'MESPI Talks': A Conversation with Katy Whiting of the Sijal Institute on Arabic Education in Amman
الوضع / Status
November 21, 2019
In the first of a series of interviews that aims to profile the newest and noteworthy academic institutions in the MENA region that are helping to advance critical learning, Jonathan Adler of the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative interviews Katy Whiting of the Sijal Institute. The Sijal Institute is an intensive language and cultural school and institute in the Jabal Amman neighborhood of Amman, Jordan. Whiting discusses the Sijal Institute's efforts to fill gaps in Arabic language instruction, develop new pedagogical strategies, and design more effective cultural immersion programs.
"Rendez-vous with Amman": Susanne Brunner's favorite place
SRF News
July 13, 2018
"Rendez-vous" with the world, this week with Susanne Brunner in Amman, the capital of Jordan.
Now that we have talked about history, religion, economics and politics, we want to know today: what is the favorite place of our Middle East correspondent in Amman? Ivana Pribakovic speaks with Susanne Brunner.
American students head to Jordan to witness culture firsthand
Jordan Times
July 24, 2016
AMMAN — Very little anthropological research has been done on Jordan and its people, according to Michael Perez, an American professor currently teaching and researching in the country.
“I think Jordan is a very understudied country,” Perez told The Jordan Times in a recent interview.
“When it is studied, a lot of the contemporary research is not actually about Jordan itself, but the ‘externals’ here,” he added.
Sijal: House of Erudition
Trendesign
March 29, 2016
Sijal Institute for Arabic Language and Culture is taking a more holistic approach to learning – one that is reflected in its refreshing interiors.
Wasim Salfiti, Sijal’s director and co-founder, was living abroad and had long discussed the possibility of creating “some kind of cultural centre” in Amman with his friend, the well-known Jordanian historian Abdel Razzaq Takriti. The pair’s vision was to create an institute whereby Arabic language could be taught in a more rounded environment that would allow students to be immersed in Arabic culture, politics and history. Clearly this vision would need a very special space in which to be realised.
Sijal Institute for Arabic Language and Culture
Herskhazeen
November 25, 2015
Sijal Institute for Arabic Language and Culture is located on Omar Bin Khattab street in Jabal Amman overlooking Jabal Al-Ashrafiyeh.
It occupies the lower levels and terraced garden of a Damascene family house built in the 1930s. The original building consisted of just three monolithically constructed rooms located centrally on the site. It was added to both horizontally and vertically through the 1950’s and 1970’s, registering the formal and constructional norms of those periods. The section of the institute consists of a series of descending spaces. You enter from the street and go down a steep stair to the entrance hall and lounge space; a couple more steps take you down into the study space and onto the terrace, then several more steps into the lower garden. This gives you the feeling of being connected to and oriented within the surrounding landscape and allows for natural ventilation.
New Language School Taps Growing Interest in Arab Culture
Venture Magazine
August 24, 2015
A new language school, the Sijal Institute, opened its doors in Amman earlier this year, cementing the city’s position as one of the most popular places to learn Arabic in the region.Because of its political stability and thanks to its dialect—one of the closest to Modern Standard Arabic—Jordan has become one of the region’s most popular destinations for students of Arabic, which was recently rated by the British Council as the second most important language for workers of the future after Spanish.