Eloy Gonzalez feels language is the first step toward understanding a culture.
The professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures will help coordinate classes of Arabic 101 this summer with its instructor, student Saad Alshahrani. The class will run for eight weeks and emphasize basic pronunciation along with background on conversion of languages into Arabic.
Students will also learn to write Arabic and about the Arab culture, according to a WSU news release.
Alshahrani has a master’s degree in statistics from WSU and a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and Arabic from King Khalid University in Saudi Arabia, according to the release. He previously taught Arabic in his home country.
The key to a good relationship and a better future between the United States and the Arab world is cultural exchange, and the teaching of languages helps, Gonzalez said.
Arabic is taught at other universities, but this is a first for WSU.
“Only [the University of Washington] offers a live course on Arabic ‘til now in the state of Washington,” Gonzalez said.
Alshahrani said he is committed to WSU and wants to give back after his experience at the university.
The course will be offered only during the summer session due to a lack of funding, and the class size will be limited to 24 students.
“We will be using DVDs and textbooks to teach students,” Alshahrani said.
Until now, WSU had four seats for an Arabic language course at the University of Idaho. The course was provided through a teleconference from the University of Minnesota.
“It is unfortunate that a language like Arabic is still not taught at WSU,” Gonzalez said.
He said the WSU department wants to apply for a government grant to continue teaching the course, and possibly make it a minor, according to the release.
He said offering this course adds to the quality of education at the university.
“Endeavors that are pursued only because of the pressure of immediate or imminent events are, by their very nature, ephemeral,” Gonzalez said. “Those that are pursued for atemporal values, such as the improvements in education that lead to better understanding and communication between all the peoples of this Earth, are everlasting. We want to bring Arabic to WSU fo.
the latter..
