Arabic – Hebrew in Dialogue is a new advanced course that I am designing with my colleague Dina Roginsky for Spring 2020. It offers a unique and first of it’s kind opportunity to see both  sister languages from a new learning perspective.

Here is  brief description of the course:

Many of the Arab social, economic, artistic, cultural and intellectual trends of thought, (that the reading material for this class tackles), offers a language level that allows for a growth not only in language skills (reading, listening, writing and speaking), but also a growth in understanding these main trends against the backdrop of other intellectual traditions that these films reflect, comment upon or reject.

Viewed from a language perspective, the focal objective of the course is to assist students reach a high standard of proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic.  Additionally – and due to the unique way in which this course is designed ( which includes joined discussion meeting with the counter course Hebrew-Arabic in Dialogue) – the course aims at increasing students’ awareness and knowledge of targeted vocabulary and basic sentence structures that have great similarities between the sister Semitic languages Arabic and Hebrew.

As far as the content is concerned , the course offers a comprehensive understanding of current social, economic, cultural and art issues in various Arab countries by engaging in authentic resources.  Moreover, the course opens a window of sight to the reality, understanding and materialization of the same issues discussed in class but in a different societies, namely Hebrew speaking society(ies).