Blog

On my way back from Washington, I could not resist taking a picture with President Obama!  That was a nice end to a pretty exciting short trip to Washington, D.C.  I stopped in London for 3 nights to visit my daughter who lives there, then returned happily to Cairo to resume my exciting work at Arab Academy.

It was wonderful to receive visitors to the Arab Academy booth then discover that some of them were my former students.  Nothing can be better than seeing your brilliant students, ever so intelligent and beautiful at MESA.  I was SO HAPPY TO MEET YOU ALL!!!  Thank you for passing by Arab Academy booth ya habaybi!!!  I hope we meet again soon!!! 

At the end of a long day, we went up to our room, and yes, visited the Arab Academy site to discuss some of its activities and screens.  We talked how teachers can prepare lesson plans using the Arab Academy site and Sanaa explaiend the new interface.  It was such fun to discuss the Arab Academy lessons with such highly motivated teachers.  The day ended with a dinner with Mona Sharaf's husband and son.  I was very happy to see Mona's husband recovered from the operation he had to undergo last summer.  alf salamah!

I was so happy to meet Mrs. Wissam Moula from Fairfax County, Virginia at MESA.  She had visited Arab Academy in Cairo, Egypt in the summer of 2008 to attend a Teacher Training Program.  She was so generous with her time and she and her daugther Judy, have graciously helped us prepare the Arab Academy booth at MESA and receive visitors. alf shukr ya wissam wa Judy!!!  Hope to see you again soon!

It was wonderful to meet Prof. Tawhida ElAskary from the University of Houston at MESA.  We had a meeting to discuss Arab Academy's program that is being used at U of H.  Tawhida is also in charge of alumni program of the American University in Cairo.  Being one of AUC's alumni we certainly had plenty to talk about.

On the first day of the MESA conference, Amideast held a meeting with universities on its consortium to discuss the study abroad program that it is organizing as of September 09.  Dr. Jerome Bookenweiner spoke about the program and Dr. Driss Ouaicha read the wonderful feedback that Ammideast got from one of its students.  Consortium members were all impressed and were eager to send their students to the Middle East to join the Amideast abroad program.  Arab Academy in Cairo, Egypt is certainly ready for them.

Susan Blevins and Sanaa Ghanem arranged the Arab Academy booth.  It was so exciting to be working with Susan, an Arab Academy learner who volunteered to help on this booth.  She has also kindly prepared the Arab Academy banner and brought it with her.  We could not have done it without her.
I also liked the Arab Academy table cloth.  It was our designer Heba Abaza who bought it for us from Cairo.

It was an honor to receive Dr. Khalil Ennahoui, Arabic language consultant to the Islamic Development Bank in Jeddah at the Arab Academy.  We discussed how Arab Academy can participate in the dissemination of Arabic language in West Africa.

Mr. Yasser Yamani, board member of Iqra visited Arab Academy to discuss cooperation venues.  Iqra sponsors needy schools in Africa and Asia that are interested in using Arab Academy's programs.  Dr. Ennahoui also joined the meeting.

Arab Academy hosted 12 senior Arabic Language Teachers from the Ministry of Education in order to lay down a plan for the utilization of its Arabic programs at Public Schools in Egypt.  The meetings were attended by senior officers from the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.

It was refreshing to see the enthusiasm of the teachers and their desire to utilize technology in their Arabic classes.  Senior officials promised to provide them with computer labs and internet connections in order to make it possible for them to use the program.