Mizyan! Even when I say this with lots of enthusiasm, this Moroccan word (actually of Hebrew origin) for “great” or “wonderful” is still an understatement for how the first week has gone. I hesitate to set high expectations for the next seven weeks here, but the first one was incredible.

A Pakistani group in a Tangier music festival

My teachers, Aziz and Rabia, are absolutely wonderful. Classes aren’t overwhelming, but I’m still learning a lot, especially practicing speaking. They’re really receptive to making changes and incorporating different lessons, and are great about covering material thoroughly, clearly, and effectively. Here’s part of a sweet email Aziz just sent to give you a better idea:

Dear all, 

Rabia and I would like to compliment you for your enthusiastic spirit and hard work in our wonderful class. Here you can find our emails. If you need any kind of help or whatsoever please feel free to ask. We will be so glad to help you. We do sincerely hope you will learn a lot and have so much fun.  God bless you. God bless Alqasba.

(“Alqasba” is the name of our class – it’s an area in the old part of Tangier.) Yes, they are wonderful.

One of the techniques used by all CLS teachers is immediate feedback – they have been told to correct any mistakes we make while speaking so that we don’t develop bad habits and will fix any habits we have. This method is supposed to be especially effective for adult-language learning, and I definitely appreciate this constructive feedback.

For example, think about people who learn English as a second language. The more advanced they are and larger vocabulary they have, the more critical we are of their speaking. We notice the smallest grammatical errors. Whereas with a more elementary learner, we are more forgiving of mistakes and may even think their accents and rough sentences are endearing. That’s the challenge with trying to become an advanced language speaker.

The first hurdle was finding out my results from the Oral Proficiency Exam (OPI) I took a couple months ago over the phone. CLS compares the before- and after-program scores for statistical (and funding) purposes, as well as our own personal use. The OPI is a standardized exam that divides speakers into the main groups of Beginning, Intermediate, Advanced, or Superior with three sublevels in the first three groups (= 10 levels total). I was not very pleased with my score and was, admittedly, disappointed. However, it gives me a lot of room to improve in that area, especially since I have had very, very minimal experience actually speaking in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) – apparently speaking only in Egyptian Colloquial Arabic (ECA) won’t cut it :)

I used to laugh at the fact that Arabic learners would speak in MSA with people, since it’s not actually a language used in the Arab streets, but now that person is me, and I’ve had to embrace it. Needless to say, it has been EXTREMELY frustrating at times, especially when I am stumbling to communicate on the simplest level. My main language-learning goal is to expand my vocabulary and challenge myself to incorporate more sophisticated words and sentence structures instead of resorting to what’s comfortable. I don’t think I’m going to become an Arabic language scholar, but my end goals are to use the language effectively on an everyday basis, for which MSA proficiency is an important basis.

We spend most of the class speaking which is great for me to practice the vocabulary I have just learned, as well as learn from my seven other classmates, many of whom have stronger backgrounds in speaking MSA, whether at their universities or in other Arabic language programs. This is a typical schedule:

-       7am - Exercise (running, jump rope, or swimming in the afternoon)

-       8:30-9am - Breakfast at the American School in Tangier (AST)

-       9am-1:30pm - ARABIC (with a 25 minute break): 3 hours of MSA, 1 hour of Darija (Moroccan Colloquial Arabic

-       1:30-2:30pm - Lunch at AST

-       2:30-3:30pm - Speaking partners: one-on-one sessions with a native Moroccan (trained as a “speaking partner”) to help work on…speaking. We can talk about anything from what we learned in class to what are opinions are on marriage, social problems, soccer, etc.

-       Also, tutors are available after lunch for more one-on-one work

-       Afternoon activity: we are required to participate in two scheduled/group activities per week, so this week I plan on going to a hammam (bath) and playing soccer here at AST

Some dinner selections from a shaabi (local) restaurant

-       Dinner in Tangier (i.e. not at AST) + mint tea (this is a especially a must): I’ve been trying a lot delicious Moroccan food, usually with Meredith :) Last night I had grilled fish and a plate of watermelon, but other great options are a giant plate of couscous with stewed veggies, steaming hot tajine (famous Moroccan stew cooked in clay pots, usually with meat/chicken, veggies, and dried fruit), or kebabs.

-       Homework…or watching kora (soccer) in a café is always a solid choice.

Watching the Euro Cup final

Learning and speaking Darija is an entirely new level of difficulty. It’s farther from MSA than Egyptian Arabic is, so I barely understand people on the streets. ECA can be useful since many people understand it from watching movies, TV series, or listening to music, but I stubbornly try to stumble over Darija so I can get it down.  So far the result is often an incomprehensible mix of MSA, Darija, and ECA. The hardest part is that Moroccans seem to speak without any vowels. This sounds impossible, but it’s real, and only makes it sound like people are speaking 10x faster than normal. Not to mention terrible for listening comprehension.

I actually haven’t even written about the best part so far – hopefully I’ll be able to post something in the next few days, but if any of you have seen the Facebook pictures, I’m sure you may have an idea…