"Have you hit the proverbial wall in your Arabic language development? Need to brush up on your speaking before the big DLPT test or that tour abroad for work? Whatever your current proficiency may be, look no further - your new instructor is here.

In my capacity as a professor of Arabic language and literature at the College of William and Mary and at Georgia State University, I have taught the full range of students, from those with no previous linguistic experience to so-called ‘second generation’ American-born native speakers of Arabic. I can furnish student evaluations from both schools upon request. My teaching methodologies are based largely on the ‘proficiency’ method espoused by the authors of the Al-Kitaab textbook series (Al-Batal, Brustad, et. al). I have studied with two of the textbook’s authors, and received part of my training at the Middlebury College intensive summer program in 2000, having attended the College as a student nearly a decade earlier in 1991. I hold a Ph.D from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, in Modern Arabic Literature and have near-native proficiencies both in Modern Standard Arabic and Egyptian colloquial.

I have also worked with the Federal government as an Arabic media analyst and am conversant in an array of media environments - print, television, new social networks, the amorphous entity we call the Arab blogosphere, the realm of the Pan-Arab satellite giants and other world media. I fully understand how that array of media drives the needs of the professional student, particularly in the DC area, and am capable of tailoring instruction to those needs (I can also provide career counseling for college students puzzling over how to translate language training into a marketable job asset). Finally, and not least important, as a non-native speaker who has achieved a relatively high level of proficiency, I serve as a positive role model, showing students that success in Arabic is in fact attainable.

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