February 5, 2010 Southwest News-Herald - City
Learning Arabic And Having Fun at Durkin
As kindergarten students begin to flood Feryal Alsubi’s classroom at Durkin Park school just after having their daily snack at 1:15 p.m., they begin to gather at their round tables, quickly rushing to get a seat in the miniature, wooden chairs that have cut-out tennis balls attached to each leg to prevent the kids from falling.
The students, 5 and 6 years of age, are filled with energy as they rush to ask Alsubi what they are going to be learning today.
It doesn’t take long for her to settle the children as she makes her way to the front of the class, hands filled with books and CDs ready to get the session started.
But these kindergarten students are not gearing up to learn the letter of the day, or the color of the day, as is usually addressed in kindergarten. Instead, they are there to learn the Arabic language.
At Durkin, Arabic is a certified foreign language class, and the lessons start while the students are very young.
Alsubi tells her students that they will be learning how to recite the alphabet in Arabic with the help of an upbeat, sing-along CD, which the students can’t help but enjoy as they jump around at their tables, eager to learn.
As the music starts, the kids begin reciting one Arabic letter after another until they reach the last of the 28 letters.
Their recitation is almost flawless, and Alsubi applauds with glee.
The next lesson of the class is reading time in a designated “reading area” of the classroom.
Alsubi has each student pick out a book of their choice from the make-shift library that she has set up in the classroom.
The students are eager to get up in front of their peers and show the skills they gained so far.
As each child begins to read their books in Arabic, Alsubi stops them momentarily after each sentence and asks them to define the color that was said. And, as expected, each student pronounces the color in Arabic and, once again, flawlessly.
“I sometimes find it hard to believe that these kids are 5 and 6,” says Alsubi, who has been a teacher for more than 10 years, two of which she has been teaching Arabic.
“They are breezing through the class and learning so much everyday, I can’t help but be so proud of them,” she says.
Durkin Park, located on 8445 S. Kolin Ave., is one of three Chicago Public Schools that are allocated $1 million in order to teach a farci language.
Marquette, 6550 S. Richmond St., and Peck, 3826 W. 58th St., have also begun teaching Arabic classes.
“It’s an honor to be able to teach a language to students that I grew up speaking,” says Alsubi, who was born and raised in Jordan.
“When you teach students a language, no matter how young they may be, you also have the ability to teach a culture, a way of life other than what they are accustomed to,” she says.
Every day, Alsubi allows the kids to take home a book and read it to their parents.
“There are times the parents come in and ask me to teach them along with their kids,” she says. “Some students even tell me that their parents ask them to teach them Arabic and the lessons they learned that day.”
Alsubi’s day does not end in her kindergarten classroom.
After the session is over, she makes her way to the adjacent building to teach more Arabic, this time to fourth-graders.
The students in this class are far more advanced in Arabic than the kindergartners, as they are beginning to learn how the Arabic language differentiates between male and female. The students are also learning how to address their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles in Arabic.
While the students have been accustomed to writing and reading the English language from left to right, the students in both kindergarten and fourth grade have no problem understanding that the Arabic language is written and read from right to left.
“It’s like second nature to them,” says Alsubi. “You’d think they were doing this all their lives.”
In her fourth-grade class, students are learning how to attach various letters of the Arabic alphabet to form a word.
Many have described the Arabic language as being more of an art form as opposed to a language, and it can get extremely complicated.
Alsubi has each student write the newly formed word, saying it out loud, saying what the word means, and writing it on the board in a column, either identifying the new word as a noun or verb.
Jessica Trotta, a fourth-grade student at Durkin and resident of the Scottsdale neighborhood, has been learning Arabic for more than three years.
She says that she wants to see the program continue the remainder of her years at the school.
“Arabic is the best language to learn,” says Trotta, who adds that she is even teaching her siblings how to speak it by using flash cards.
“Mrs. A. helps so much and she is very nice and cares to see her students do good in Arabic,” she says.
Alsubi is always quick to compliment her students on their advancement in the language, constantly telling them she is proud of them.
Daniel Carabez also praises his teacher, saying that thanks to her she has given him the ability not just to be fluent in English and Spanish, but now Arabic, as well.
Daniel Corona says that learning Arabic has been fun and credits Alsubi for making him eager to learn more and more every day.
“She is fun and she makes the class fun,” says Corona. “I wish she will always be my teacher because she’s smart and makes Arabic easy to learn.”
Alsubi says that there is nothing else she would rather be doing other than teaching her students “the beauty of this language.”
She says that she is already thinking about her curriculum for the upcoming school year and says that she wants to start teaching students how to form sentences and advance their communication skills.
“There is nothing better than the ability to educate someone,” says Alsubi. “Giving students the ability to learn this language will not just benefit them while in school, this is a skill that they could carry on with them for the rest of their lives.”
The students, 5 and 6 years of age, are filled with energy as they rush to ask Alsubi what they are going to be learning today.
It doesn’t take long for her to settle the children as she makes her way to the front of the class, hands filled with books and CDs ready to get the session started.
But these kindergarten students are not gearing up to learn the letter of the day, or the color of the day, as is usually addressed in kindergarten. Instead, they are there to learn the Arabic language.
At Durkin, Arabic is a certified foreign language class, and the lessons start while the students are very young.
Alsubi tells her students that they will be learning how to recite the alphabet in Arabic with the help of an upbeat, sing-along CD, which the students can’t help but enjoy as they jump around at their tables, eager to learn.
As the music starts, the kids begin reciting one Arabic letter after another until they reach the last of the 28 letters.
Their recitation is almost flawless, and Alsubi applauds with glee.
The next lesson of the class is reading time in a designated “reading area” of the classroom.
Alsubi has each student pick out a book of their choice from the make-shift library that she has set up in the classroom.
The students are eager to get up in front of their peers and show the skills they gained so far.
As each child begins to read their books in Arabic, Alsubi stops them momentarily after each sentence and asks them to define the color that was said. And, as expected, each student pronounces the color in Arabic and, once again, flawlessly.
“I sometimes find it hard to believe that these kids are 5 and 6,” says Alsubi, who has been a teacher for more than 10 years, two of which she has been teaching Arabic.
“They are breezing through the class and learning so much everyday, I can’t help but be so proud of them,” she says.
Durkin Park, located on 8445 S. Kolin Ave., is one of three Chicago Public Schools that are allocated $1 million in order to teach a farci language.
Marquette, 6550 S. Richmond St., and Peck, 3826 W. 58th St., have also begun teaching Arabic classes.
“It’s an honor to be able to teach a language to students that I grew up speaking,” says Alsubi, who was born and raised in Jordan.
“When you teach students a language, no matter how young they may be, you also have the ability to teach a culture, a way of life other than what they are accustomed to,” she says.
Every day, Alsubi allows the kids to take home a book and read it to their parents.
“There are times the parents come in and ask me to teach them along with their kids,” she says. “Some students even tell me that their parents ask them to teach them Arabic and the lessons they learned that day.”
Alsubi’s day does not end in her kindergarten classroom.
After the session is over, she makes her way to the adjacent building to teach more Arabic, this time to fourth-graders.
The students in this class are far more advanced in Arabic than the kindergartners, as they are beginning to learn how the Arabic language differentiates between male and female. The students are also learning how to address their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles in Arabic.
While the students have been accustomed to writing and reading the English language from left to right, the students in both kindergarten and fourth grade have no problem understanding that the Arabic language is written and read from right to left.
“It’s like second nature to them,” says Alsubi. “You’d think they were doing this all their lives.”
In her fourth-grade class, students are learning how to attach various letters of the Arabic alphabet to form a word.
Many have described the Arabic language as being more of an art form as opposed to a language, and it can get extremely complicated.
Alsubi has each student write the newly formed word, saying it out loud, saying what the word means, and writing it on the board in a column, either identifying the new word as a noun or verb.
Jessica Trotta, a fourth-grade student at Durkin and resident of the Scottsdale neighborhood, has been learning Arabic for more than three years.
She says that she wants to see the program continue the remainder of her years at the school.
“Arabic is the best language to learn,” says Trotta, who adds that she is even teaching her siblings how to speak it by using flash cards.
“Mrs. A. helps so much and she is very nice and cares to see her students do good in Arabic,” she says.
Alsubi is always quick to compliment her students on their advancement in the language, constantly telling them she is proud of them.
Daniel Carabez also praises his teacher, saying that thanks to her she has given him the ability not just to be fluent in English and Spanish, but now Arabic, as well.
Daniel Corona says that learning Arabic has been fun and credits Alsubi for making him eager to learn more and more every day.
“She is fun and she makes the class fun,” says Corona. “I wish she will always be my teacher because she’s smart and makes Arabic easy to learn.”
Alsubi says that there is nothing else she would rather be doing other than teaching her students “the beauty of this language.”
She says that she is already thinking about her curriculum for the upcoming school year and says that she wants to start teaching students how to form sentences and advance their communication skills.
“There is nothing better than the ability to educate someone,” says Alsubi. “Giving students the ability to learn this language will not just benefit them while in school, this is a skill that they could carry on with them for the rest of their lives.”