Startalk - Arabic

I am working as an "apprentice teacher" for a program called Startalk. Kind of nifty little catch-name; Start Talking Arabic. Startalk Arabic. Yeah.

The federal government has a ton of money set aside for this specific project. Individual schools, like BYU, and Boston University, and the University of Chicago, come up with a proposal for a program, and then get the funding from the federal government to run it. There are over a dozen Chinese and Arabic Startalk programs running around the country.

This year, 2007, is the first year of Startalk.

People are here from Washington D.C., sitting in on our classes, and interviewing various people (including myself for an hour yesterday) in pre-program-evaluation-writing efforts. These people will write reccomendations for next year, and evaluate the program overall. It's exciting. I would work for Startalk next year.

There are many pros and cons to this job, but overall it has been invaluable to me as a future Middle School Arabic teacher.