Casa Árabe is offering this series of four workshops on teaching Spanish as a foreign language (Spanish/LE or ELE), given by two teachers who specialize in humanitarian action and mediation, Victoria Khraiche Ruiz-Zorrilla and Nadia Jallad.

These workshops will discuss the process to apply for asylum in Spain and the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language (Spanish/LE, or ELE) at official reception centers and charitable non-governmental organizations, while also introducing basic concepts about the Levantine dialect of Arabic and useful sociocultural information to promote empathy with students in this field of activity.

They will include three subject areas: teaching Spanish/Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE), knowledge about the contexts in which asylum applicants arrive, and the Arabic dialect spoken in these countries of origin. First of all, the workshops will take an in-depth look at the cognitive and emotional implications which the asylum application procedure itself has on the applicants’ learning process, while examining the main features of these types of Spanish/foreign language classrooms, which are extremely heterogeneous in terms of skill level and student origins. Along these lines, they will also discuss specific strategies for Spanish teachers to put into practice in such environments, providing a list of the most common linguistic and pragmalinguistic errors made by Arabic-speaking students of Syrian and Palestinian origin when communicating in Spanish, while assessing the potential for transference from Arabic and other foreign languages spoken, such as English and French.

In addition to this, they will analyze the contexts in which these students arrive, examining the origin and development of the conflicts which have led to the arrival of refugees and displaced persons coming from Syria and Palestine.

Last of all, an important part of these workshops is that different elementary expressions in Levantine Arabic will be taught, along with sociocultural information that will allow humanitarian workers and mediators to receive and assist these types of students while promoting empathy.

The four workshops last a total of 12 hours and will be held on two Saturdays, February 9 and 16. The registration fee is 120 euros. A certificate of attendance will be given at the end of the course.

General objectives: 
By the end of the course, those attending will:
▪    Know what the asylum application procedure consists of in Spain.
▪    Have received a general overview of the nature of teaching Spanish as a foreign language to asylum applicants.
▪    Be able to foresee specific learning difficulties among their Arabic-speaking students and take the resulting action to remedy them.
▪    Be able to understand and effectively use basic expressions in the Levantine dialect of Arabic, which will help promote empathy in the classroom.
▪    Have developed their intercultural skills.

Profile of students for whom the course is intended:
Teachers of Spanish as a foreign language. Aid workers. The hired staff and volunteers of humanitarian organizations. Employees and refugee reception centers. Those interested in teaching Spanish as a foreign language in general and to immigrants and refugees in particular.

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