Localization Fireside Chat
Beyond Textbooks: How Ibtissam Attieh Engages Students with Arabic Arts and Culture
(upbeat music) - Good morning, everybody. This is Robin, are you from the Localization Fireset Chat? And welcome to another recording, another episode. Today, we are talking about education, learning another language, and learning Arabic language specifically in the Western world and how this is possible using what we know and using the education system that we currently have, or new education outlet for learning Arabic, which is a very important language. We underestimate how the Arabic language is important in the world, 500 million people speak it, and learning the language sometimes can be tricky, especially if you're living in the Western world with no access to how you learn it today. I have the honor and a pleasure to be joined with Ithisam Atiyev, Ithisam is an educator which specialized in learning and teaching the Arabic language in the U.S. And Ithisam, welcome to the channel. Welcome to the episode. Glad to have you with me. And thanks for taking the time to be with me this morning. I really appreciate it. No problem. And for us on this channel, it's all about languages. Sometimes we talk about it from a technology perspective, sometimes we talk about it from a translation perspective, and sometimes we talk about it from learning another language perspective. The whole idea behind languages is to bring demographics together, to bring communities together. And the biggest problem in the world is misunderstanding. Generally 99% of the world's problem is miscommunication because we don't understand each other. And it's well proven over the years and over the decades that the more we understand each other's culture, the more peace we create around the world. And this is a true fact. And it's not necessarily just related to the Arabic language. It doesn't matter what language it is. The more close connected we are, the better we are. So welcome to the channel. And for those who don't know you, and I'd love to introduce you to our audience as well. So can you share a little bit about your journey? If you don't mind, Ithisam, tell us a little bit about yourself. Tell us a little bit about your story. How did you end up doing what you do? And then we'll dive into a little bit about you do. But just tell us a little bit about personally what, who you are, what do you do, where you are. Thank you. [VIDEO PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] [END PLAYBACK] Chinese Mandarin, French, Spanish, German, American sign language. We used to offer Hindi, but the program stopped this year. But you will be surprised. A lot of students are learning Arabic. And you're going to think that it's only for native speakers or like heritage speakers, you know, somebody who comes from an Arabic background. No, we have a lot of American. They would love to. And they are interested in learning languages and especially Arabic. It opens a lot of opportunities for that, you know, and some students they think about joining after I and like working with the service and, you know, Arabic is considered as critical language. So a lot of people and students are interested in doing government jobs. And Arabic is one of these languages that will definitely open and give you like more chances to get to that job. 100% I mean we've noticed, I mean, everybody knows that over the years, not nothing new here that students or individuals who know more languages they have more opportunities. And so a unilingual individual may have opportunity obviously and but multilingual professionals, students, however you want to qualify them, classify them. They have better opportunities from a career perspective and from in anything really better communicators etc make them better human being. Maybe people disagree with me more, but I do. I feel like I feel like when you when you are exposed to other languages you understand other cultures, and it makes you a better human being all around all around so much better. Now, when we talk about learning a language in another language in your world and your teaching etc. So, you know, I read about your in your bio something about craft and talk. Can you, you know, how does the two links. Are you teaching on behalf of yourself or on behalf of a company called craft and talk. Can you place it all together for us. Now my my main job is of course I'm a language teacher and I work with this amazing district, but I'm going to tell you something when you are teaching a language and you have a different audience. You cannot like keep talking and explaining. I cannot teach you the same way they taught me back home. You know, we are everything changed technology like you need to use it as a tool in education. And you have to make your class more engaging and more fun. So I thought about this idea of creating craft and talk, which is basically it fulfills two needs. The first need is older language teachers teaching in US in Canada in Europe in South America. We are teaching Arabic as a second language and sometimes it is as a third language because you have a diverse population. And when you are teaching, you cannot only you cannot make your teaching traditional. You have to make it fun engaging and you have to host speakers from the Arabic countries. You know, if you are teaching French to hire people or like you host people, some speakers from France. If you are teaching Arabic, you have to hire some native people to add that flavor to your class. I mean, students, they need to learn from other people. They need to hear other people. It's not only on YouTube or like movies, but you need to hire these speakers. But when you have a young generation and as audience, you cannot only hire a speaker and host them in your class. And then come and talk and do some presentation like PowerPoint, some public like audience will not be interested. You have to come up with an outcome at the end of your session. So I thought about graph and talk because it is crafting, it is doing arts and talking in the target language at the same time. So the first need applies to American schools, international schools, teaching Arabic as second language or third language. You have to hire speakers from the Arab countries to make the classes more engaging, more fun. And we don't only like to presentation about the Arab world. We teach arts. We teach music that relates to the Arabic culture. So this is the first need. The second is, of course, to help the Lebanese population after the explosion that happened in August 2020. Unfortunately, and the inflation, we can mark with this idea to help these Lebanese teachers and artists to have an extra income in order to afford to have like a decent life in Lebanon. So we are targeting two needs to the Lebanese community to help them a little bit. And the American population here the schools, American schools, public schools to make the classes more engaging, more fun, you know, and to hire these speakers to add that touch of Arabic culture in our classes. So I want to make a mention here that we both come from Lebanon for the audience for those who don't. I haven't mentioned that yet to many people but if December and I come from both of us from from Lebanon by background. And I grew up in Beirut personally. And I left long time ago when I was a young man. And so I never been back. But when if the Sam talks about the, the explosion and the people that got affected. And creating an opportunity to support people economically using remote workers or remote worker style in providing teaching opportunities for those individuals who are still in Lebanon. Given the economic crisis that this country is going for this is very admirable. This is very noble. And I hope many people like take take take example of what if the Sam is doing and create opportunities for those individual who cannot leave who's still in the country who's still looking for ways to survive and to serve to to find a way to live. So thanks for sharing that I really appreciate it. I always say Robin Lebanese are not lazy. They just are far from being lazy. Yes, they just need the opportunity to share their culture, you know, their language, their passion for life. I mean, Lebanon is known for that. Like how many times we had these political situations and these wars and we keep surviving. And keep rejuvenating. Yes. Yeah. So you just need this opportunity. Yeah, of course, if you some, let's talk a little bit about start talk. Yes. Tell me a little bit about your involvement in start talk and what is it first for the audience who don't know what start talk is what you involved in there. So start talk is like a program funded by the by the States, of course, by the it's a grant fund program that targets critical languages. And they are funded by the National Security Agency, of course, and they target political languages like Arabic, Chinese, Russian this year. Unfortunately, they stopped funding for Arabic. That means for now is like to offer in a critical need, language, Chinese and Russian, but offer programs and a lot of opportunities for language learning available for teachers and for students. Mainly, they do the programs during summer, but the last couple of years they changed, and they target the program through the whole year, but it's an opportunity for students to learn the language to get immersed. And when I used to teach start talk program, it was mainly in a during summer, and a lot of universities, they offer these programs. They are funded by the government. And it's a, it's a, it's, I used to tell my students it's the best opportunity to learn a language because it's a short time of doing a short time. It can be three weeks, four weeks maximum, and it's a full day, and you get really immersed in that language. You learn everything and a lot of programs. They offer language credits to this year. They stopped for Arabic, but a lot of schools are still offering this program. And they are funded by a different source, which is QFI, Qatar Foundation International, and QFI is promoting the teaching of Arabic language in the States. So it's an opportunity for students to really learn about their language, to get a credit, and also to get immersed in that culture. Okay, so one of the things I noticed through your bio that you're certified educator in Texas. And from that perspective, can you talk a little bit about your sort of like your training and your leadership, and your consulting approach? We're trying to get an insight of your leadership style, I guess, in this question. Yeah, so I'm certified in both languages, French and Arabic, and in 2019 I went back to college. I always had this dream to graduate from an American university, and I wanted my kids to attend my graduation. So that is one of my dream, like my bucket list, and I graduated in 2019 with a master's in education and leadership from UT Arlington, and I got certified as a principal in the state of Texas. That was my main goal, but it was one of the goal. I wanted to achieve that, and I wanted to move to the administration in my schools. But then it changed a little bit, because when you want to become a leader, is to serve the community, correct? And you can also serve the community in a different way. So by craft and talk, I'm serving my community, especially Lebanese community. And by the way, it doesn't have to be only Lebanese community. A lot of people who live in Lebanon, and can speak Arabic, and they come from educational backgrounds, and they can teach instruments and Arabic calligraphy. They are welcome to join craft and talk. So it orbits a lot of native speakers, not only Lebanese. So yeah, I wanted to become a leader in education. I thought maybe schools will give me that opportunity, because we serve the largest Arabic community in the state of Texas. And then I said, no, maybe my goal is to help more the community where I am from. And that's how I switched from leader in the schools to become a leader through craft and talk and helping my community back home. Excellent. Thanks for that. I appreciate it. And thanks for shedding light on that particular angle. Now, one of the things that we talk about when it comes to education is the curriculum itself, like when you're teaching, right? So you have a program, you have a season, a year of education year, I guess, a school year, whatever it is, a quarter basis or a year basis. Talk to me a little bit about the curriculum. Do you develop the curriculum or is it the curriculum instituted by the state? How do you guys come up with a curriculum? I don't know for our audience. I guess they're curious. We have as language teacher, I had, I'm going to talk about my experiences with different like universities and schools. Some schools we hired, they hired like a team of professional people to write the curriculum. But my district where I am now, and this is my eighth year, we as teachers, we do the curriculum together, you know? And it's the same curriculum that applies to all the languages taught in the district. You just have to switch it and change a little bit according to your audience. You know, some units you can teach in level one for beginners, some units you have to teach it in level two. And it varies between languages, you know, like Mandarin and Arabic. They cannot be compelled to French or Spanish. I mean, they are the easiest languages, French and Spanish, level one. Or Arabic and Chinese, they come like in level four. And they are super hard to learn. So we have like, we switch a little bit the curriculum, but we write the curriculum. We come up, we follow the ticks from the state of Texas, the board of education, the TA. And then according to these ticks, we develop our curriculum. But of course, we have like some units and each teacher develops or like writes that own lesson plans. But we follow the curriculum of the district. Excuse me, sorry about that. Sneez do happen on this podcast. And they're part of the part and parcel of what I do here is like, I tell people this is a live, this is how it doesn't get any more life than this. So a lot of things can happen on this call. And it's the fall season here in Canada and my allergies go through the roof during the fall season. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about Actful. First, congratulations on being the elected the vice chair of Actful. Tell us what Actful is and what is your responsibility. So Actful stands for American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. And it's an organization that offers services and resources to support language teachers and language professionals. And so we have like proficiency guidelines and level descriptors that all the language teachers follow in the teaching. Yeah, so I cannot like elaborate a lot about this, but I work with the group of the Arabic teachers. And we try to do a webinars, a lot of webinars and we try to do some meetings and try to help the community of Arab teachers in the teaching in the states. And so is it a national association or is it just for the state of Texas? No, no, no, it's for the it's national. Oh, it's a national states. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. And when you say webinars, we're trying to educate and empower the educators, I guess the teachers, correct? We always come up with ideas with weaknesses that teachers have. We go through surveys, you know, and we come up with a lot of ideas that can help them to try to empower teachers. I am one of them, you know, and like come up with new ideas, how to educate AI, how to use technology. Like we refer to their surveys and what they need to do in order to make their classes more engaging, you know, try to empower, make them like more powerful in their class. Yeah, okay, so what we've known so far and you know what you've shared with me so far is great. I would be miss if I didn't ask the question of artificial intelligence. Where does this sit in your mind? Like what is when you think artificial intelligence is in the job that you're doing? How do you feel about that? What is it? Does it affect you personally? Does it affect your students? Does it affect what you do in which way? I mean, you have to use AI in your teaching. If you are scared of using it, that's it. You cannot be a teacher because you have to improve your teaching. And my advice, the best advice you can get is to use it as a tool to help you, to empower you because it's helping a lot of teachers and you have a lot of new software that you can use and that you can implement in your classes. And it just facilitates the task for everyone. Now, I understand for students it is limited, but for teachers, we have to use it as one of our main resources. You know, it helps a lot as tool to build your lessons, to give you some ideas, a lot of time we lack of imagination. And you just use it to twist your lessons a little bit to make it more engaging, more fun. We have to use AI to spot this curiosity. At some point, you stop and you always have to improve yourself. And the best way is, of course, to go with technology and use it as a tool to help you not be scared of AI. And what do you say to your students when it comes to AI? I mean, we have to be smart when we use these tools. You cannot just copy, copy, paste, and apply everything you find online. And for me, for Arabic, I mean, you put a plant online online, I don't copy and paste it, because I change and I see how I can apply it in my classes or in my work. You cannot only copy and paste and take and always have to change whatever. Human in the middle, we call it, like you always have to be interacting with it. Now, from your perspective and where you are right now, so what's next for you? What's next for me? I would love to stay in education forever. It's something, it's like my passion. I like to always work this curiosity for cultures, you know, and for traditions. I like to push my students to build empathy for others, to languages. I would love to keep bringing culture and diversity to my classroom. My main focus, of course, is on my languages and on my work, but also my main focus will be on growing craft and talk. Spreading the culture, the Arabic arts, culture, make people aware of the change their ideas about all these stereotypes that we have about other cultures and keep like spreading positivity. So my goal is to grow as a company and target not only USA or like Canada and South America for schools. I want to go to Europe and Asia and keep even if we teach Arabic over there, but I want to target the schools that teach Arabic as a second language. I want to try to build this engaging community, this engaging classroom everywhere by spreading culture and arts. It's like the best way to make your classes really engaging and fun for your audience. When you give your learner the time, the space and the materials for a creative expression. Sure. And, you know, I'm glad that you came online today with me today and we have in this conversation and I'm hoping that by the end of this conversation by the time we publish this episode and hopefully something good comes out of it for you. What is your hope and desire out of this conversation? What are you hoping to achieve out of this conversation? I want to spread more positivity about Arabic language and Arabic culture and I want everyone to know. We should not be afraid of opening up about learning a new language, you know, because that's the best way to communicate with people. When you learn a language, you learn their traditions, you learn the culture of that new country, you know. I just want to tell all the teachers do not be stuck in the traditional way of teaching, do not be scared of hiring speakers like naked teachers to make your class more fun, more engaging. I mean studies have shown that when you do arts in your classes, when you use technology, when you give your students all these tools to help them like express themselves, it's lower their stress, it improves their memory, it makes them feel more connected, especially when they speak to other speakers from the target language they are learning. So do not be afraid of implementing new strategies in your classroom, stay away from books, stay away from the traditional way, because it's our job and it's our priority to know the language programs in the schools and we cannot achieve that by following traditional ways. Absolutely. Make your classes absolutely engaging and fun, especially for this new generation. Outside the box thinking for education, which is very important. My, I guess, you know, for our last question for you, I guess, on this one is how do people get in touch with you regarding a craft and talk. Is there like you want us to publish any websites or any connection, any way that people can connect with you, I guess. Yeah, of course. So I just want to say, Robin, that we work with the schools, with the universities, with language centers that offer Arabic. So that is these are our main clients and connections, but we just launched some sessions open to the public. And we started teaching Arabic and Arabic arts and all these sessions will be on zone. And because I got a lot of private messages asking, like, what can we learn about a lot of teachers, they are learning when they hire these guests and these artists, but they want to enjoy doing some arts, you know, by themselves. So we just launched our sessions and they are open to public. So we have a website, which is craft and talk to the letter and not and craft and talk. And they can, of course, email me at info@craftanttalk and we are also on social media. We have Instagram, account, craft and talk. I will certainly tag you in the. Yeah, I'll certainly tag you in the publication of this episode. And as you've seen from previous episode, obviously, I do, you know, the long publication, the long video or the long podcast, then we'll do a few short videos. And for the audience who are not following us on our TikTok channel, we do now have a TikTok channel for the channel for the localization fireside chat. And we're publishing, I'm publishing the short videos of these conversations on our TikTok channel as well. So it's a pretty interesting one. Last week's episode with Henry daughter, the founder of ProZet.com, which is the largest freelance website that started it all, I guess, of the freelance community in the language industry. So it was a pretty interesting conversation. And for this particular conversation with if the Sam will do the same. There'll be a video published on our YouTube channel. There'll be an audio podcast published on your favorite podcast software or application that you use. And also put a blog on our blog site, resulting in this conversation. We'll do a summary of our conversation on the on our blog site as well. So there's plenty of content that you and your team, if this time you can share, you can like, you can share with your network as well. And for our audience, if you like this particular topic, when we talk about education, please let us know. We can have a little bit more conversation regarding education on this channel, obviously. And for if you some, I think one of the guests on this channel here before it was Karen Decker, current ALC president, who runs a an education institute in Washington. She does, she does run the International Institute, I guess, in for studies in Washington. Maybe there are some cooperation there that can happen. Maybe I don't know. But those conversations are always linked up together. So that's pretty good. Any last comments from your side before we adjourn. Thank you Robin again for giving me the opportunity to share my story of traffic and talk and yeah. Thanks so much for being a guest on the channel if you some I'm realizing the time has come here. You said five to nine so I want to make sure that we make sure that we finish on time. So I appreciate your time with me today. And I appreciate the conversation. You welcome back to the channel anytime if you have an update, you want to share with the with the audience. You don't need an invitation me casa succasa. It's your consider your own channel, whatever you need. I'm here to support you to help you out through everything I can to make sure that you guys are successful for what you do it. Thanks again for being part of this conversation and to the audience. Thank you for listening in if you're coming in on our podcast channel. And thanks for watching us on YouTube and thanks for following us on all of our social media and thanks for watching in and thanks for listening in for this particular conversation with you guys next time really happy and ecstatic that we've had the opportunity to do this today. And to our audience. I want to thank you so much for listening in if you're coming in on our podcast channel. Thanks for listening in thanks for taking us with you to the gym to whatever to your walks and listening to the podcast I hear a lot of people do that. Thanks for watching and really appreciate it and thanks for liking commenting and sharing the content that we're creating on this channel to Henry and the team. Congratulations on your 25th anniversary and thank you again for being with me today. Don't hang up just when we finished the recording will continue on with the site conversation for a few minutes.