Biography
Hussein Elkhafaifi earned his B.A. in Arabic language and literature from the University of Libya, an M.A. in theoretical linguistics and a Ph.D. in Arabic language and applied linguistics from the University of Utah. Elkhafaifi has taught Arabic on all levels, as well as courses in Arabic linguistics, Arabic sociolinguistics; teaching Arabic as a second/foreign language; Arab culture; and Arab media. Additionally, he designs the curricula, syllabi, and assessments for these course sequences. He taught at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Utah before joining the University of Washington in 2004. He also taught in summer programs in Middlebury College, the University of California at Berkeley and at Los Angeles. He regularly conducts workshops on teaching methodology and teacher training and consults with language programs in the United States and abroad. He is currently Associate Professor of Arabic at the University of Washington, and adjunct associate professor in the Department of Linguistics at the same institution.
His research interests include applied linguistics, foreign/second language teacher training and mentoring; language politics and ideology, language culture, language conflict and identity He has published several highly-cited articles in Language Problems & Language Planning, The Modern Language Journal, al-cArabiyya, and Foreign Language Annals, in addition to chapters in other scholarly publications. He has served on the executive board of the American Association of Teachers of Arabic numerous times. He is the former Section Head for Arabic in the American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators, and Directors of Language Programs (2008-2017). He is the former head of the Arabic and Islamic Studies Program (2006-2019) at the department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization. He is also a certified Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) tester through the American Council on Teaching Foreign Languages (ACTFL) and the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR).