Bryanna Charles, 16, didn’t get to go to Jordan for summer vacation, but she immersed herself in the culture, learning Arabic at Lewis University.
While studying Jordan’s culture, she learned men and women dine separately, And, how a person should refuse offered food three times before actually taking it.
Bryanna, 16, a junior at Bolingbrook High School, was one of about 15 high school students who spent two weeks learning the critical language; it’s important because the U.S. needs more Arabic speakers.
“It’s a completely different alphabet. It’s really different. Once you get past the alphabet, it’s not too bad,” she said.
Lewis University received $43,543 STARTALK National Security Grant to conduct at a two-week summer language day camp for Will County high school students, teaching Chinese or Arabic.
“It is a multiagency effort to expand foreign language education in generally undertaught critical languages,” said Serafima Gettys, director of the Foreign Language Center at Lewis University.
Several years ago, the FBI released a list of critical languages, Gettys said, such as, Arabic, Azeri, Bangla/Bengali, Mandarin Chinese, Farsi, Gujarati, Hindi, Korean, Marathi, Pashto, Punjabi, Russian, Tajik, Turkish, Urdu and Uzbek.
“In general terms a critical language is a language for which more trained speakers are needed than are available,” Gettys said. “One of the reasons for the insufficient number of trained people in these languages is certainly the difficulty of a language.”
Other reasons include political, cultural and economic factors, Gettys said.
Gettys said because the funding comes from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, it shows how interested the federal government is in creating critical-language speakers to secure the country’s safety and economic well-being.
Lessons on culture, too
Lewis University’s was one of 77 programs funded in 2009. Last year, the high school students had to pay $250 to learn Chinese, another critical language, at Lewis.
This year, the grant lets students earn three credit hours in Chinese or Arabic for free. The grant also funds cultural experiences, such as field trips to Chicago’s Chinatown, the Islamic Cultural Center of Greater Chicago and the Bolingbrook Mosque.
In the afternoon, students got a dose of guest speakers, movies and skits, as well as lessons in tai-chi, lion dancing and cooking.
Bryanna enjoyed the speaker from Palestine.
“He told us how generous people are and hospitable, and how animated. He was really cool,” she said. “I didn’t really realize how polite they were. Our teacher told us a story where she fought in a restaurant over a bill with her friend because in their culture you have to pay if you invited somebody.
“Under no circumstances, you can’t let them pay. It was funny hearing her story how she was tussling with her, and people were looking at her,” she said.
Amy Rossi, 16, a junior at Joliet West High School, who was born in Bahrain while her dad was in the U.S. Navy, was excited to learn some Arabic.
“The culture kind of influenced the first two years of my life. If I would have stayed there, I would have learned so many things and different languages,” Amy said.
“The language itself is unique. ... Even the handwriting,” she said.
“I think I’m doing better than I thought I would be. It’s a lot of work, especially only knowing romantic languages.”
The secret is having a good grasp of the alphabet, Amy said.
Amy plans to continue learning Arabic because she wants to go into foreign affairs, learning languages that are needed. She would like to work at an embassy in another country.
“I don’t really have an interest in the Eastern/Asian culture like Chinese or Japanese, but I’m very interested in Middle Eastern cultures.”
“My mom bought me a necklace with my name in Arabic. It’s part of me,” she said.
Erasing stereotypes
Instructor Nancy Elias, who is from Palestine, said it’s important to teach students about Arabic culture and clear up the misconceptions.
Often the media describes Arabs as terrorists, conservatives and out-of-date.
“I believe we should be open-minded to any culture,” said Elias, is a part-time teacher at Lewis, who teaches special education and is working on her doctorate. “As an educator, for me, the importance is to ... make sure they become open-minded, and respectful, don’t judge people, learn how to live and accept others.”
“To live in peace and avoid war, we should understand each other’s cultures. Accept and respect are the key words,” Elias said.
She teaches about the Arabic world through themes, such as places, history, geography, culture, clothes and customs.
In two weeks, students learned their alphabet, learned to write their names in Arabic and how to introduce themselves and talk about their age, hobbies and family in the language.
‘Pretty difficult’
Beata Tunkevicius, 17, a senior at Bolingbrook High School, took Arabic to add to her vast knowledge of languages.
“You may not know when you may need it. I really like language studies. This is my seventh. I want to be an immigration lawyer very much,” she said, adding she would also like to be a translator.
“I grew up learning Lithuania, German and Polish,” she said before moving to New York and then, Chicago where she learned English.
The Lithuanian sounds helped her understand Arabic.
“It is pretty hard because their alphabet is completely different, and the way they write and read. It is pretty difficult, but it’s not like it’s impossibly hard to learn,” Beata said.
Beata said one of the speakers helped breakdown the stereotypes she had of Arab countries.
“We think it’s all desert. It’s not. They have Starbucks and what we have,” she said. “English is one of the common languages that most educated people would know in certain countries. In Egypt, the upper-class, know French and English, and they also speak Arabic.
Learning different languages and cultures can lead to peace, she said.
“I don’t believe in war. I don’t think people should fight. If you understand someone else, I think it will just help keep the peace,” she said. “I think it’s important for people to just understand each other and not be at each other’s throats all the time.”
