Khalil Derbel joined the Arabic language faculty at Georgetown University in the fall semester of 2022 as Lecturer in Arabic. He comes with a long and varied vita in higher education and also in the realm of diplomacy. For 16 years, he trained Foreign Service Officers (DoS) and Foreign Area Officers (DoD) at the Foreign Service Institute’s Arabic Field School in Tunis, Tunisia. In the academic year 2021-22, he joined the Arabic faculty of George Washington University where he taught Arabic classes at various proficiency levels and taught content courses such as Media Arabic and Arabic for Humanitarian Purposes. Previously, he designed and taught a Tunisian Arabic course at the Bourguiba Institute for Modern Languages, the University of Tunis (summer and semester formats), taught Tunisian Arabic to Peace Corps volunteers and to employees of a Swedish development aid organization based in Tunis. In language profeciency assessment, Mr. Derbel is well-versed in the ILR and ACTFL assessment guidelines and his expertise served both the foreign service community and various cohorts of Critical Language Scholarship awardees. For the past two years, Professor Derbel has been regularly administering Arabic Oral Proficiency Interviews, serving Georgetown University graduate and undergraduate students.
Over his career with the Department of State, Mr. Derbel also served as Program Analyst at the Middle East Partnership Initiative Regional Office and worked for ten years as the Political Specialist (the U.S. Embassy in Tunis) where he advised the Ambassador and senior embassy leadership on political developments in the context of a vibrant and fast-paced democratic transition.
Mr. Derbel holds a Master’s degree in Public Policy from The European University of Tunis, a Master’s degree in English Literature and a Bachelor’s degree in English from The University of Tunis. He is proficient in three languages (Arabic, French and English) and in the use of online teaching platforms. He possesses a long experience in translation and interpreting, expertise in foreign affairs, political analysis and reporting, election observation, grant management and monitoring and evaluation.
Academic Appointment(s)
- Primary
- Lecturer, College - Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies