Before I started my classes, my goal was to make it through the first week. I knew that the first week would be the most strenuous, stressful and rewarding. My expectations were exceeded. But now that I'm into the second week, I feel so much more confident concerning speaking and writing Arabic. One of the major changes that occurred between week one and week two was that we swi
tched teachers. Our original teacher had to attend a family function in Geneva, Switzerland and so we got Mohga as our new teacher. Mohga is a really great teacher from Egypt. She's probably about 40-45 years old and she's a typical Egyptian woman (dark, wears the hijab and pronounces all her g's as hard g's as opposed to every other Arab who pronounces g's as soft g's). Besides pronunciation, the transition could not have been smoother. I hate to say that she is better than our original Iraqi instructor, Soduk, but she's very, very good. Of course, I still go to my tutor, Lama. The MIIS campus is compiled of various buildings within a four block area in downtown Monterey. The picture in this blog is of the building that the Arabic classes are --the Morse building. Now that my class has completed the fundamentals we are moving on to our grammar book tomorrow...I'm very nervous because the case endings in Arabic are very difficult but I'm taking one day (and concept!) at a time! I do have to say, the weather here in Monterey does not agree with me...today was cloudy, grey and 58 degrees. I don't think people here realize that it is summer.
tched teachers. Our original teacher had to attend a family function in Geneva, Switzerland and so we got Mohga as our new teacher. Mohga is a really great teacher from Egypt. She's probably about 40-45 years old and she's a typical Egyptian woman (dark, wears the hijab and pronounces all her g's as hard g's as opposed to every other Arab who pronounces g's as soft g's). Besides pronunciation, the transition could not have been smoother. I hate to say that she is better than our original Iraqi instructor, Soduk, but she's very, very good. Of course, I still go to my tutor, Lama. The MIIS campus is compiled of various buildings within a four block area in downtown Monterey. The picture in this blog is of the building that the Arabic classes are --the Morse building. Now that my class has completed the fundamentals we are moving on to our grammar book tomorrow...I'm very nervous because the case endings in Arabic are very difficult but I'm taking one day (and concept!) at a time! I do have to say, the weather here in Monterey does not agree with me...today was cloudy, grey and 58 degrees. I don't think people here realize that it is summer.