The Future of Education
Anke Al-Bataineh
Institution: Western Governors University, INALCO Paris
Country: United States
Anke al-Bataineh is an instructor of language pedagogy at Western Governors University in the USA and at the Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales (INALCO) in Paris, France. She also designs programming and teaches in language immersion environments.
Dr. al-Bataineh graduated in Global Studies with a focus on culture, power, and place in the Middle East from the University of Minnesota in 2006. That year, she spent her 7th summer at Concordia Language Villages, helping to train and manage the founding staff of the Arabic immersion village. Since Concordia Language Villages had been her inspiration both to study languages and to become a teacher, she has returned many times as a villager and staff member, and has sought to educate others about the CLV model for effective language learning.
After working as a teacher of International Business and a Project Manager for international scientific cooperation between the United States and several countries in the Middle East, Dr. al-Bataineh became an Education Specialist in urban secondary schools, and provided specialized support to students who had recently immigrated and those with traumatic experiences. Seeing how challenging it was for students to succeed in the mainstream schools, Dr. al-Bataineh became interested in alternative and culturally-sustaining models of education.
In 2011, Dr. al-Bataineh graduated from Alliant International University with a Masters in Education, having conducted research on student-led, democratic models of schooling. She then earned a Masters in Language Documentation and Description from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London in 2012. She combined these areas of expertise and her years of experience in diverse communities in the Middle East to conduct her doctoral research in Western Armenian immersion schools in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and France. Her thesis, Cent ans après: Politiques scolaires et la vitalité des langues en danger le cas de l'arménien occidental, analyzed the pedagogical methods of these schools and their relationships to the vitality of this endangered, diasporan language and proposed an evidence-based framework for effective endangered langauge revitalization through schools.
Dr. al-Bataineh continues to teach languages, including Arabic and French, to learners of all ages, in various immersion contexts, though her specialty is endangered language education. She co-created the successful Zarmanazan Western Armenian Immersion Summer Camp and the Enseignement de l’Armenien Oriental en Diaspora teacher training program, and currently teaches Master’s courses to language teachers at two universities. Dr. al-Bataineh has taught languages to learners ages 8 to adult in a variety of settings, for 17 years, has trained teachers in 5 languages, and is currently learning the critically endangered Dakota language.
Dr. al-Bataineh is coordinating a team developing programs for Dakota language revitalization for all ages of learners, and is supporting several communities and schools in improving their Western Armenian revitalization programs. She is also creating numerous curricular resources for student-centered, communicative, and self-directed learning of endangered languages. She hopes to offer a program for endangered-language-medium Project-Based Learning for grades K-12 by early 2020, with opportunities for feedback and resource-sharing by teachers around the world.
Areas of expertise: Endangered languages, heritage languages, language pedagogy, immersion methods, Communicative Language Teaching, Project-Based Language Learning, student-centered and trauma-informed approaches, intercultural competence, alternative schooling models, languages for specific purposes.
Dr. al-Bataineh graduated in Global Studies with a focus on culture, power, and place in the Middle East from the University of Minnesota in 2006. That year, she spent her 7th summer at Concordia Language Villages, helping to train and manage the founding staff of the Arabic immersion village. Since Concordia Language Villages had been her inspiration both to study languages and to become a teacher, she has returned many times as a villager and staff member, and has sought to educate others about the CLV model for effective language learning.
After working as a teacher of International Business and a Project Manager for international scientific cooperation between the United States and several countries in the Middle East, Dr. al-Bataineh became an Education Specialist in urban secondary schools, and provided specialized support to students who had recently immigrated and those with traumatic experiences. Seeing how challenging it was for students to succeed in the mainstream schools, Dr. al-Bataineh became interested in alternative and culturally-sustaining models of education.
In 2011, Dr. al-Bataineh graduated from Alliant International University with a Masters in Education, having conducted research on student-led, democratic models of schooling. She then earned a Masters in Language Documentation and Description from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London in 2012. She combined these areas of expertise and her years of experience in diverse communities in the Middle East to conduct her doctoral research in Western Armenian immersion schools in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and France. Her thesis, Cent ans après: Politiques scolaires et la vitalité des langues en danger le cas de l'arménien occidental, analyzed the pedagogical methods of these schools and their relationships to the vitality of this endangered, diasporan language and proposed an evidence-based framework for effective endangered langauge revitalization through schools.
Dr. al-Bataineh continues to teach languages, including Arabic and French, to learners of all ages, in various immersion contexts, though her specialty is endangered language education. She co-created the successful Zarmanazan Western Armenian Immersion Summer Camp and the Enseignement de l’Armenien Oriental en Diaspora teacher training program, and currently teaches Master’s courses to language teachers at two universities. Dr. al-Bataineh has taught languages to learners ages 8 to adult in a variety of settings, for 17 years, has trained teachers in 5 languages, and is currently learning the critically endangered Dakota language.
Dr. al-Bataineh is coordinating a team developing programs for Dakota language revitalization for all ages of learners, and is supporting several communities and schools in improving their Western Armenian revitalization programs. She is also creating numerous curricular resources for student-centered, communicative, and self-directed learning of endangered languages. She hopes to offer a program for endangered-language-medium Project-Based Learning for grades K-12 by early 2020, with opportunities for feedback and resource-sharing by teachers around the world.
Areas of expertise: Endangered languages, heritage languages, language pedagogy, immersion methods, Communicative Language Teaching, Project-Based Language Learning, student-centered and trauma-informed approaches, intercultural competence, alternative schooling models, languages for specific purposes.
