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SEDLA Arabic Language Awards of 2024
December 17, 20245:00 p.m.
MADRID
Casa Árabe Auditorium (at Calle Alcalá, 62).
5:00 p.m.
Free entry until the event’s capacity is reached.
In Spanish.
On Tuesday, December 17, Casa Árabe will be hosting the SEDLA Young Arabic Language Researchers Awards Ceremony, which will also be acknowledging Prof. Alcaén Sánchez as an honorary member. You can watch the event live on YouTube.
The Spanish Society of Arabic Language Teachers (SEDLA) has among its goals the promotion, research and teaching of Arabic as a foreign language (EALE). That is why it has instituted the “SEDLA Arabic Language Awards,” the first edition of which is being presented on the occasion of International Arabic Language Day. It will award prizes to the best bachelor’s, Master’s and runner-up theses on the Arabic language. During the event, Prof. Alcaén Sánchez will be acknowledged as an honorary member of SEDLA, for a life devoted to teaching the Arabic language.
Taking part in the ceremony will be Cristina Juarranz, Casa Árabe’s Management Assistant and Programming Coordinator, Iñaki Gutierrez de Terán, the President of SEDLA, Victoria Aguilar, the Vice-President of SEDLA, Walid Saleh, an honorary SEDLA member, and Adam and Micail Hajjaj, founders of the International School of Arabic. As for the award-winners, there will be Nerea Serrano (1st TFM award) and Marcos Flor Tomás (1st TFG award).
In the TFG category, the first prize went to Marcos Flor Tomás, for his work on “Reading in the Arabic language: A methodological proposal using short stories for the A2 level of the MCER.” Second prize went to Francisco Escudero Paniagua, for “History of grammatical exemplification in teaching Moroccan Arabic to Spaniards (1872-1911).” In the TFM category, First Prize went to Nerea Serrano Illán, for her work on “Status of the topic of linguistic ideology and its application to the Arabic Arabic language,” while the runner-up prize went to Katsiaryna Sakalouskaya, for “Change in registers and code-switching in the Arabic varieties of Morocco: A bibliographic review.”
The jury’s members were Victoria Aguilar (University of Murcia), Ignacio Ferrando (University of Cadiz), Ignacio Gutiérrez de Terán (Universitat Autónoma de Madrid), Lucía Molina (Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona) and Sonia Prieto (Universidad Complutense de Madrid).
Alcaén Sánchez Sancha
Alcaén Sánchez Sancha was born in Valencia on January 22, 1937. He was the only son of sculptor Alberto Sánchez (Toledo, April 8, 1895 - Moscow, October 12, 1962) and Clara Sancha Padrós (a teacher and athlete, +2002). In October 1938, when he was one year and nine months old, they set off on a trip to Russia, thinking they would stay there for two years.
Alcaén studied Arabic at the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies (known in Russian as Факультет восточных языков Московского государственноного университета) and later became a teacher at the same institution until he moved to Spain. His subject of interest was always Arabic grammar, in which he completed a pre-doctorate in Moscow.
He married in 1964 and has two children, Alberto and Teresa. In 1979, he moved to Madrid.
He began teaching Arabic in 1983 at the Instituto Hispano-Árabe de Cultura (IHAC). Most of his students were from Spain’s Diplomatic School, the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) and the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM). He was also a professor at the Language Institute of the UAM.
Many generations of Arabists, philologists, diplomats, translators and countless professionals passed through his classrooms. With him, they learned the structures of the Arabic language, a good foundation on calligraphy and a wide vocabulary from the world of media, along with the main information on Arabic music and culture.
Photo: Professor Alcaén teaching a class in Moscow in 1972.
