learning model is part of this initiative, and Arabic Without Walls is a shining example of the potential for distance learning. It is in Berkeley students' interest to participate in this exchange of resources across the system.

7. This course consolidates Berkeley's profile as an innovative and collaborative leader in UC. Berkeley, which has the largest Arabic program of any UC campus, should preserve its leadership position by continuing to host the award-winning, highly visible, and profitable Arabic Without Walls course. This pioneering and collaborative course will bring in further visibility and acclaim to the NES Department.

We, students of on-campus Berkeley Arabic and the Arabic Without Walls program, respectfully urge the NES Department not to waste what it has nurtured and to continue to offer this course in the future. We want Berkeley to continue to lead the UC Arabic programs while fulfilling its mission as a public university that shares its resources with the other UC campuses and the community at large.

Sincerely, the undersigned

CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION

Save Arabic Without Walls: About

On March 20, 2008, the Daily Californian reported that the award-winning distance-learning Arabic course, Arabic Without Walls, developed at UC Berkeley by Arabic language program director Sonia S'hiri, was to be cancelled by the Department.

According to the story, Department of Near Eastern Studies Chair Carol Redmount claimed that the program "does not benefit UC Berkeley students," and that it "took resources away from our own Arabic program that we thought should be devoted to Berkeley students."

As students at UC Berkeley who have matriculated through the NES Program, taken Arabic courses, or are currently enrolled in Arabic courses, we question the Department's decision, as well as claims that the Arabic program at Cal is suffering due to the Arabic Without Walls program. If anything, we believe that the program has enhanced our own experience as well as expanded the resources available to us to improve our acquisition of the Arabic language.

We are not alone in this judgment. In 2003, the University of California proudly announced the beginning of the Arabic Without Walls program, which took four years of careful development before it began enrolling students in Fall 2007. At the time, the US Department of Education awarded the University with a $452,600 grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, bringing together respected and accomplished experts from the UC Consortium for Language Learning & Teaching and the National Middle East Language Resource Center at Brigham Young University to collaborate on the program.

Recognizing the importance of this program, as well as the immense loss this is to the Berkeley campus, we have come together to organize an on-line and printed petition requesting that the online-course be re-instated. Further, we have initiated an e-mail action campaign to convince the Department that Berkeley students are proud to be in one of the strongest Arabic programs in the country, and at the same time at the center of innovative learning technologies.

Please consider signing the petition by clicking here, or sending e-mail actions at this page.