Personal Description:

I have an MA in translation and interpretation and a PhD in Language Literacy and Technology. I became familiar not only with the usage of the two languages (Arabic/English) and their structures, but with also related cultural competence. A significant portion of my thesis dealt with the translation of idioms from English into Arabic and vice versa. Conducting research in this area helped me increase my knowledge of syntax, semantics and cultural issues related to idioms in specific contexts and the use of both languages in general. I learned to distinguish between why we use a particular expression in Arabic and not in English, and vice versa. Throughout my doctoral work, I have continued to focus on these challenges.

As a person, I am very detail oriented and organized. I always set high standards for my work and am never satisfied until those have been achieved. I work well as part of a team and do not shy away from taking responsibility for any task at hand.

I gained valuable experience in how to communicate with students from different cultural backgrounds. This off course required proficiency in both English and Arabic in terms of vocabulary competence, grammar knowledge and the culture norms associated with these languages to meet the demands of both the students and the curriculum.

Tutoring Experience:

Experience
•Seattle Public Schools: Arabic Bilingual Paraprofessional Instructional Assistant. Seattle, WA 2017- 2018
private Arabic Touter: 2010-2018 , Seattle, Washington USA

Tutoring Approach:

My plan is to focus on complete sentences instead of learning single words. In doing so, I will use Chunk method (learn a sentence focusing on the proper and suitable way to say it in the target language). I will also use Transliteration (writing the Arabic sentence using Latin alphabets) to enhance your pronunciation. Like English, Arabic is a stress-timed language. Stressed syllables are louder than non-stressed syllables. Intonation is important and the way you say a sentence eases the process of communication.

To give you some examples, here is what I am planning to do:

Single word: ????? safiena (ship)

Complete sentence: ???? ???? ????? Al jao La tief Al yuom ( The weather’s so nice today).

These are just some examples and I will use different strategies to see which one you like most.

Please let me know what you think and we will start from there.

Regarding my schedule, I will be able to meet at 3:30 in the Northgate Mall if that is ok with you and I am free Tuesday and Wednesday.

Please let me know.

Thanks indeed

Jamal Alarabi