sansun
22/01/2005, 08h57
Assalamou Aleikom, wa Eid Moubarek !
Je vous invite à lire l'article dans le" The Daily Californian" sur un group des jeunes musulmans et musulmanes en voyage en Californie. (un voyage de 3 semaines). Visitez notre site et admirez les photos de nos voyages !
Eid Moubarek
Simple English Association, SEA
www.simplenglish.et (http://www.simplenglish.et)
seasonia@simplenglish.net
Simple English Association Not Simply About Learning English
By ADEEL IQBAL
Contributing Writer
Monday, August 2, 2004
Khaoula Amouri has been wearing her headscarf—in keeping with Muslim tradition—since she was a young girl. But when she returns to her school in France in September, she will have to remove the traditional garb.
The 16-year-old French citizen, who has come to Berkeley as part of an English language program for youth between the ages of 11 and 19, says she feels at ease wearing her scarf in the United States.
“In France, if you go to BART, the people who see you look at you like you are a terrorist,” she says. “In America, they are not afraid about you.”
This year, the French government instated legislation barring visible religious symbols such as headscarves, turbans, yarmulkes and large crosses in public schools for secularist reasons.
When the law takes effect in September, Amouri will have to take off the scarf when she attends classes, something she has not done in public since she was a young girl.
Just the possibility of having to remove her personal symbol of piety scares her, she says. When asked how she feels, she says she does not know how to respond.
“I don’t know what I am going to do in September,” Amouri says.
Amouri, like the 21 other students in the program who have come to Berkeley for the three week program, says she is completely amazed by the openness and kindness of American society in comparison to the French.
“(The students) thought these (American) people must be terrible people, seeing the things going on around the world. Now they come and realize,” says Jounaidi Taleb, co-founder and director of the program. “One of the perks is to have the students come here and see it for themselves.”
Taleb, an English teacher from France, first came to UC Berkeley in 2003 to study in the Graduate School of Education.
“When I first came to California, I loved it,” Taleb says. “I said I must start something for the Muslim community and others to make it easy to cross the Atlantic. I wanted to give a taste of what I had to these people.”
For him, creating ease meant breaking international barriers through a linguistic understanding. So he, along with his wife Sonia, decided to establish the Simple English Association for young French students.
Knowing how to speak and understand English is crucially important to international relations, he says.
“Now, in France and all over the world, it’s very important to learn a foreign language, and most importantly, English,” says Yeussere Bousebsi, 19, a program participant.
Although the program’s main focus is teaching young French students English, the opportunity to break cultural barriers is just as significant, organizers and participants say.
“What we have here is interdiaspora relations where there’s a sense of commonality,” says Hatem Bazian, program coordinator and lecturer in the Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies departments.
The programs participants’ English has improved significantly over the past three weeks. The program offers two levels: introductory grammar and advanced conversational English.
Bousebsi, who is in the more difficult conversational level course, says the class—which involves nightly homework and daily quizzes—has given her the courage and ability to respond to others in English.
“Before I understood what people told me, but I couldn’t answer,” Bousebsi says. “But now I can answer.”
Taleb says the students’ improvement makes the program worth the time and effort.
Together, he and his wife plan to expand the program to have four student groups come to Berkeley every year. The couple already takes four groups to the United Kingdom annually as part of the program.
The three-week sessions involve a number of activities outside the classroom. Students attend classes in the mornings, and enjoy museums, theme parks, and city life in the afternoons.
Since the 22 students’ arrival, they have been to Great America in Santa Clara, the Oakland Museum of California, and San Francisco a number of times.
“Of course, as young kids they need excursions and discovery of the Bay Area,” Taleb says.
The next delegation will be coming in December.
“This is the first step in a big project,” Taleb says.
After its three-week stay at the Westminster House, the group returned to France this weekend.
Je vous invite à lire l'article dans le" The Daily Californian" sur un group des jeunes musulmans et musulmanes en voyage en Californie. (un voyage de 3 semaines). Visitez notre site et admirez les photos de nos voyages !
Eid Moubarek
Simple English Association, SEA
www.simplenglish.et (http://www.simplenglish.et)
seasonia@simplenglish.net
Simple English Association Not Simply About Learning English
By ADEEL IQBAL
Contributing Writer
Monday, August 2, 2004
Khaoula Amouri has been wearing her headscarf—in keeping with Muslim tradition—since she was a young girl. But when she returns to her school in France in September, she will have to remove the traditional garb.
The 16-year-old French citizen, who has come to Berkeley as part of an English language program for youth between the ages of 11 and 19, says she feels at ease wearing her scarf in the United States.
“In France, if you go to BART, the people who see you look at you like you are a terrorist,” she says. “In America, they are not afraid about you.”
This year, the French government instated legislation barring visible religious symbols such as headscarves, turbans, yarmulkes and large crosses in public schools for secularist reasons.
When the law takes effect in September, Amouri will have to take off the scarf when she attends classes, something she has not done in public since she was a young girl.
Just the possibility of having to remove her personal symbol of piety scares her, she says. When asked how she feels, she says she does not know how to respond.
“I don’t know what I am going to do in September,” Amouri says.
Amouri, like the 21 other students in the program who have come to Berkeley for the three week program, says she is completely amazed by the openness and kindness of American society in comparison to the French.
“(The students) thought these (American) people must be terrible people, seeing the things going on around the world. Now they come and realize,” says Jounaidi Taleb, co-founder and director of the program. “One of the perks is to have the students come here and see it for themselves.”
Taleb, an English teacher from France, first came to UC Berkeley in 2003 to study in the Graduate School of Education.
“When I first came to California, I loved it,” Taleb says. “I said I must start something for the Muslim community and others to make it easy to cross the Atlantic. I wanted to give a taste of what I had to these people.”
For him, creating ease meant breaking international barriers through a linguistic understanding. So he, along with his wife Sonia, decided to establish the Simple English Association for young French students.
Knowing how to speak and understand English is crucially important to international relations, he says.
“Now, in France and all over the world, it’s very important to learn a foreign language, and most importantly, English,” says Yeussere Bousebsi, 19, a program participant.
Although the program’s main focus is teaching young French students English, the opportunity to break cultural barriers is just as significant, organizers and participants say.
“What we have here is interdiaspora relations where there’s a sense of commonality,” says Hatem Bazian, program coordinator and lecturer in the Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies departments.
The programs participants’ English has improved significantly over the past three weeks. The program offers two levels: introductory grammar and advanced conversational English.
Bousebsi, who is in the more difficult conversational level course, says the class—which involves nightly homework and daily quizzes—has given her the courage and ability to respond to others in English.
“Before I understood what people told me, but I couldn’t answer,” Bousebsi says. “But now I can answer.”
Taleb says the students’ improvement makes the program worth the time and effort.
Together, he and his wife plan to expand the program to have four student groups come to Berkeley every year. The couple already takes four groups to the United Kingdom annually as part of the program.
The three-week sessions involve a number of activities outside the classroom. Students attend classes in the mornings, and enjoy museums, theme parks, and city life in the afternoons.
Since the 22 students’ arrival, they have been to Great America in Santa Clara, the Oakland Museum of California, and San Francisco a number of times.
“Of course, as young kids they need excursions and discovery of the Bay Area,” Taleb says.
The next delegation will be coming in December.
“This is the first step in a big project,” Taleb says.
After its three-week stay at the Westminster House, the group returned to France this weekend.