When Loren Siebert struggled to learn vocabulary for his introductory Arabic class three years ago, he figured he would buy tapes or a software package. Those kinds of aids had helped him learn French in high school and, more recently, conversational Indonesian.
What he was disappointed to discover was a scarcity in offerings for Arabic, despite ex-
plosive growth nationally in class enrollment since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
And the lack of study aids has frustrated college faculty around the country, says Claire Bartlett, former president of the International Association for Language Learning Technology. “It’s a supply-demand problem,” she says. “Historically, there’s been low interest in Arabic, and the demand for it is relatively new.”
Written Arabic runs right to left, the opposite of English. That has daunted some
U.S. software programmers so far, Bartlett and others say. Complicating things is the
