Mahmoud Azaz is a Distinguished Fellow, Professor of Arabic Studies and Second Language Acquisition, and Director of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona. He holds a Ph.D. with Distinction in Arabic SLA and Pedagogy. He has published extensively in the format of scholarly books and articles on Arabic SLA from linguistic and sociocultural perspectives. His collaborative language textbook production includes Beginning Contemporary Egyptian Arabic (Georgetown University Press), Arabic Language Variation (University of Arizona Press), Contemporary Arabic (in progress). Mahmoud Azaz is also a professional bidirectional translator (Arabic-English) in linguistic, historical, and sociolinguistic genres. He gave invited talks and workshops for researchers and instructors in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East and North African region on L2 Arabic. Nationally, Mahmoud currently serves as the Executive Director of the Arabic Linguistics Society in North America and Chair of the Applied Linguistics Forum of the Modern Language Association.
Abstract title: Multilingual Perspectives in L2 Arabic: Towards a New Paradigm for a Changing Landscape
Hanada Taha Thomure is the Director of Zai Arabic Language Research Center and the Endowed Professor of Arabic Language education at Zayed University, UAE. She previously was the associate dean and later acting dean of Bahrain Teachers’ College. Professor Taha Thomure designed the first system for leveling Arabic texts currently used by regional and international publishers. Dr. Taha’s leveling system has been used to level 11,000 children’s books so far. She developed the Arabic language arts standards currently used by more than 200,000 students. She is the senior author for Pearson’s Arabic language Arts K-9, curriculum BilArabi. She reviewed the national Arabic curricula for Morocco, KSA, Jordan, UAE, and Bahrain and has been an adviser for Queen Rania Foundation, Scholastic, USAID, UNICEF, UAE prime minister’s office, and World Bank. Professor Taha Thomure’s research is in the field of Arabic language teaching and learning, early reading, children’s literature, teacher preparation and curriculum design.
Abstract title: Building a research-based infrastructure for Arabic language teaching & learning
Emad Abdul-Latif is a Professor of Rhetoric and Discourse Analysis at Qatar University. He studied Arabic Rhetoric and Political Discourse Analysis in Cairo University (Egypt) and Lancaster University (UK). As the Editor-in-Chief of Khitabat Journal and founder of Balaghat Al-Jumhour—a discipline dedicated to the rhetorical empowerment of public audiences—he champions innovative approaches to rhetorical studies. His recent monographs include The New Arabic Rhetoric: Paths and Approaches (2021) and Political Discourse Analysis: Rhetoric, Power, and Resistance (2019). His earlier work, Rhetoric of Liberation (2012), received the Best Arabic Book in Social Sciences award at the 2013 Cairo International Book Fair.
Website : Visit Here
Abstract title: The Eloquent Machine? Challenges of Teaching Arabic Rhetoric in an AI World