أهلا و سهلا
ⴰⵣⵓⵍ ! Bună ziua! שָׁלוֹם ! Terve! Здравствуйте! Saluti! Γειά σας! ¿Qué tal? Grüß Gott! Sana selamlar! چطوری؟ Olá! Bonjour! Greetings!
As a kid, whenever I was asked about what I wanted to be when I grow up, my reply was not to be a doctor or a lawyer or an engineer or a pilot or a professor but to be able to understand every language spoken in the world ! Well so much for childhood dreams since there was no library in my mountain village or even a decent language book and more importantly, no Anatole France around for encouragement (Nine tenth of education is encouragement !).
Today, however, I am thrilled and endlessly blessed to be able to read, write, speak and listen to at least eight languages on a daily basis: German (Deutsch), Italian (Italiano), Tamazight or Berber (ⵜⴰⵎⴰⵣⵉⵖⵜ), Portuguese (Português), Arabic (العربية ), Spanish (Español), French (Français) and obviously English, while actively seeking to learn three more languages: Russian (русский язык: Ruskiy Yazik), Hebrew (עברית חדשה : Ivrit Hadasha) and Farsi (زبان فارسى: Zabani Farsi).
My enthusiastic interest for world cultures along with my endless passion for foreign languages had driven me to initially study Spanish and get a Graduate degree in Spanish Letters and Arts, then learn the languages of Bertolt Brecht, Luís Vaz de Camões and Salvatore Quasimodo on my own, and as of late, start working on several other world languages.
I had taught Spanish for a few years at college level before I started teaching Arabic at the Defense Language Institute in Monterrey, CA. I had additionally taught French and courses on Islamic history and culture in Iberia and on Globalization. A few years later, I made it to the prestigious Wesleyan University. At Wesleyan, besides my regular load of Arabic classes, I have been teaching CLAC courses (Cultures and Languages Across the Curriculum) on Translation, Islamic Spain (La España islámica o musulmana), and Introduction to Tamazight (Berber).
My academic interests and passions are Translation and interpreting, linguistics, the study of foreign languages and their similarities, History, particularly Islamic History in North Africa and Iberia, Law and the US legal system.
I am fascinated by the art of language interpretation and translation. In fact, I find myself always incorporating the translation approach in my classes. If creating and producing language in the target language is the evident goal of learning a language, nothing is more challenging as well as rewarding as translating a given text in the mother tongue/source language into the target language, successfully and as naturally as possible.
My classroom teaching philosophy can be summed up in the self-made acronym “Crafti” (with an i) : Communicative language approach, Reflective teaching, Application of learned material on a daily basis, Fun learning environment, Translation method, and finally the Integration of the five Cs of Foreign Language Education (Communication, Cultures, Connections, Comparisons, and Communities ).
My research, projects and work done so far include the translation of Mutter Zunge (Mother tongue) by German Turkish-born uthor Emine Sevgi Özdamar from German into Arabic, a semi-biographical novel: يوميات قروي نجيب (Diaries of a country dweeb), 35 Common errors students of Arabic consistently make and how to avoid them, Demystifying the Arabic language: “Tricks and Hacks” for learning and memorizing the Ten-verb Arabic Measure Chart, Word, Image and concept association as an effective tool in learning Lexicon in foreign languages, Revisiting the kinship between Arabic and other languages: Hebrew, Turkish, Spanish, Swahili and beyond, Looking closer at non-Arabic words in Moroccan Arabic: from ⵅⵉⵣⵣⵓ Khizzou (Tamazight) to Saia (Portuguese) to kağıt (Turkish).
الأستاذ عبد الرحمان عيسى
ويعرف أيضا باسم أمير
Prof. Abderrahman Aissa, aka Amir.
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للسعادة أسباب أولها أن نقول الحمد لله
Balık baştan kokar.
Să știți că Tatăl nostru
ⵖⴰⵙ ⴰⵢⴷⵉ ⴰⴳⵜⵍⵍⴻⵖⵏ ⵉⵅⴼⵏⵏⴻⵙ
Quando finisce la partita il re ed il pedone finiscono nella stessa scatola
Mikä laulaen tulee, se viheltäen menee
Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil.
Алтынного вора вешают, а полтинного чествуют
águas passadas não movem moinho
كوه به کوه نمیرسد, آدم به آدم میرسد
La raíz de todos los males es el amor al dinero
תהיה עצמך ו יחיה בסדר
Όποιος γίνεται πρόβατο τον τρώει ο λύκος
À cœur vaillant rien d’impossible