David-tp11

6/22/2012

The saga continues.....  When I dropped Majdi off I walked him to his doors and his roommates welcomed me in.  I knew the night was far from over now because they are so welcoming.  I sat down as Mahmoud put some pillows behind me to make me more comfortable.  After exchanging the traditional Arabic greetings we started to have a chat.  They asked if I would not only tutor Majdi but them as well.  I told them that as long as I am here in the States I would try and make sometime for them.  They were so grateful for this and I was happy too because they were at different levels and I thought that the practice would be good.  I mean I am not just doing this class for a requirement but also for the experience that I can take into the work place.

Another native English speaker was there and he was not would I describe as helpful.  They had met him at the Mosque and he was a recent convert so he really wanted to learn more about the culture and language.  That is all well and good however he was also trying to teach them English and from how he was talking it seemed like all he was doing was confusing them.  He spoke English so fast that I could barely understand him and Mahmoud who speaks and listens pretty well told me he was frustrated because he couldn't understand anything the kid was saying.  (I am not trying to propel myself to the top by saying how inferior this or that person was it's just that he was so distracting that it was annoying).  Anyway seeing that any attempt to work on English with them would result in a jump on the bandwagon scenario from this kid, which I was not eager to do,   I asked Mahmoud the same question I asked Alena.  Would you teach me the Arabic alphabet?  As was Alena he was delighted to show me and decided to first put on some tea, but not before asking me if I wanted coffee.  Because in Arabic culture it is rude to offer tea before coffee (good to know)  We got out some paper and this kid was trying to learn Arabic also which made things easier and took the conversation off of English which I deemed good for tonight.

I will say that Arabic is perhaps one of the most beautiful written languages that I have ever seen so I was very excited to learn.  We chunked through the information 4 letters at a time which really helped me group the information (another technique I am stealing for my English teaching).  It was really hard to write because not only was I writing right to left but they told while doing this to make my characters from the right to left also.  Then they explained how symbols changed when connected in Arabic writing which I also found really difficult.  We went over it a dozen more times and learned how to spell my name in Arabic which has 4 characters not 5 as it does in many other languages.  We also went over other new vocabulary words and greetings..  By this time my wife was contacting me to come home because it was past 11 and I must say that I had a great time the entire time.  I have met some of the best people in this program and have grown a ton both in my teaching and learning ability as well.  Over the entire night I had spent about 5 hours between them and Majdi and I was exhausted.