Speaking the Culture of Egypt

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for future teachers that begins in January 2013 with a cross-cultural workshop; a series of online lectures, readings and online discussions; and a six week study tour in Egypt during Summer 2013.

Speaking the Culture of Egypt: Experiential Learning Program for Future Secondary Education Teachers is a unique learning experience designed for future teachers to learn about the Middle East and to become proficient in Egyptian colloquial Arabic at an intermediate level. The program is designed for students to communicate across cultures, and to enhance their ability to educate about other cultures, specifically Arabic and Islamic, in their future work as teachers. Egypt remains the most influential Islamic Arab nation in the world, with eighty million people, home to the ancient Islamic universities as well as the movement that spawned the recent “Arab Spring”. The Egyptian dialect will be taught due to Egypt’s role as the cultural hub of the Middle East, and is the dialect understood throughout the Arab world.

The program is made possible through a grant awarded to the University of Pittsburgh’s Global Studies Center by the U.S. Department of Education’s Fulbright Hays Groups Abroad Program.

• Program Goals
• Program Timeline
• Program Topics
• Requirements for Participation
• Program Costs
• Application Process
• About Studying Abroad
• About Program Leaders

Program Goals

The program has been carefully designed with input from experts in secondary education and language acquisition from the University of Pittsburgh, Consortium for Educational Resources on Islamic Studies (CERIS) participating institutions, and in-country specialists in Egypt. The goals of the program are for students to:

1. Acquire the ability to speak colloquial Egyptian at the intermediate-low level.
2. Develop a working knowledge of: key milestones in the history of the Middle East; Islamic religious tradition as practiced in Egypt; Egyptian culture; and current political trends and issues important to the region.
3. Make contacts and develop friendships with Egyptian peers through experiential learning opportunities.
4. Reflect upon and articulate their own national identity in relation to their experience in another culture.
5. Create two teaching resources: 1) authentic language learning resources to help in the teaching of Arabic and 2) digital stories for use in secondary classrooms.
6. Contribute to the further development of Maktaba, an Arabic language resource for educators.

Program Timeline

Program Topics

Proposed Lecture Topics Spring 2013

• Ancient Egyptian History
• Islam and Africa
• Colonial Occupation and Impact
• Egypt’s Economy
• Egyptian Literature and Thought
• Politics and People in Egypt
• Islamic Global Movements and the role of Egypt

Summer 2013 (six weeks in Egypt, Specific dates TBA) In mid June 2013, students will immerse themselves in Egyptian culture, living and attending classes in Cairo, Egypt. The program will include classroom language instruction in colloquial Egyptian, out of the classroom language exercises, classroom instruction and site visits on four main topics: History, religious observances and traditions, art and popular culture, and issues of critical importance to Egyptian society, and community service. Students will live four to an apartment and commute with to and from the language institute. The group will also travel to Luxor and to Alexandria. The itinerary (PDF) includes a variety of experiential as well as classroom learning opportunities. Students should expect the following distribution of time per/topic cluster.

• 72 hours of in-classroom language instruction in colloquial Egyptian
• 48 hour out-of-the- classroom exercises (language partners, scavenger hunts, etc) to support colloquial language learning.
• 27 contact hours on area study topics grouped into four themes related to language arts and social studies curriculum
  • History: Ancient, Islamic, Colonial and Statehood
  • Religious observances and traditions as practiced in Egypt
  • Art and Popular Culture in Egypt
  • Issues of Critical Importance to the Region (Globalization, Economy, Youth, Education, Civil Society)
• 24 hours contact hours involved in community service learning

In-country orientation, weekly debriefing sessions and re-entry orientation

Requirements for Participation

In order to be considered for the program, students must:

• Be a sophomore, junior, or senior undergraduate student enrolled in a secondary education major or pre-education track program at a CERIS institution.  Preference will be given to students where Arabic language instruction is offered, but it is not required.
• Submit complete application form, transcript, resume, essay questions, and three letters of recommendation to their institutional point of contact.
• Sign a legal binding study abroad contract as required by the University of Pittsburgh.
• Is a citizen or a permanent resident of the United States as required by the U.S. Department of Education.
• Submit a Medical History Report form.
• Sign a legal binding contract to ensure authenticity and to enforce participation in all program components. If a student does not fulfill the terms of the contract (unless health related with proof from medical doctor or family, emergency proof required), he/she will be removed from the program. Program components include:
  • Participating in all segments of the program in their entirety:
    • Lecture series and discussion.
    • Workshop on Language and Cultural Learning Workshop.
    • Six-week activities in Egypt.
    • Produce program deliverables: language and content area resources.
    • Post-trip activities at their home institutions and at the University of Pittsburgh.
• Read all assigned resources during all phases of the project.
• Pilot teaches using language resources and digital story in a classroom setting.
• Participate in presentations during lectures, symposia and workshops to other students or members of the university community as requested.
• Complete all the requested evaluations during program implementation.

Program Costs

Student Responsibility:

• $1000 per student, payable to the University of Pittsburgh by January 15, 2013. (This amount may change slightly given estimated value of dollar in Egypt in 2013)
• Students will be required to pay a $250.00 deposit by February 1, 2013.
• Required health/medical evacuation insurance.
• Students will want to bring at least $800 dollars for independent sightseeing excursions.
• RT transportation to University of Pittsburgh for January workshop.

Costs included in the fellowship (covered by the U.S. Department of Education Fulbright Hays Program, University of Pittsburgh, or CERIS and not the student)

• Round trip international flights from Pittsburgh to Cairo.
• Apartment style lodging in Cairo for six weeks.
• Hotel (3 star) accommodations in Luxor and Alexandria (3 nights each city).
• Train travel Cairo/Luxor, Cairo/Alexandria.
• Two meals per day.
• Entrance fees to historical and cultural sites in Cairo, Luxor and Alexandria related to the program.
• Transportation in Cairo, Luxor, and Alexandria related to program (RT from apartment to classroom, visits to historical and cultural sites).
• In-country Instructors.
• In-country Project Leader and chaperones.

Application Process

Student must submit application packet in the following format by November 1, 2012 to their institutional representative. The applications packet must include the following to be considered:

• 3 hard copies of application.
• 3 hard copies of essays.
• Letters of recommendations. Each reference letter must be in a sealed envelope with the reference person’s signature hand-written across the sealed envelope. Letters of recommendation should be written by 1) faculty, 2) advisor, 3) former teacher, employer, counselor, etc.
• Official transcript (one copy).

The application and letters of recommendations can be downloaded and completed in Microsoft Word (Application/Letters of recommendations). After student applications are received by student’s home institution’s point of contact (PDF), applications will be ranked and sent on to selection committee comprised of a representatives from CERIS member institutions; Elaine Linn, Program Manager and Assistant Director, Global Studies Center; Veronica Dristas, Language Acquisition specialist and Assistant Director for Outreach, Global Studies Center; and Kate Daher, social studies curriculum specialist with the Pittsburgh Public Schools and 2009 alum of Fulbright Hays GPA.

About Studying Abroad

Students are encouraged to visit the University of Pittsburgh’s Study Abroad Web site at http://www.abroad.pitt.edu/ for a host of useful information about studying abroad including resources on scholarship, culture shock, and more.

About the Program Leaders

Elaine Linn, Assistant Director of the GSC at the University of Pittsburgh’s University Center for International Studies (UCIS), serves as outreach coordinator for the CERIS secretariat and as the Global Studies Center academic advisor, advises over 275 students on their academic and career goals. Linn has over 25 years experience in program management: the past 14 years at Pitt’s University Center for International Studies and the previous 13 years as a subcontractor with the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of State, and the World Bank. In 2007 she served as the project head for the successful Islam, the West, and the Muslim World Fulbright-Hays short term seminar for secondary and tertiary educators from Pennsylvania in Egypt and the 2009 project Understanding Muslims through the Egyptian Lens for middle school and secondary educators. In addition to exercising strong program management skills, she is familiar with Egyptian culture, having worked as a subcontractor for USAID Cairo as part of a program evaluation team housed at the Social Research Center at the American University. Linn went on to live in Egypt for five years, working in training and workshop/conference facilitation. She recently contributed to the successful designation of Pitt’s Global Studies Center becoming a U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center for International Studies, and served as program administrator for the Tertiary Education Linkages Project, a $465,000 USAID funded project with the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania State University, Lincoln University, and University of the North in South Africa. She served three years as president of the Pennsylvania Council on International Education. She directed five four-week programs on entrepreneurship for youth from Russia at Linkages International from 1993-1997, led the summer camp program at the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh for four years, and has served as the advisor to the Muslim Student Association at Pitt for the past six years. She has a BA in political science from Drake University and an MPIA from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh.

Riham Bahi earned her Ph.D. in International and Public Affairs from Northeastern University in Boston, MA in 2008. Upon her return to Egypt in 2009, Dr. Bahi was hired as an assistant professor of political science at the School of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University. She is also the outreach coordinator at the Center for Civilizational Studies and Dialogue of Cultures at Cairo University. Dr. Bahi also teaches at the American University in Cairo (AUC). At AUC, she teaches a course on cross-cultural perceptions and representations. This course features videoconferences between AUC students and students from University of Pittsburgh Bradford campus and California University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bahi brings a diverse blend of academic skills and experience in global and cross-cultural communication to the program. Her academic background in international relations focused on the international and global dimensions of political Islam in the twenty-first century. Currently, she is working on the pluralizing effects of new media such as the internet as important factor in the new politics of Islamic authority and religious knowledge production. In her academic career, she has been involved in developing and directing innovative programs to contribute to cross-cultural learning and dialogue. For example, she is the founder of “The Bryant Diversity Roundtable”, which provides a forum for open discussions regarding the understanding, promotion, and celebration of our global society. She had served as the head in-country coordinator for programs from Harvard University and Northeastern University in Egypt.