Biography

Education Background

Yusuf Abdullah Muhammad Jaaber is a graduate from Old Dominion University with a Bachelor in Business & Public Administration and a graduate from the University of Phoenix with a Masters in Global Management. In 2011, he took the Oral Proficiency Interview and Written Proficiency Arabic Tests conducted by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and scored Advanced High on both tests awarding him twenty-four (24) college credits registered with the American Council on Education (ACE). In the summer of 2014, he pursued his Certificate of Eligibility as a Teacher of Arabic from the State of New Jersey which was issued in February 2015. In 2020, Yusuf received his Standard Certificate as a Teacher of Arabic the State of New Jersey. He is currently an Arabic Studies teacher with the Newark Board of Education.

Marrakesh, Morocco

As a young man in his 20’s, Yusuf embarked on his journey to master the Arabic Language. He would get his first taste of immersion while coordinating and supervising a student exchange program in Morocco for learning Arabic & Islamic Culture in 2002. There he was able to use his administrative and organizational skills to help facilitate what was a very successful study abroad program, while stimulating his passion for the Arabic language through direct interaction with the indigenous population in Morocco. Yusuf served eight months as the Business Manager and Resident Assistant for the Arabic Language & Cultural Institute Morocco Study Abroad Program while completing 800 hours in Classical & Modern Standard Arabic in the form of conversation, composition, syntax and morphology.

Cairo, Egypt

Yusuf continued to pursue Arabic on his own, until the opportunity to travel to Egypt presented itself once again in 2009. During his stay in Egypt, he completed 1200 hours of Arabic through classroom instruction, workshops, and private tutoring. His studies consisted of Conversational Arabic, Rudimentary Arabic Literature, Media & Communications Arabic, and Arabic Syntax & Morphology. While in Egypt, he acquired a Certificate of Excellence in Arabic Syntax & Morphology from the renowned Egyptian Arabic Grammarian, Dr. Ayman Amin Abdul-Ghani. While in Egypt, he scored at the Advanced level on the Arabic Language Proficiency Test which is a global standard test endorsed by the Islamic Chamber of Commerce and Industry whose membership consists of 56 Arabic speaking countries.

Arabic Experience

In 2002, Yusuf began to teach Arabic at a private day school, evening adult classes, private tutoring, and youth summer camps. During the summer of 2010, Yusuf established the Arabic Language Institute in Newark, New Jersey. He served as the Executive Director and Lead Instructor. Furthermore, the Arabic Language Institute offered a Youth Weekend Academy, Youth Summer Language Camp, and participated in an Arabic Language Immersion Program teaching Arabic at a private school located in East Orange, New Jersey.

Since 2014, he has served as the Arabic Instructional Coordinator for several Islamic schools. His duty was to develop and supervise the Arabic curriculum from pre-school to 12th grade. Furthermore, he had to evaluate the core curriculum standards and instructional methods, administer teacher training and development, and design formative and summative assessments to evaluate student progress.

Since 2014, he has completed over 200 hours of professional development in various areas of second language instruction. The professional development that he has received is from renowned language organizations such as Global Language Project, Qatar Foundation International, Concordia Language Villages, TELL Collab, and the National Network for Early Language Learning. In 2014, he became a member of the New York Arabic Teachers’ Council (NYATC), a network and professional learning community for Arabic educators in the Northeast region.

Yusuf has conducted research on instruction methods for mastery of the Arabic Language for non-Arabic speakers. Also, he has studied and compared at least 10 well-known Arabic curriculums taught either in American Universities and Institutes or taught in high schools and universities in Arabic speaking countries.

Courses