Professional Standards for Teachers of Arabic

This chapter describes an effort to develop professional standards for teachers of Arabic (PSTA). Both the process and the content are presented here in summary as the PSTA revised document will be over 150 pages long with the appendices. The standards will serve as a set of criteria against which the expected and required competencies of Arabic teaching professionals are weighted. ¹ The effort, 2 years in the making, is the result of work accomplished by an American Association of Teachers of Arabic (AATA) committee with the initial proposal to enact it proposed at the 2001 AATA annual board meeting in Washington, DC. The committee views the PSTA as a continuous effort in draft from, subject to modification, as our profession evolves and progresses.