Arabic Language Assessments Part I: Teaching for Proficiency in the US Immersion Classroom

Episode Transcript
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Caroline Sibley (00:04):
Ahlan ya jamiyya’. Welcome to all things
Arabic, a podcast that tacklesthe key issues for Arabic
teachers and Arabic learners inprimary and secondary schools
outside the outer world, mainlyin the US and Europe. It's
produced by QFI and hosted byme, Caroline Sibley, or Ustadha
Caroline, a former Arabicstudent turned teacher, living

(00:24):
and teaching in North Carolina.
In today's episode, we'll take adeep dive into proficiency
assessments. We'll focus onAvants STAMP assessment, just
one of the proficiency andperformance tools available.
We'll be discussing other onesin future episodes. With us
today, we're honored to hostRolla Elsaiary and Amanda Haji
Minnillo. Both of them haveyears of experience in the world

(00:45):
language classroom, and havesince moved into administrative
teacher training and assessmentdevelopment roles. They'll
provide their insights on what'sworking, what needs addressing
and how assessments are helpingteachers here in the US, as well
as what resources are out therefor Arabic teachers. Let's start
with Rolla.

(01:15):
Can you tell us briefly aboutyour background in teaching
Arabic, and how you foundyourself in the current role as
magnet coordinator at AIMS?

Rolla Elsaiary (01:23):
Certainly as I started my career, well, I grew
up as bilingual. And Iunderstood how challenging it
could be some times when I learnEnglish and content in English
while my native Arabic speaker.
So Well, I grew up I traveledthe world, I came to the US, I
felt like it's my passion now todo a teaching career. So when I
moved to teaching, and I foundthe opportunity for Arabic

(01:45):
immersion, I joined there, andI've been teaching for five
years. And eventually I came upto be the Magnet coordinator at
the same school. And I'menjoying it.

For our US and global audience who may not be
familiar with languagestandards, and language
standardization. Can you give usa brief overview of US based
language standards and whattools you all use at the Arabic
Immersion Magnet School or AIMS?
And what you all use forassessments?
So we won't befocused too long on the

Yeah, certainly, in AIMS we have different
language assessments. And it hasbeen progressing. So we, when we
first started, we used like ateacher created assessments. And
challenges, as I'm sure many ofour listeners are actual
we get together as a team, wesat down and we saw, we let's
just start with letterrecognition letter sounds and
teachers of Arabic, and who arereally seeking answers and
then maybe high frequency words,and then the reading levels.

(02:34):
Eventually we are building thisof ACTFL, but we found out STAMP
is really helpful for us when westarted beginning of the year,
solutions. However, for everyoneto be on the same page, could
and then end of the year, wewould see the progression of the
language. And I think it'sreally great tool to measure
proficiency for students.

(03:03):
you quickly outline some of thebiggest challenges or obstacles
in assessing Arabic proficiencyfor your learners at AIMS?
Absolutely, itwas before the lack of
standardized testing, which isnow we rely on stamp. And that's
really helpful for us. I thinkone of the biggest challenge we
have right now is sometimes lackof resources and incorporating

(03:25):
that with assessing ourstudents. The difference in
proficiency levels within thesame classroom in the same grade
level is also an obstacle forthe teachers and how to address
and target differentiation forevery student to make sure
everyone has the opportunity tospeak, listen, participate in
the classroom as well. So that'sone of the biggest things for
the teachers and assessing themsometimes it's hard for them. So

(03:47):
understanding the rubrics, andhow to go into the these are the
levels that I will need toassess on and this is how I can
grade them maybe on it and thisis where they start where they
could be in. So really relyingon the assessment of the rubric
for step assessment that'sreally helped them it will tell
them like what areas exactlythey need to target to be able

(04:10):
to take their students from hereto there

to the next level of proficiency. Wonderful.
In each of the four skills.

Yes, in the four domains. And I think we're the
focus in our school is like moreof interpretive, interpersonal
and presentational to get achance for the students to be
able to speak and listen more.
And eventually as they go up orintegrate levels like third
grade and up they start alsoincorporating like reading and
writing as well.

Thank you for that overview of the challenges.
So it sounds like teachers haveaccess to really quality,
rigorous and effectiveassessments through STAMP. How
do you see the currentassessment process reflecting
and supporting teachers in theirteaching effort?

Teachers know the assessments, they know how
to assess their students. Iwould say maybe there's a
missing link between lookinginto the rubrics and the 'Can
Do' statements reflecting thatin the actual practice teaching
in the classroom is sometimestough for them. I'm not sure
exactly where is the gap. Butcertainly when we sit together

(05:15):
as a team, I plan together andthis is a 'Can Do' statement.
This is the target levels we aretargeting for our students.
Let's reflect that on thelesson, the task, the activity,
it helps us create more creativeideas and incorporate it in the
classroom. But it's still achallenge for us.

Absolutely. It sounds like you're describing
backwards design.

Absolutely. Yes.
Yes, exactly. Okay.

Do you feel like backwards design is a
technique that all languageteachers know about have access
to practice?

Backward design has been in books for education
for years and years ago, andmany teachers maybe learned
about it, not just know aboutit, it's always sometimes
forgettable. But when we alwayshave to remind teachers and give
them that this new strategies ortools to like, really plan with
end goal in mind, it's helpedthem. Maybe the practice itself

(06:09):
is harder than just saying it'sso easy said than done. So we
really need to maybe asadministrators work with the
teachers about how we can designit, how can we maybe just
incorporate that in ourworkshops and everything and
model that with the teachersthat would help them to be able
to design their own lessons aswell?

What do you see as the positives of the current
assessment tools, what'sworking?

I love the strength of rubric in STAMP.
Every student will come out withtheir own rubric. Some students
will be scored, for instance, toin speaking, but three and
listening. So it will tell youexactly what they need to be
able to move to the next levelin their proficiency. And I feel
like this is a great tool to beable to use it for the teachers

(06:56):
will be able to use it toaddress that. We have one of the
amazing teachers, they are ableto she's able to integrate every
speaking activity to all herstudents, irrespective of their
proficiency levels. She knowsexactly what questions she would
ask the student and what answerand sentence term and support
she would give to for them tospeak up. And it really helps

(07:17):
because it boosts the confidenceof all learners, irrespective of
their levels,

When they're able to reach that level of
proficiency that they're aimingfor. And they can feel that
they've reached that level andthey've met their goal. That's
wonderful. So where do you feellike assessment tools could
stand to grow or change?

I would say maybe dig deeper into the
rubrics and see what can we doto support the teachers design
lessons based on these rubricsto be able to grow? I think the
assessments itself is good, it'sreliable. It's valid has been
tested by many researchers. AndI'm very confident using stem
for proficiency test. Butlooking into the performance

(07:59):
test, maybe the assessments forevery day, the formative
assessments in particular, Ithink this is another thing we
need to look into it. One of thethings that maybe I was talking
about it to QFI Institute andthe AVANT about how can we
translate the proficiency levelsinto numbers, into grades? And

(08:21):
how can we build rubrics basedof the proficiency level for
every lesson, every task for theteachers to be able to grade
their students accurately.
There's always a gap between thegrading between the language and
the content. Looking into theproficiency levels, for
instance, I have the like novicehigh they use simple sentences.

(08:42):
If I would build a rubric onthat, I would maybe just give
some support to the teachers aslike the it's from one to four,
four is the highest level of therubrics. That's where I want to
see complete accurate simplesentences, that student will get
a four if a student will maybedo simple sentences with
repetitive learned vocabulary ormemorized words. That maybe a

(09:04):
three was little bit few errors,hidden there or mistakes, that
can be a three. If they can dojust like one sentence. barely
did in one sentence, then maybethat's a two. If just
vocabulary's memorized, that's aone. And based off that, we can
transfer these rubric into ascorable grades and when I did

(09:24):
this scorable grades I lookedinto each proficiency level
there is a ceiling there's afloor and there's somewhere in
the middle. Each one within thesame proficiency level can be
graded. For instance, we can dolike 99, maybe 80s and 70s. But
I would say having like aminimum and a maximum, and let
the teachers work within therubric it will definitely help

(09:46):
them to be able to be moreeffective in rating their
students. And I got this ideabecause I am like, right now I
am an OPI certified tester aswell, and just going through all
these trainings is not an easyway to go. It's like a intense
12 weeks of training, and to beable to rate the students is not
easy. Whatever it's a speakingconversation or even a writing

(10:08):
piece, it takes a lot of effortsand a lot of time to be able to
understand the proficiencylevels. And I don't, I don't
wonder why the teachers alwaysstruggle in that, it makes a lot
of sense. So helping withrubrics on the proficiency level
will definitely give them abetter guidance about where to
go from there.

But there's a lot of pushback against
assessing sometimes in such aformal and standardized way.
Because, you know, there'ssometimes the worry that it
might cause students to feelanxiety or like, they're only
learning for the purpose of atest. But I don't think that
STAMP is designed in that way tomake students feel like that.

(10:47):
And I think the way that theyreceive the rubric information,
and the way that teachers usethat information, to build them
up, can do statement by can dostatement towards proficiency. I
think it's a very empoweringmethod for teachers to do.

I do too. And I think the anxiety level, when
you talk about anxiety inspecific, I would say it's
created more by the teacher,teachers person, it varies so
much, some teachers got reallyanxious when it comes to testing
coming up, and they want toprove that they are doing a good
job. And that's fear, right? Sojust having these teachers
talking about, oh, the test iscoming, we have to prep for the

(11:24):
test that builds an anxiety forthe students, and that make them
really worried about what theycan do. I do remember a couple
of students in middle school,they are amazing, phenomenal
students. And they were saying,Oh, we're not getting enough. I
don't think we're gonna do this.
Like, why do you think you'renot going to do this? You have
been doing this sincekindergarten, you're in seventh
grade right now. I'm sure youcan do my way better than I am

(11:44):
expecting you to do. But otherteachers who are really like
very calm, I wouldn't say laidback. They're just calm. They
are really, really chilled. Andthere's like supporting and
positive energy in theclassroom. Their students never
felt anything. They were reallyhappy about all that. So I felt
like it's more of how theteacher feels transfers to the
classroom. It's not about theassessment itself. In our

(12:08):
school, that's the students hasbeen assessed all the time.
There's benchmark, there'sdiagnostic assessments, there's
thar assessments, the stateexam, there's so many assessment
they're going through, it'sreally depends on how the
teachers delivered that to thestudents.

So Rolla. I know you've spent part of your
life living in the UK, thatgrowing up, you're educated in
British school system in Egypt.
Are there any methods fromEurope or from the UK, that you
think US based Arabic teacherscould learn to better teach the
language?

Yes, absolutely.
Right now I'm doing mydissertation about STAMP, and
I'm incorporating Arabic as thelanguage about how to learn
content through language,because I believe this is the
most effective way of learninglanguage is to really to look
into real life situations. SoI've came across in my research
is about the CLIL method, whichis Content Language Integrated

(13:05):
Learning. And it's a Europeanbased method. And it's been
tested and used by many EuropeanScandinavian countries, as well
as France, and maybe a lot morethat I don't know about. But it
has been very effective byteaching content, language
through the content. Forinstance, I would say science
itself is having its ownlanguage. There's Brown and Ryoo

(13:27):
research article talking abouthow can we teach students
science as a language. Soteaching science through the
lens of Arabic language is notgoing to be as difficult as
people can think of. Forinstance, in our school, we are
supposed to be teaching as animmersion. So a lot of pushback
we get sometimes from theteachers that is that "how can

(13:51):
we teach like photosynthesis inArabic? How can we teach
hypothesis in Arabic?" I waslike, Okay, well, this is not an
everyday language for a studentto talk to a child was eight
years old, tell them what isphotosynthesis? They don't know
what's photosynthesis inEnglish. So teaching and
introducing that in Arabic, thatwould definitely also going to
be okay, if we can teach them inEnglish. And then why would do

(14:12):
we teach them this way? Whydon't we just tell them how
radish grows. And then this is areal life experience, they can
look around them explore a storythat talks about people raising
the farm, how they can helptheir father, for instance,
children of the father or the orthe parents to grow up growing
some plants and vegetables. Andfrom there, they will be able to

(14:32):
use this real life experience,to be able to understand what is
a plant life cycle, what isphotosynthesis and make maybe an
experiment. So I feel like thisis one of the most effective
ways you're using content,language, and getting at what we
call it phenomena basedinstruction, you're using a real
life experiences throughstorylines to be able to

(14:53):
incorporate that. .

It sounds very inspiring. I'm definitely
curious to learn more. Moreabout the CLIL method. So I'll
end with one final question. Howdo you see students impacted by
assessments on their journey oflanguage learning?

We have a lot of students have that intrinsic
motivation to learn a lot more.
So just giving them theirassessments. And to be honest,
pretty much I would say it'simpacted, the impact I saw
clearly in the middle schoolstudents, the older students,
when they see the rubrics,they'd be able to understand and
read it. Oh, is this where I amright now? I want to be there.
So it really created theintrinsic motivation for

(15:34):
students to grow and learn moreabout the language. And really,
I would say language is not justlike a language to learn, read,
write and speak. It grows 21stcentury skills, it gives them
the opportunity to be globalminded, and given the
opportunity to be, as you said,long life learners, and it
create careers in their lives,as well as opportunities that
they will never thought about,they can travel the world. So

(15:56):
that growing passion and theculture they understand and
learn about it really helpedthem to move along.

We just heard from Rolla about how teachers
and administrators are usingassessments. Let's now hear from
Amanda Haji Minnillo, who worksfor avant more learning to find
out what goes into formulatingthese assessments we use. And
just to say QFI, works closelywith Avant MORE learning, which
develops and trains teachers howto use the STAMP assessments in

(16:28):
their schools to measure Arabiclanguage proficiency. Let's
start by finding out how Amandagot into this line of work.

Amanda H. Minillo (16:35):
So I actually used to teach high school
French. And I did that for aboutnine years. And then I went to
work at the district as aninstructional coach, for K
through 12, programs ofimmersion and world language.
With that, we did a lot ofperformance based practices,
things that drove toproficiency, collecting data,

(16:58):
and all of that, and I justreally wanted to provide people
across the country theopportunities for professional
learning that we had in mydistrict. So I joined the Avant
MORE Learning team to do so andto just travel and provide
professional learning for peoplewho teach languages.

As a language teacher, myself, I have had the
incredible opportunity to takeprofessional development with
you over the past two summers atthe QFI sponsored Arabic
Immersion Institute. We alwayshave a lot of fun.

We do, and I'm so glad that I've gotten to
connect with you and the Arabicteachers through it.

Amanda, for our US and global audience members
who may not be as familiar withlanguage assessments, can you
tell us the role that Avant MORELearning or Avant for short
plays in creating accurate andrigorous assessment tools for
teachers of Arabic?

Absolutely.
So at Avant Assessments, weprovide a proficiency test. And
so that is different fromperformance. Performance is what
we're doing in the classroom, isin a controlled environment. The
teacher knows what the languagethe students have, and the
teacher knows the content thatthey're teaching. So at a AVANT
Assessment, we provide aproficiency assessment. So with
that, we actually offerassessments to figure out what

(18:18):
are kids transferring from whatthey're learning in the
classroom into real worldsettings.

Yes. And I think that's great. Because, you
know, as a language teacher,myself, as a former language
teacher, you know, really ourgoal is to equip our students
with tools in the language, thatthen they can step outside of
the classroom, and connect withtheir own local communities
connect with other students intheir own school, who might be

(18:47):
speakers of the language, and,you know, connect more with
global communities around theworld. So our next question
might be a little simple, but Iknow many teachers are wondering
what exactly goes into theprocess of making Arabic
assessments? Can you tell usyour secret sauce?

Absolutely.
And I wish I could take creditfor creating the assessments. I
did not personally do that. Butwe have a phenomenal team who
specialize in assessmentproduction. And so they are very
well versed in what is reliableand effective assessments. Part
of that process is reallyidentifying real world purposes

(19:29):
and context for students toassess in. So that's like one of
the things with the proficiencyassessment, you can't really
teach to it because we reallywant to see can the students
take what they know and transferit into an unknown situation? So
with that we have the real worldcontext, because it's a

(19:49):
proficiency assessment and not aknowledge assessment, creating
opportunities for students touse the language. But also,
they're such a phenomenal teamwhere they test out some sample
items and see based off ofstudents responses, is the item
itself effective, do studentsneed a certain background

(20:11):
knowledge in order to besuccessful? Because we don't
want background knowledge orcultural expectations to inhibit
students language proficiency.
So really evaluating each testitem to make sure that it really
is showing their trueproficiency in their linguistic
abilities and not necessarilycontent abilities.

Amanda, could you quickly outline some of the
biggest challenges or obstaclesin assessing Arabic from your
end, the magical folks behindassessment creation?

So and this isn't unique to Arabic, but for
all of the languages we offer,it is constantly monitoring and
ensuring that our raters arebeing effective. So they go
through a very rigorous processof getting trained, but then
there's constant self assessmentand evaluation to ensure that we
are writing effectively andadhering to the rubric, we also

(21:05):
try to ensure that we'reproviding timely feedback. And
so there's a lot that goes intojust ensuring that we are being
as reliable as possible. ratersare students samples, when
students take the test, theywill go and 20% of the samples
actually get pulled at random togo through a second rating to

(21:25):
ensure that we are beingreliable across our raters.

Yes, I love that. And I also really love
that you all have been sothoughtful in creating your
rubrics, and sharing that rubriccreation with teachers, and in
your role traveling to meetteachers, and teaching them how
to use those rubrics to theninform their proficiency-based

(21:52):
instruction in class. Right, youknow, even though we can't
necessarily teach to a test, wecan't, you know, you can take
Driver's Ed lessons online, butuntil you actually get in that
car, and you drive the car inthe real world, and that duck is
walking across the road, you'renot in that real world context.

(22:12):
But I really love that Avantfocuses not only on the quality
of their assessments, and howclosely that is aligned with
real world language proficiency.
And you all reach across thetable to work with teachers, and
teach them how to be autonomousin building that proficiency
through performance-basedinstruction in their classroom.

(22:34):
You really have got both bothends of the equation.

Absolutely.
And teachers I truly believe arethe people who I mean, they're
the frontlines, right. They'rethe people who are bringing this
beautiful language to students,and bringing about global minded
citizens, I believe when wethink about the language
classrooms, they are the leadersin equity. And so I just, it's
my privilege to be part of thatjourney and support teachers

(23:02):
along the way, because what wedo in the classroom truly
matters, and building proficientlanguage learners.

Absolutely. I am right there with you. Based
on teacher feedback, what'sworking well with the
assessments?

So I think what teachers—because again, I
also use the STAMP assessment asa teacher. And so I think what
teachers really enjoy is that atthe end of the assessment,
teachers have access to the datathat their classroom or their
individual students are able todo. They are able to pull
student samples. So I can seewhat if my student got a

(23:41):
Novice-High, I can click and Ican actually see what they
produce as a product. And soyou're able to use that for
coaching students, for providingfeedback to them. But not just
that we have so many resources.
So yes, a teacher who givesSTAMP can collect the data at
the end, and it shows anindividual powerup guide for
each student. So it'll say, "InListening, you're scoring a

(24:04):
Novice-Mid, this is what you cando to score better." And so we
take the burden off of theteacher of providing that
feedback and talking throughproficiency in a way that
student—it's in studentlanguage. And so I do believe
that they appreciate that. As ateacher who used it, I also
appreciated that our powerupfeedback guide is free. It's a

(24:26):
resource that even if you don'tgive STAMP, you can use that
as—you can use that feedback inthe classroom. And so you can
print it off, and students cansee, "Okay, if I'm scoring
Novice-Mid, this is what I cando." So it celebrates what
they're able to do first, andsay, "Hey, let's try this out.
Try to do these things and seeif we can power up your
language." So I think the factthat it's not simply providing

(24:48):
data, but providing actionablesteps that can be taken back for
the student and the classroomteacher on monitoring what
we—and adapting to the needs ofour students.

Absolutely. And that powerup guide is available
in Arabic, I have seen it, veryexciting to have that incredibly
useful and strong resource forall the Arabic language teachers
out there. Also based on teacherfeedback, it sounds like there's
a lot that's going really well,is there any place that the

(25:22):
Avant Assessments could stand togrow?

So I think it goes back again to we are
constantly trying to stay up todate. And this is a, we're in a
continuous growth mindset. And Ithink that that's really
important for all companies. Sowe constantly are reevaluating,
we're going back and looking atquestions that are on the
assessment and seeing Okay, isit most effectively measuring

(25:47):
student language production, isit most relevant with the
current times and really usingthose real world resources, so
just keeping the assessmentfresh up to date and relevant to
students abilities. And we dooffer two different types of
assessments. So we have theSTAMP for E, which is
elementary, or the STAMP E. Andthen we also have the STAMP for

(26:12):
S, which is for sixth—sevenththrough 12th graders. And so we
really tried to make sure thateach one of those are relevant
also to the age of the studentstaking the assessment.

Yes, I think that's definitely been one of
the biggest challenges I—andmaybe you can relate. But as a
language teacher, I think weoften find ourselves at any age
and stage for a learner, like Istarted teaching at the high
school level, I did move down toteach first and second grade,
and now I teach college, right,because they're all language

(26:44):
learners. And sometimes it canbe a bit of a challenge when the
assessment content reflects an18-year-old, but it's the only
assessment content that youhave. And it just doesn't feel
appropriate to give that to aseven-year-old. You know, even
if it's beginner language, thecontent has to be appropriate.

(27:04):
So that's amazing to hear thatyou all really focused on
keeping that fresh.
In your role as a professionallearning specialist, what do you
do to support teachers inlearning how to lock in and
teach effectively towardsproficiency?

So in my role, I specialize in
methodology, so an effectiveinstruction, but my particular
wheelhouse is. I enjoy sharingactivities that spark joy in
students. So it's going to bestrategies that are not only
research based, but also justbuild that community in the
classroom where students canfeel safe to take risks with the

(27:41):
language, which, again, what youdo in the classroom matters. So
ultimately looking at how can webuild activities in the
classroom that are going toencourage proficiency in the
language.

Right, and if students are, are working on
building up that courage in thelanguage to take risks in the
classroom, we know that theminute they step into the
unknown world, it will take alot of courage and risk taking
in the language as well. So it'samazing that you're working on
building the interpersonalskills, alongside the linguistic

(28:14):
and the culture and the contentskills.

Absolutely.
And we also do so depending onthe needs of the school, we
consult with the district andwhat not. So I also lead
proficiency rating. So how do werate students on the scale from
novice low to advanced, low ormid? And I also help teams
figure out how to do such workin their schools. So we don't

(28:40):
want to just say, well, here'sproficiency rating, but how can
you take it into your practicewith actionable steps that you
can implement the next day?

So Amanda, I'll end with one last question.
Nearly everyone involved in theproduction of this podcast and
most of our viewers truly desireto see Arabic taught along with
all other world languages. Ourgoal is to create positive
language learning experiencesfor students so positive that
they become lifelong Arabicspeakers and learners. How do

(29:12):
you see assessments working tosupport the study and teaching
of Arabic in the US and abroad?
Because I think you guys arestarting to expand outside the
US.

So first of all, I do want to say thank you,
I like I may get choked upthanking you guys for this. But
as an Arab American, I grew upin the South. So it was just a
very different environment.
People didn't really know what aLebanese person was. So I think
the first thing is to recognizelike what you are doing matters,
and it's a huge thing. It's likechanging the world for little

(29:45):
Amanda's across the world. Andso little Amanda Hajis are so
thankful. So that's why I sotruly enjoy working with the
Arabic teachers because I thinkit's making a huge difference in
terms of equity. In terms ofassessment, I think that what we
need to recognize is back in theday when I was in school, these

(30:08):
programs didn't exist. So thefirst thing we should do with
the assessments is be able tocelebrate what these kids are
able to do. Like these kids arespeaking Arabic, they are
embracing the culture, they areembracing the people. So first
using that to celebrate andadvocate for our programs, and
say this is—students can learnArabic! Because I think some

(30:32):
people get intimidated by it;they see a different alphabet,
and they get intimidated andsay, "No look, like look at what
our kids are doing." So I thinkthat's the the big push. And so
advocating, not simply like—ofcourse advocating with
legislation and saying, "Look,this is what they're doing," but
then we can advocate at thestate to create benchmarks by

(30:53):
looking at our data and sayingthis is what we expect a
kindergarten or a third grade ora 12th grader to do. And so
building those benchmarks andusing the assessments to build
more cohesiveness across thecountry and create more
programs.

Absolutely that standardization, kind of the
crystallization of, if a schoolis interested in starting
Arabic, they know what stepsthey need to take, they have
access to the resources. And youknow, it's about finding
teachers and community oflearners that are interested and
keen to learn this new language.
But there's really a there's aclear path forward for them in

(31:31):
terms of building an Arabiclanguage program. And for
students to be able to haveaccess to either, you know,
maybe Arabic is completely newfor them. Or maybe there's like
a personal connection to it. Andthat is something that allows
the students to feel incrediblyseen and heard and celebrated
alongside of their peers andthey didn't have that

(31:55):
opportunity before.

Absolutely, yes.

Well, thank you so much. I completely appreciate
you taking the time today. Andwe are inspired by all the work
that you do. And hopefully we'llhave you back on the podcast
soon.

I hope so.

Shukran, Ma'salaama!

Ma'salaama!

And thank you to Rolla Elsaiary who joined me
for the first half of thepodcast. It was fascinating to
your thoughts on assessment andteaching towards Arabic language
proficiency. Shukran jazeelanfor joining us in today's
episode of All Things Arabic.
This podcast was made possibleby QFI, Qatar Foundation
International, a US basedorganization that helps make the

(32:35):
teaching and learning of Arabicas accessible and professional
as other world languages. Joinme next time when we find out
about language evaluation in theUK and Germany.
Subscribe, like, share thispodcast. Please do let your
colleagues and friends knowabout it. And head over to the

(32:56):
QFI website to learn more aboutopportunities and resources
available to language educatorsand students. Ma'salaama!

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Arabic Language Assessments Part I: Teaching for Proficiency in the US Immersion Classroom