ABSTRACT
The teaching of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) began in the early 1920s, when the young Anis Frayha took up a position as adjunct professor in the Department of Arabic and Near Eastern Languages and began teaching new American faculty members and their wives Lebanese colloquial Arabic. The teaching of Arabic as a foreign language in Western institutions abroad began as a practical matter at AUB, with the teaching of a spoken variety of Arabic to learners who needed to use the language in their daily lives and not with what was later to become the default position at American institutions: that of teaching the formal language of writing and public address. One notable benefit of the multiculturalism of the AUB environs among many—especially advantageous to women students—is that the sexual harassment for which Cairo is infamous is almost completely absent from the streets of Beirut.
