We did, but she left.
Although it was greeted with great excitement by all and sundry, very few
kids actually enrolled in our Arabic class. The language teacher who offered
the class (Level I) has since moved on, and I haven't heard a murmur of
nostalgia or desire to continue. This may have something to do with the fact
that kids who took the elective class were already enrolled in other
language classes, and therefore no one needed to continue their studies in
Arabic to fulfill a requirement.
To build it into the system one would have to make Level I co-equal to other
languages and available to 9th graders (in our high school) or otherwise
"bind" kids into the language as an element of the required (3 years in our
high school, even if they come in with previous language) language sequence.
But I think you really have to decide what critical mass for sustainability
would be. (We also always have families enthusiastic about the school
offering Latin, but never for their own kids.)
We did this with Japanese some years back, but never had more than a small
handful of kids in the program. At some point we had to stop offering entry
level and just let the last few kids fulfill the requirement, at which point
the teacher was ready to move on anyhow, and did. She probably had the
lightest student load of any independent school teacher in New England for
her last couple of years.
Good luck. I'm sure there are some vital and viable programs out
there--Peter Gow
--
Peter Gow
Director of College Counseling and Special Programs
Beaver Country Day School
791 Hammond Street
Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts 02467
www.bcdschool.org
617-738-2755 (O)
617-738-2747 (F)
petergow3 (Skype)
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