The people who work in or act as consultants for the Arabic Club for Kids (TACK) are joined together with a shared vision and mission. Spring boarding from this everyone who works for us shares a passion for teaching and learning to create an inclusive and relevant 21 st century culture at TACK, welcoming all children wanting to learn Arabic as a language of today’s world, in a fun, caring and evidence informed learning environment. Teachers who join our teaching community come with a variety of prior qualifications relevant to teaching children and to Arabic, and all will have worked through a hands on training and observation period and will also be engaged in continued professional development. Consultants who work with us are deep listeners, and dedicated to interactive communication. They provide frameworks, strategies and together with some Arabists who work with us, we create a ‘Think-Tank’ and look at how these frameworks and strategies can be applied to the language of Arabic, from its components to its whole, to inform our pedagogies, resource production and publication.
TACK recognises that the way to ensure an effective learning environment for children is to educate and support its teachers. Therefore, we have created a collaborative hub of experts from literacy and language backgrounds who work with the Director to develop the TACK methodology and support staff through continuing professional development.
Keeping Arabic relevant to the lives of the children and families that come to us and making Arabic part of their enriching and fun-filled experiences is something that the Arabic Club for Kids is increasingly active about. Unlike other skills children may learn, such as music, sports or other skills, language is a realm of its own in our lives. It is after all a means of communication and a means to access information, which is fundamental and part and parcel of how we operate as human beings in all of the abovementioned other skills that children may be learning. In today’s global world multiple languages are in-play simultaneously. The events that the Arabic Club for Kids seeks to create, includes social situations where fun-filled opportunities including Arabic, events, activities and fun go together Our recent events over the past year include