NMELRC Meets with Arabic and Hebrew Language Educators in Cairo

During the summer, BYU's federally-funded National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC) held meetings in Amman, Cairo, and Jerusalem with directors of Arabic and Hebrew study abroad programs to discuss ways to assist more American students to achieve their goal of attaining advanced-level proficiency in Middle East languages. As Kirk Belnap, NMELRC director and BYU faculty member noted, “Recent interest in Arabic, in particular, has overwhelmed capacity nationally and abroad. In this second round of funding, we are working to increase quality opportunities for U.S. students.”  

As a national resource, representing a consortium of experts from more than twenty universities, including the University of Texas—Austin, University of Massachussetts—Amherst, and Princeton University, NMELRC aims 1) to increase professional development opportunities for language teachers in the U.S. and abroad; 2) to develop affordable online language tests to measure student progress; 3) and to build an integrated network of national and abroad programs.

For more information, visit www.nmelrc.org!