Lost in Cairo, Part II
Posted February 8, 2007The first week of my second term at the Arabic Language Institute has come and gone. This is shaping up to be a hell of a semester. I placed into the High Beginner level of Arabic courses, and I've come home the last couple of days feeling completely destroyed by this language. High Beginner is where I should be, but I will need a bit more structured guidance from my teachers if I'm going to get there.
For example, my grammar teacher has spent the last week both reviewing and presenting some new material, though presenting is perhaps too generous of a verb. Most of the review is not difficult at all. (Though, as is the case with grammar in any language, it seems, individual teachers' terminology can be a bit idiosyncratic, which takes getting used to.) Our classes have been haphazard, as we jump from topic to topic in discussing a particular phrase or sentence. What's worse, he will ask us for terms we have never heard, and when we answer questions incorrectly we are not presented with the information in any way we can appropriate.
I'm pretty comfortable being wrong in a learning situation - a necessary skill in college, I believe - especially when the purpose of mistakes is instructive. But I have not had any of the new material we've encountered presented cohesively, so "instructive" is as yet an adjective far on the horizon. Furthermore, I really do not think that the problem is on my end, since - and those of you who know me personally already know this - grammar is my thing.
The other disappointment I have with the ALI this term is the class size. Almost every day this week we have gained a student to the classroom, and we are now up to twelve in my class, compared to the seven last term. There weren't enough seats in one classroom today. I don't like this at all, especially when I know I would get more teacher contact and learn more in a smaller class. I expressed my concerns to the director of the ALI earlier today, and she pointed out that the first week of class is always really jumbled with students switching classes without telling the administration. Things should settle down next week, though if my class size stays the same I will be less than pleased.
The obvious solution is to hire more teachers or screen enrollment on a tougher standard. Both, however, are long-term solutions to an issue the ALI needs to address.
On the bright side, one of my classes is a Media Arabic course. This is the first truly applicable course I've been in at the ALI. The touch of gray on this silver lining is that the class is in essense a vocabulary course. I hope we learn some newspaper-reading skills or something like that, because vocabulary gets pretty boring even if the subject is interesting.
Leaving the Arabic aside for a moment (any longer is not a good idea), I have been otherwise occupied trying to record more music. Unfortunately, now that my schedule is diurnal, I am unable to record anything of quality in my apartment. Cairo is simply too loud. Horns from the traffic reach our fifteenth-floor apartment with ease, and when the horns aren't blowing, the mosques are broadcasting the call to prayer, or the wind knocks cables against the building, or music from parties elsewhere floats through our apartment. This is not difficult to get used to and thus quite livable, but recording is simply not a possibility during the day. I have begun the hunt for quiet rooms in the university and even recorded some sound samples to see if certain rooms would suit my needs, but thus far the search has yielded nothing. I do have a lead on a way to reserve the theater studios, and if that works out I will have a place to record during the day. I am hopeful, because I have several tunes to lay down!
Tomorrow, Friday, February 9th, is my 23rd birthday. Meaning that exactly thenty-three years ago, Mom was in excruciating pain. Thanks for putting up with me, Mom!
I have been slowly adding more to the Links page. Now, you, too, can practice my vocabulary exercises on my Vocabulary teacher's website! Joy of joys!
In the words of the immortal Calvin: FURTHER BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT!
