Arabic Camp Day
The U.S. State Department: Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs just approved our grant proposal to hold an Arabic Camp Day. About two hundred and fifty students from across the state will be attending on March 26. They will participate in linguistic and cultural activities in which they are required to speak Arabic. We will … Continue reading
Speaking Arabic
This may not matter to anyone else but I’m aching to say it: My Arabic is seriously improving. Arabic seems to be a guy thing. Classes are full of guys whether I’m taking or teaching it. I didn’t plan to take it, didn’t intend to continue, and certainly didn’t think I’d have the time and … Continue reading
Mosque Field Trip
Yesterday we went on a field trip to Khadeeja Islamic Center in Salt Lake City by way of Mazza (Lebanese restaurant) and the AMES Academy Arabic class with Michelle Safadi and her exchange teacher from Egypt, Samir Gibrail. We took two vans. It was pretty funny. We had mostly boys and one girl in my … Continue reading
Turkey
Turkey is quite an interesting place. For a while Turkey was courting the European Union but has been rejected so far. The country has both Christian and Muslim roots. The Ottoman Turks controlled much of the Middle East for a while. Noor, a Turkish TV series played very successfully throughout parts of the Arab world. … Continue reading
MESA Conference, Boston
Highlights Seeing people, meeting new people. Perfect weather. Seafood every day. Rental car with friends up the coast. Learning more about the Middle East. Looking through the books at the conference. Comments My educational emphasis in both graduate school and undergrad was east Asia specifically China/Taiwan. I felt like I was trying to digest the meat … Continue reading
Boston Trip 1
I can’t believe I can actually say I’ve been to Boston. After all the times I had it on my list of places to go. It was part site seeing and two different conferences. Learned a lot. I have to say, one of my favorite parts was visiting Steven Berbeco’s Arabic classes at Charlestown High … Continue reading
Presenting
I was asked to present at today’s Utah Foreign Language Association conference about innovation in Arabic teaching. I really need a lesson on how to get videos to play from Power Point without closing it and everything freezing? (In other words my big bang in the end wasn’t so big but that’s ok.) Today made … Continue reading
Three Cups of Tea
Just finished Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time written by co-authors Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. Read it in preparation for the forum speech he gave at Brigham Young University last week. Got a chapter short of deadline but finally finished a week later. To me … Continue reading
World Travel in Your Head
Someone just asked me what it was like to switch from speaking Mandarin to Arabic in a short space of time. It got me thinking. A story: When I lived in England, my best friend was Chinese, Song Ran. We spoke only Mandarin together. One day we were in a group of people who only … Continue reading
aud'acious 
What the Dog Saw “Most Likely to Succeed”
Posted by bookncurls on March 14, 2010 · 1 Comment
This is actually the article that I was referred to What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures by Malcolm Gladwell to read. It’s about picking the best teachers. Most Likely to Succeed: How do we Hire When we Can’t Tell Who’s Right for the Job? Gladwell compares picking quarterbacks for pro football to picking good … Continue reading →
Filed under A Comment, Book Review · Tagged with Arabic, ASL, Malcolm Gladwell, teaching, What the Dog Saw