<p>Last summer my daughter studied Arabic in Morocco in a program run by Amideast. Her college recommended Amideast because Amideast had run a program for them in Egypt. The Arablic language program is in four week increments and accomplishes the equivalent of one semester in each segment. The program was well-run, challenging, more reasonable than many we looked at, and she had a wonderful time with her fellow students as well as with her homestay family.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of your suggestions!</p>
<p>Yalemom, did your son have any prior arabic experience? how much did he feel he learned?
Actually, same goes for your daughter, aliceinw…</p>
<p>JHS, that’s really good to know. Do you think, then, that any summer immersion program I might do would be useless, or just the Chicago one?</p>
<p>I’m just trying to filter out experiences that won’t be as productive as I’d like them to be. It’s hard to know from brochures… Granted, one person’s experience doesn’t mean everything, but it’s something to work from.</p>
<p>[I am decently good at Hebrew now, so I’ve already got a grip on roots, semetic patterns, right to left, etc… I know that won’t matter too much down the road, but it’s something to boost the beginning]</p>
<p>Thanks again for all your help!</p>
<p>The Chicago program is a 6-hour/day intensive program, not an immersion program. As with everything else at Chicago, it is theory- and grammar-based, not conversation-based. My son learned a lot of grammar and vocabulary, and a lot about how Arabic is constructed. Maybe if he were someplace else he would have learned enough to be able to transition to Arabic II. But where he was – Chicago itself – there was a pretty bad disjunction between summer Arabic I and regular-term Arabic II. After a couple of class sessions and assignments, it was clear to him that he would have weeks of work to catch up to where he was supposed to be to take the next class. The uselessness of it was that it wasn’t really Arabic I, it was more like Arabic 0.75.</p>
<p>UVA runs a Summer Language Institute and is introducing Arabic for this summer. Information found here: </p>
<p>[Summer</a> Language Institute at U.Va. / Arabic Program](<a href=“http://www.virginia.edu/summer/SLI/arabic.html]Summer”>http://www.virginia.edu/summer/SLI/arabic.html)</p>
<p>I know several students who have been happy with their experiences at the Institute although obviously none have studied Arabic.</p>
<p>In our extensive search for summer programs we realized there is a huge difference between intensive programs (like U of C) and immersion programs. There are very few true summer immersion programs in the states that truly give you the full language experience including the giant jump in language ability. Middlebury, Beloit, and University of Wisconsin are the only ones I know (though there may well be others) that have this in Arabic.</p>
<p>If anyone knows of any other immersion (not intensive) programs in the states I’d love to know about them, though we are looking for Chinese.</p>
<p>Brandeis University teamed up with Middlebury College’s summer language program
so students could study Hebrew and Arabic as part of Brandeis’ Near East Studies program. Middlebury is in Vermont. To me it looks as though MIddlebury offers many languages in summertime Vermont, but Arabic is offered in Oakland CA at Mills College this summer: [Dates</a> and Fees](<a href=“Middlebury Language Schools | Unlock Your Language Skills”>Middlebury Language Schools | Unlock Your Language Skills)</p>
<p>The Brandeis/Middlebury language collaboration is recent. Perhaps with some more digging you might find if Brandeis also hosts Arabic on it own campus (Waltham, Massachusetts) this summer. </p>
<p>Also look through Brandeis’ Near East Studies major for possible leads or new programs, which is how I found the above info. </p>
<p>The Middlebury programs involve a “Language Pledge” which sounds like the kind of rich immersion as described in the post above.</p>
<p>On a hunch, how about checking the University of Michigan’s or Michigan State summer offerings? </p>
<p>Best luck~!</p>
<p>booklet - yes, both had taken Arabic in college, but the program has all levels available. I’m pretty sure Chicago gave credit for the summer program. (friend did summer, DS did academic year)</p>
<p>Stanford runs intensive language courses in the summer, including Arabic.
<a href=“https://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/language/courses/summerlanguageprograms/summerlangindex.html[/url]”>https://www.stanford.edu/dept/lc/language/courses/summerlanguageprograms/summerlangindex.html</a></p>
<p>Probably expensive, but a very pleasant place to spend the summer.</p>
<p>The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition at the University of Minnesota has a database of summer programs in “less frequently taught” languages such as Chinese and Arabic. Here’s the link.
[The</a> Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) : Less Commonly Taught Languages](<a href=“http://www.carla.umn.edu/lctl/db/index.html]The”>The Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA))</p>
<p>There might have some helpful ideas here.</p>
<p>MidwestMom - great link - thanks for posting!</p>
<p>My son also went to #27 on the list, Qasid. He had a year of Arabic at his college when he went to Jordan. Qasid has a great program. They have placement tests when you arrive to make sure you are in the right group and have classes for all sorts of learners, from beginners on up. Plus, they sponsor all sorts of trips around Jordan, get-togethers, etc. You can take additional electives in such things as Koranic Arabic.</p>
<p>Didn’t read through this entire thread but was going to offer that Monterey International Institute (an affiliate of Midd) offers summer intensives in a number of languages.</p>
<p>[Summer</a> Intensive Language Program | Language Programs | Academic Programs | Monterey Institute of International Studies](<a href=“Summer Intensive Language Program | Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey”>Summer Intensive Language Program | Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey)</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for all the research!</p>
<p>I’m particularly interested in those of you who’ve sent kids off to these programs.
Why’d they choose the one they did?
Did they find the experience to be everything they’d hoped for?
How much Arabic were complete beginners able to learn?</p>
<p>Any ides for a HS kid? Current freshman son would love something like this. Not for this summer (that’s set), but summer 2011. Arabic or Spanish. He has no schooling in either language but family fluent in both.</p>
<p>He could go Concordia Language Villages for a month for Arabic camp; my daughter loved Spanish camp there when she was in middle school and high school; it is an especially cool place for kids to go for more unusual languages. (Ok, now smile because she went to Northern Minnesota to work on her Spanish - hey, we are from the Midwest!)</p>
<p>He could study Arabic at SINARC in Beirut - one of my daughter’s roommates was only 16.</p>
<p>youdon’tsay- my daughter did French at MMLA (Middlebury) last summer. She has taken 5 previous years of French and was using it as a prep for her AP class this year. It was an extremely well run program, complete immersion, and was geared for kids from the absolute beginner through to those taking French Literature. I believe there were 5 levels and she was in level 4. There were a fairly even number of kids going into 9th/10th grades and 11th/12th grades. They also had Spanish, Arabic, and Chinese. I can’t speak for the other programs specifically but my daughter did come away with a much greater fluency level in speaking.</p>
<p>One word of caution-the program focuses on communication in the target language NOT grammar. I can see where this might cause issues if you were trying to use it for a substitute for a high school language level but for my daughter, a chance to increase her fluency, re-visit some of the basic grammar and learn some slang from the foreign enimes (sp?) was worth it for her. It made her more committed to learn the language.</p>
<p>Here is one:
[NSLI</a> for Youth](<a href=“http://www.nsliforyouth.org%5DNSLI”>http://www.nsliforyouth.org)
The US Department of State through the National Security Language Initiative for Youth
The deadline has passed for this summer - but something to keep in mind for next.</p>
<p>@YouDontSay and others interested in h.s. age (posts 34 onward) see this thread now running in Parents Forum:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/851795-news-summer-foreign-language-opportunity-middle-high-schoolers.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/851795-news-summer-foreign-language-opportunity-middle-high-schoolers.html</a></p>