Syrian journalist talks about her experience as a journalist and immigrant
May 14, 2025
Syrian American journalist visits Prof. Raddawi's Arabic classes in Spring 2025
Syrian journalist Dareen Saleh visited two of Professor Raddawi’s Arabic classes, Arabic 121-3 (second-year Arabic) and Arabic 211-3 (third-year Arabic) this quarter exploring her experiences as a journalist in the Middle East and in Chicago, and narrat
ing her life as an immigrant to the US. First, Dareen Saleh described the difference between traditional and digital journalism and how social media is taking over traditional journalism today. Then, she spoke about the barriers she experienced in her new surroundings (adjusting to a new language, culture shock, determining the equivalence of her foreign degrees) and she recounted part of her life story and the problems she had to overcome such as fighting breast cancer while being pregnant. Dareen Saleh spoke in the Levantine Arabic only and she made sure to use and reinforce the new vocabulary students in both classes had been studying. Students were able to ask questions in Arabic to guess her profession and to explore further information.
