Dr. Abeer Hamza is a highly experienced lecturer and program coordinator with over thirty years of language teaching expertise. At UCLA, she teaches Modern Standard Arabic and Spoken Egyptian Arabic courses, and she’s also the creator of the “Readings in Standard Arabic” course. Dr. Hamza was honored with the OTL (Online Teaching and Learning) award for her work on an advanced online Arabic course. Additionally, she received the prestigious UC Online grant, which allowed her to design intermediate and advanced Arabic classes accessible to all UC campuses from fall 2023.
Beyond the classroom, Abeer has developed complementary materials and web-program modules for spoken Egyptian Arabic, supported by CNES, UCLA. She’s also actively involved in administering Arabic language placement exams and conducting oral proficiency interviews, providing mentorship to students before and after their fellowships. Her commitment to growth is evident through her participation in workshops and conferences at UCLA and other institutions, as well as her observation of other Arabic programs like the Middlebury intensive summer program. Moreover, she received specialized training in Arabic teaching pedagogy at the University of Texas at Austin. Abeer earned her Ph.D. from Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt, in 2000, with a focus on the historical novel phenomenon across various languages and literatures, including Spanish and Arabic. Prior to her role at UCLA, she served as an assistant professor at Ain Shams University and taught Arabic and Spanish at California State University, Los Angeles.
Her research interests include language pedagogy, language assessment, sociolinguistics, and comparative literature. Abeer also demonstrates a keen interest in exploring innovative online teaching and learning methods and embracing new tools in education.
