Monday - Tuesday 2/16-17

2/16-17

Monday & Tuesday

Monday, back to school I go. This is the start of the third week and I am beginning to feel overwhelmed. I have been trying to keep up, but there is just so much information and vocabulary coming at me I am ready to cry “Uncle!”

 

My ESA class is finally getting into conversation that I can use: how to shop at the grocery store, get change, ask directions…Yeah! But it all moves so fast and I find that I really need more repetition than an intensive course provides. That and the fact that I have been spending so much time trying to keep up with the MSA vocabulary and what seems like hundreds of irregular verb conjugations in multi-tenses, that the ESA is slipping. Perhaps taking both was a little over anxious and it might be time to pick a priority. I have tried to find a tutor to help me with MSA, but that has proved futile. The school only supplies tutors (actually conversation practice) in ESA, and to find services for MSA takes longer to search out than a month stay allows.

 

I have the same teacher for both classes; her name is Yvonne Malik and I think she is a good teach-I just have a slow brain ; ). My fellow ECA students include 2 British, 2 Germans, 2 Dutch, a fellow American and myself. My MSA class consists of 1 British, 1 Italian, 2 Dutch, 3 Germans, I Danish, and 2 Americans. The fact that all but us Americans are learning their third language from their second language- English is amazing. Most speak very good English, too. It also means that most of the students are more eager to talk in English when not in class as they want to improve it too. I was hoping the Arabic would be more of a binder, but it’s not. Once out of the class room English is everywhere (except with the staff). It also means that the girls prefer to watch American TV shows rather than the Arabic ones.

 

The girls don’t spend half the time studying I do and with the time I have left here, I do want to be able to enjoy some other experiences. They both have gone to the lower than they tested in at to allow for review – a nice thing to do if you have 3 or more months of study here. Other students in the school seem to be finding time for Cairo day and nightlife, but they are only in their 20s and I am not. They have found the clubs to dance at, the local falafel restaurants and other Cairo experiences I haven’t made time for. There are a few older students, but very few. Not everyone takes both classes; ECA and MSA. As I am experiencing, it is a big load. If I had it to do again, I would either only take the EAS, or if I took MSA too, take a lower level. Based on the ease that I passed the entrance test, who would have guessed I would struggle so in this class. I think the biggest difference is that I have been expected to know a very different vocabulary. I have talked to a few students who are coming from the Al- Kitab series, and they all say the same thing- our vocabulary lists don’t match what was taught at the lower levels here and we are playing catch-up. It means I am spending a lot of time with a dictionary and creating my own new and more extensive vocabulary list than comes in the text we are using. That takes a lot of study time and increases the number of new words I have to learn just to keep up.

 

So what do I do now and with the rest of the time I am here? I am learning a lot-- that is for sure. But I’m not spending enough time practicing and using it, so I think it is time to rethink the program. I give it the rest of the week and will use the weekend to decide what I want to do with the time I have left. I’m heavily leaning towards dropping out of MSA, or just auditing it next week (be a fly on the wall and get what I can without the stress) and concentrate on the ECA and using it.