Third time the charm???

I have signed up for Introductory Arabic class…again. I suppose the single biggest regret of this whole I-live-and-teach-in-the-Middle-East thing is that I didn’t become fluent in Arabic. Oh, languages…I used to love learning languages! I remember being in French I class with Mr. Hall at Gamble Jr. High—I loved that class! I was the best! And then in college I started in on German (after a brief foray with Spanish and Latin) and went to Salzburg, Austria to perfect my German. I even convinced a tourist one time that I was a native. What happened to my muse for languages???

If you are a long-time reader of the blog, you will remember the fanfare and excitement with which we all flocked to Arabic class four years ago. Khalil taught us, and our class of 18 met at the end of the week for two hours. That timing might explain why halfway through the year the class had dwindled to about a half dozen. I attended class pretty faithfully, hey, I even made a stack of flash cards. I learned vocabulary—but then something happened when we went to make sentences. The sentences didn’t really form very well. By the end of the year, I attended the class with two other friends—yes, it turned out our class of 18 had reduced to three—and I even cheated occasionally off of their papers. Oh, no I just announced via the internet that I have cheated. Well, I wanted to save face in Introductory Arabic class.

In the fall of 2008, I decided I should go back to Introductory Arabic again. Khalil had a fresh batch of ex-pat recruits, and this time I was going to practice more. I think I lasted three weeks.

Since then, I have learned that one can get by in Jordan without an extensive understanding of Arabic. But still, that isn’t how I wanted it to be. I wanted to be one of the “sensitive” ex-pats, one who enjoyed the knowledge of the different Arabic dialects, and could converse with everyone from the souk bazaars to the boardrooms. I did have a great line every time a parent asked me about the ex-pats learning of Arabic when I served on panel discussions. My ready line is, “I know the three most important words in Arabic: inshallah, wallah, yallah.” Cue the laughter. [Oh, I should translate for those of you who did not attend even rudimentary Arabic classes—those three words mean, “if God wills it,” “I swear to God,” and “Yeah, come on, let’s go!”] Every time I am on the panel they beam and laugh.

I have even bought four books over the last three years about learning Arabic. I am not sure if I have cracked those books very often (“I am not sure,” he asks????? I think we all know the answer to that one!) but they look good on the bookshelf. They make me look earnest. Well, I suppose they also make me look stupid since my level of Arabic is still at the advanced introductory stage!

Last year KA hired a new teacher to help the ex-pats in their Arabic immersion. I heard she made you work. I heard she gave homework and quizzes. I heard she was feared—and good. If you saw her, you would wonder where the “feared” part came from. She is a beautiful, 24-year old who studied in the UK. At the end of last year the adult students did a play in Arabic for the school…wait a minute—no one said there would be a play!! And applause!!!

I heard that our headmaster John planned to sign up for Introductory Arabic class this year. I decided I should probably sign up for it…again. Maybe this time…cue the Liza Minnelli soundtrack please.

Okay, so I looked at the lists of who had signed up for the two blocks of Introductory Arabic class, and I decided to go with the group I thought would be the most fun. So I am back in the game! The first class we all got to pick our Arabic names and practice with the “Isme John,” part—guess what that means…”My name is John…” Yes, I am back at the beginning.

I picked Yahya as my Arabic name. In part because that is the name for Christian John in Arabic (when you go to Mukawir, the site where John the Baptist had that unfortunate tangle with Salome, one sees that name on the signs) and I chose Yahya in part because I love the sound of it. Every time I say it, my shoulders go up with a little bit of whimsy. So Lina, the lovely teacher, told us the meanings of many, many Arabic names, and the adults start choosing names because they want to be “Gift from God,” or “Lovelier than All,” or “Tough Guy,” et cetera. So our class is comprised of the following in their Arabic guises: Yasmin, Hadi, Danya, Zein (whoops! She changed her name to Fareeda because she liked the meaning of it more.) and Sara, Qusai, Ali, Bader, Tarik, Khalil, and Heba…We enjoyed the practice and had fun.

We worked on the guttural sounds that just don’t have a match in English, we learned new words and she put each of us in the “hotseat” for about sixty seconds as she plied us with questions. Lina is an excellent teacher and we are doing well. I will speak for myself—I am doing well. Of course, it is my third time in Introductory Arabic class. So I should be a star.

Last week I learned that one of our classmates jumped ship to the other class because that student felt the other adults were having too much fun and weren’t serious enough. Well, I won’t comment because I do not use the blog to vent, but SERIOUSLY!! We can be a little rowdy and learn too. I suppose he or she will study so hard and be in intermediate Arabic class soon. He or she might not even repeat Introductory Arabic class.

So last week we learned words associated with weather, so everywhere we went we practiced our words for ‘sunny’ and ‘chilly’ and ‘hot’ and ‘gorgeous.’ Oh, as long as we are reciting these words, I am at the top of the class. We haven’t done much writing yet. I am interested to see how Lina does with the teaching of Arabic writing. It’s hard. It takes me back to third grade when there were all these comments and warnings about Johnny’s messy penmanship. Let’s see how this goes…

One day we practiced the, “How old are you?” question and learned numbers associated with age. Well, that is a hoot. The oldest in class is 61 and the youngest is 23. When it came time for me to disclose my age, I looked over at the young, newbie John and said, “I am John Wolf times two.” But it was funny when someone looked at another young ‘un and said, “I have pants older than you!” We have a 54-year old, a 44-year old, a 34-old year, and a 24-year old in class. So we had to muse about the march of time.

Anyway, so far class has been mumtaz (excellent!) and I am getting the gender classifications correct and I am even about to go look for those flashcards.

I mentioned last time that this is a difficult month—it is college-recommendation-writing-hell, or as I have called it for the last 15 years—October. I have stayed on my schedule. I have written 17 college recs in the last two weeks, and I have 3.25 left to write this week. (After I finish this blogisode I should go and finish that last .25 about the wonderful child—what is her name??!! Just kidding!) Then I have to write advisor reports about my five advisees…but the German train is arriving and departing on time so far.

The other day Fareeda asked for a quiz tomorrow—Fareeda!!! Oh, by the way, the other day I walked into Introductory Arabic class one minute late, so I was the first on the “hotseat.” I missed a response to “Good night” (Hey! It has like 6 syllables to it and doesn’t follow the model for “Good morning”!!) so Lina, asked me, “Yayha, did you study?” Oh, see, there is where the feared part comes in. I looked at her and answered honestly, “La!” (Which do you think it was? I was honest, No!). So we have a quiz tomorrow and I don’t want Qusai or Fareeda to beat me. However, the young wunderkind, Khalil, will probably beat me…but maybe if I go study…okay. I will report back later how I do! Here we go again: the third time may be the charm for Introductory Arabic class!