Level Up Village Launches First Arabic Language and Culture Exchange

GREENWICH, Conn. & MORRISTOWN, N.J. - Jan. 20, 2016 - PRLog -- Level Up Village (LUV), a provider of pioneering global STEAM (STEM + arts) programs, today announced the launch of its first Arabic language and cultural exchange. Upper School students taking Arabic as their foreign language at Delbarton School in Morristown, New Jersey, are practicing their language and listening skills by exchanging video messages with Palestinian students at Pioneers Baccalaureate School in Nablus, West Bank.

“This Arabic language and culture exchange represents an exciting, new application for Level Up Village’s global communication platform, which we developed to provide seamless, one-on-one collaboration between students from around the world,” said Amy McCooe, Co-Founder, Level Up Village. “We are experiencing phenomenal demand for our global STEAM courses, as well as our newer offerings as schools seek innovative new ways to provide authentic learning opportunities in order to develop global citizenship.”

Over a five-week period, students at Delbarton School will exchange a series of video messages in Arabic with individual partner students in Nablus, West Bank. They will discuss topics such as sports, food, hobbies, travel, family life, school routines, career aspirations and daily life in their respective countries.

“The experience of communicating with native speakers allows us at the very least to strengthen language skills—but much more importantly, it provides us with the opportunity to use the linguistic tools we have been developing,” said Zach Tabor, Arabic teacher at Delbarton School. “Engagement on both a cultural and individual level allows not only for greater understanding, but also for experience in building and maintaining individual relationships—which are ultimately what connect people even in a globalized world.”

The Delbarton students, who are in their second year of studying Arabic, prepared for the exchange by devoting considerable time to practicing their Arabic conversational skills. They also read articles, watched videos and held discussions on the histories of various Arab cultures.

“I think any young man from Delbarton who has the opportunity to have a conversation (or several) with another young person in the West Bank will—I hope—become quickly aware that as humans, we aren’t all that different from each other, and that the issues we hear so much about often have many sides to them,” said Dan Pieraccini, Director of Global Programs at Delbarton School. “When we come to know one another as humans, yes, the concerns of the world become less black and white, but we also exercise our muscles for compassion, understanding and curiosity from the atrophy of our comfort zones.”

Now in 100 U.S. schools, Level Up Village empowers students to make a difference through one-to-one collaboration on real-world problems together with Global Partner students in 23 countries. U.S. school partners directly sponsor global education in developing countries through LUV’s “Take a Class, Give a Class” model: a portion of the tuition is used to deliver the same class to students at one of LUV’s Global Partner organizations.

Read more about the Arabic language & culture exchange here on the Level Up Village blog. Schools interested in introducing a Level Up Village foreign language and culture exchange in Arabic or Spanish should contact Galia@levelupvillage.com.

About Level Up Village
Level Up Village (LUV) delivers pioneering Global STEAM (STEM + Arts) enrichment courses that promote design thinking and one-to-one collaboration on real-world problems between K-9 students in the U.S. and partner students in developing countries. Launched in 2012, LUV runs courses during school, after-school and in the summer at nearly 100 U.S. schools in 15 states, with over 30 Global Partner organizations in 23 countries. More information is available at levelupvillage.com.

About Delbarton School
Delbarton is a school for boys in grades 7 through 12. Led by the Benedictine monks of St. Mary’s Abbey, Delbarton is located in Morristown, New Jersey, three miles west of the historic Morristown Green. The school’s stated mission is to build character, pursue excellence and develop leadership.

Media Contacts:
Andrea Sherman
PR, Level Up Village
andrea@levelupvillage.com

Neesha Rahim
Co-Founder, Level Up Village
neesha@levelupvillage.com (646) 242-6529

Jessica Fiddes
Director of Communications, Delbarton School
jfiddes@delbarton.org

Note to editors – recent press about Level Up Village:

Tech Insider: The next generation of pen pals will dissect frogs together via Skype 1.6.16

Greenwich Time: Students 7,000 miles apart find friendships via video letters 12.24.15

The Hechinger Report: Can real global learning happen online? 11.18.2015