Welcome, From The Arabic Flagship Program Director

Salaam wa TaHiyyaat, warm greetings!

The Arabic program at The University of Texas, Austin is proud to be home to one of the national Flagship centers that are working across the nation to fulfill the Flagship mission of preparing future global professionals.

Our UT Arabic Flagship program (AFP) was established in 2007 with the goal of preparing a cadre of American undergraduate students in a variety of disciplines who reach Superior proficiency in Arabic by the time they complete their undergraduate education. The AFP offers a rigorous training program in Arabic language and culture that incorporates regular academic-year courses, domestic intensive summer study, summer study abroad at the Arabic Flagship center in Meknes, Morocco, and a capstone year in Alexandria, Egypt.

Our AFP is unique in several ways: It attracts students who are among the best learners of Arabic nationwide, features outstanding faculty members, and offers a vibrant curriculum with clearly defined learning outcomes and assessment tools. Our curriculum incorporates a wide range of Arabic courses from Elementary Arabic to content-based courses to graduate seminars conducted entirely in Arabic and employs a pedagogical approach to Arabic that is based on a holistic vision of Arabic in all its varieties.

By May of this year, the UT Arabic Flagship Program (AFP) will have graduated fifty-five students who completed the program and experienced rich language and cultural immersion both domestically and abroad. Many of them have joined the work force in government, business, and education. Others have continued to graduate school and are training to be the next generation of Middle East scholars and teachers. Most of them are using the language and culture skills they’ve acquired within the AFP and playing a role in fostering better understanding and intercultural communication between the US and its people and the peoples of the Arabic-speaking world.

The motto of UT is “What starts here changes the world” and our AFP teachers, students, and alumni are contributing to this effort by transforming the paradigm of the teaching and learning of Arabic and demonstrating the importance and vitality of language learning and cultural understanding for a better world.

Dr. Mahmoud Al-Batal
Professor of Arabic, Director of AFP
albatal@austin.utexas.edu