Recipient Profile

E-mail: hearlyba@nd.edu

Language: Arabic

Location of Study: Jerusalem, Israel

Program of Study: The Polis Institute for Languages and Humanities

Sponsors: CSLC, The Kellogg Institute for International Studies, the College of Arts and Letters

Blog URL: http://sites.nd.edu/sla2019/author/hearlyba/

 

Pre-departure

A brief personal bio:

My name is Hannah Early Bagdanov and I am a graduate student in Political Science. I study Comparative Politics and International Relations. Amongst other things, I am interested in religion and politics, and am working on projects related to Christianity and politics.

Why this summer language abroad opportunity is important to me:

The SLA grant is important to me because it allows me to further my Arabic speaking, reading, and writing in an in-country context where I can practice the Levantine dialect. Specifically, because Jerusalem is home to a large population of Christians, this is a great place to study Arabic given my research interests.

What I hope to achieve as a result of this summer study abroad experience:

I hope to achieve increased exposure to the multicultural city of Jerusalem, which brings together peoples and monuments of the Abrahamic faiths. Additionally, I hope to achieve greater Arabic speaking proficiency by practicing with classmates and teachers and with vendors and shopkeepers while experiencing daily life in the city.

My specific learning goals for language and intercultural learning this summer:

1. By the end of the summer, I hope to increase my conversational comfortability and to extend conversations beyond simple sentence constructions

2. By the end of the summer, I hope to expand my religious vocabulary to include vocabulary related to the practices, symbols, and monuments of the Abrahamic faiths

3. By the end of the summer, I hope to take risks when practicing and increase my listening skills by learning to ask clarifying questions in Arabic before defaulting to English