Arabic teaching at Penn began in 1788. For most of the last two centuries, primary emphasis in the language component of the program has been on the acquisition of an advanced reading skill within the context of a tradition of the study of the Orient in the ancient and medieval periods built on the principles of philology. The study of Arabic as a living language at Penn is of much more recent vintage. While institutions such as Georgetown and Michigan followed national trends in that direction during the 1950s, it was not until the foundation of a Middle East Center at Penn in the mid-1960s that steps began to be taken to change the emphasis of the Arabic language program. More recently, Penn's pioneer role in the implementation of proficiency-based instruction and testing has made its Arabic program one of the most prominent in the country.