Ahlan wa-sahlan! At Al-Wāḥa, you’ll experience an oasis of cultural richness and diversity with counselors and teachers who speak a variety of dialects from across the Middle East. Enjoy traditional camp activities while you live the language surrounded by Arabic sounds, sights and flavors of the world’s fifth most populous language—right here in the Midwest.
Just imagine reading in a totally different alphabet—and from right to left! With more than 350 million speakers over five continents, Arabic is the world’s fifth most-spoken language, and has influenced and contributed many others—even English—with Arab cultures’ global and linguistic influences on astronomy, mathematics, medicine, art and philosophy. Since 2006, our “oasis” at Concordia Language Villages has allowed complete beginners and advanced students alike to tap into Middle Eastern cultures firsthand. Request more information.
Need-based scholarships are available for Spanish summer youth immersion sessions through the Passport Fund. Scholarships are based on a family’s adjusted gross income, number of dependents, and the length of the session.
Arabic Language Village scholarships are supported by the generosity of individual donors, organizations and companies; we are especially grateful to our premier sponsor, Qatar Foundation International.
Additionally, the Minnesota Office of Higher Education offers a $1,000 stipend for Minnesota students who qualify for free or reduced lunch at school. Additional information is available here.
From famous Egyptian rice to delicious Lebanese tabbouleh, Al-Wāḥa’s meals contain spices around the Arabic-speaking world and will have your mouth watering! Counselors sit with villagers at family-style tables and help jog your memory for mealtime vocabulary, names of foods and important Arabic phrases like “please pass the…”.
We take our time to enjoy the dining experience and eat in courses the Arab way, with the salad typically served with the main course.
Kish maat! Two villagers play shataranj, or chess. Activities at Al-Wāḥa are designed to allow villagers to explore Arabic within their own interests, and include summer camp staples as well as culturally-specific activities, like calligraphy or belly dancing.
Every day you will learn something new—and in Arabic! Everyday activities and staples of the summer camp experience become opportunities to expand vocabulary: villagers don’t play soccer; it’s korat al-qaddam. They paddle out in a markab onto the buhayra, or simply lounge under the sun on the shata’. Each day is filled with a wide variety of sports and games, as well as opportunities to visit the beach, canoe and hike with friends, and even engage in some cultural activities unique to the Arabic village!
Swing your hips. Dance a dabka. The tabla’s playing! Got rhythm? The Middle East is a place of music and dance: from the ancient ardah sword-dancing of the Arabian Peninsula to maybe the more familiar belly dancing of the Levant and Northern Africa, these traditions run deep, and we encourage our villagers to learn their language! Musical opportunities provide prompting for learning the unique vocabulary of Arab music and its instruments—the oud (a double-stringed predecessor to the lute), the tabla and the qanoon, and engage the villagers in their own interests—while giving them the opportunity to perform! Learn more about Arabic music at Al-Wāḥa.
Professor Farida Farida Badr is an associate professor specializing in TAFL, Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language; and the Lead of Arabic II level at NCvirtual. Professor Badr is an ACTFL OPI certified tester of Arabic with full certification; she is also the Placement coordinator, where she coordinated the OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview), and the Arabic placement test at University of SC, 2019-2020 and also the online placement test at UNC-CH, 2014-2017.
Farida has a wide range of experiences with teaching Arabic including at the K-12, college, and military levels. She is affiliated with University of Montana, University of Johns Hopkins, University of South Carolina, UNC-CH, Campbell University, Middlebury College and Monterey Institute. In addition, Farida also works with NCVPS and STARTALK programs at Queens University and Penn State University at the K-12 level. She has even taught at Aarhus University in Denmark and AUC Egypt.
Farida is very dedicated to the profession and her students; she was awarded the “Appreciation Certificate of Dedication” from UNC-CH students, in addition to OPI volunteer appreciating certificates from the American University in Indiana, Sabeel Institute, Jordan, and ACTFL CAEP accreditation for foreign languages programs.
