The Juma Al Majid Center for Culture and Heritage in Dubai organized a remote symposium entitled “The Reality of the Arabic Language in Japan,” in which Dr. Kassem Wahba, Associate Professor of Arabic at AUD and Dr. Akiko Sumi, Professor of Arabic Literature at the University of Notre Dame in Kyoto, Japan, lectured. The symposium was moderated by Sheikha Abdullah Al-Mutairi, Head of the National Culture, Public Relations and Media Departments at the Center.

The symposium began with Dr. Akiko summarizing the challenges facing Arabic language teaching in Japanese universities, in four main points: the status of Arabic language teaching in Japan compared to other foreign languages, the change in the number of universities that teach Arabic as a second language in the past twenty years, the motives behind the interest of students and the challenges facing teaching the Arabic language in Japan in general. Dr. Wahba spoke of his teaching experience in Japanese universities and discussed the history of teaching the Arabic language in Japan, the goals and types of Arabic language programs in universities, the motivations of the Japanese learner that are often not taken into account and the role of experimental academic research in developing Arabic language teaching.