New Arabic Course Offered Next Year

Matt Srolis ‘ 20

Journalism Student

Arabic Class for the 2019 School Year

    At Bethel High School, learning a language has always seemed fairly limited, with only French and Spanish being available options. Although these courses do entail a lot of content and enable students to fluently speak these foreign languages, the language department does suffer in variety. Next year, these two languages will be joined by a third, an Arabic class.

    Arabic will be available to all grade levels in the 2019-2020 school year.

    Arabic has its roots in many different countries, being spoken in Algeria, Morocco, Libya, Egypt, Mauritania, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and many others. Additionally, much of the Islamic religion is embedded within Arabic, as the language is a central component to its origins and legacy.

    These ties have affected many students, such as Azmir Shah ‘20.

    “Arabic is very important to our culture and religion. The Quran, our holy text, is written in Arabic and if I want to be able to understand it to its fullest extent I should be able to read and comprehend the language,” explained Shah.

    With these cultural roots, Arabic is a very important language to many people in our vast world and our small school.

    “I do think I will take the class as I need to properly learn Arabic. It would benefit my understanding of my culture and my religion greatly,” Shah exclaimed.

    Mr. Ali El Moustakim, French and soon to be Arabic teacher, is excited for the new language option.

    “My contribution to the program is that I’m a native speaker, I’m certified to teach languages, and I work here. It will be an addition to the school and language departments to have a course like Arabic because all the components for a successful program exist within this class,” Moustakim explained.

    The decision made to include new language options has garnered interest among students, as the reactions are seemingly positive. America is a melting pot and being able to speak another language is a valuable asset.

    “The important thing is to have connections. Any language is a connector to the world and people connect to ideas and aspirations that are shared. The language is a good tool to make those connections solid, strong, powerful, and meaningful, ” Moustakim added.