Panel 14.5Teaching Amharic to foreigners: Developing a common modern syllabus, didactic methods, and teaching materialsአማርኛን ለውጭ አገር ዜጎች ማስተማር፦ወጥነት ያለው ዘመናዊ የሥርዓተ ትምህርት፣ የማስተማሪያ ሥነ ዘዴ እና የትምህርት መርጃ መሣሪያ ዝግጅት

Panel 14.3 organized at the 22nd International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES22), Hawassa University, Ethiopia Over the past six years, Amharic teachers from various universities in Ethiopia and abroad have gathered on several occasions (e.g., the Hamburg workshops on February 1–2, 2018 and December 13-14, 2024, a panel at ICES, Addis Ababa University, 28/09–1/10 2022, and during the first Amharic Summer School on the Amharic Language and Ethiopian Cultures at Bahir Dar University, 13–27/09/2022) to discuss the achievements and challenges in teaching Amharic as a foreign language to non-native speakers. The most important point that emerged from the various discussions is the lack of a common syllabus for teaching Amharic based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). This framework could be of great help in structuring the Amharic training in the classroom and would also facilitate student mobility between different universities, as the language levels and the students’ skills would be measured with a common scale. This new way of teaching Amharic would also require new didactic methods to ensure a steady progress in students’ communicative skills (as opposed to the traditional grammar-translation method so widely used in universities) and developing new teaching materials that go beyond textbooks and dictionaries. To approach these issues, the panel organizers specifically selected papers that address the following topics:1.Didactic issues and approaches in teaching Amharic as a foreign language, especially issues related to a common syllabus similar to the CEFR with common evaluation systems and levels, but also challenges and opportunities in the classroom2.New teaching methods and activities, including the development of new teaching materials, teaching applications, textbook contents, etc.3.Technological issues (collaboration of language teachers with IT and AI experts, Internet sources, online learning, MOOC, online dictionary, etc.)4.Establishment of an international professional association for Amharic teachers, as the profession of an Amharic teacher is not certified and lacks quality assurance and control.5.Establishment of an Amharic Language Academy to foster the modernization and standardization of the Amharic language.