Teaching Arabic in the Caribbean

Tuesday, March 30

For once, I am really glad I went to Arabic class. My professor is on vacation in the Caribbean, but she insisted on having class today. We started by going over the homework (that I didn’t do). Her sound and audio wasn’t great, but I could understand her fairly well. After the homework, we moved onto learning about feminine plurals, but several people in my class said that they couldn’t hear her very well and that her video was buffering pretty badly.

In our private group chat, we were all bemoaning the fact that we were having class while she was on vacation. None of us were in the mood to learn Arabic, so some of the guys made the suggestion that we should act like we couldn’t hear her at all so she would end class early. (None of us thought she would end class early though.) Reader, one of the guys took one for the team, and class ended early. Not before homework was assigned, but it ended, nonetheless. AND we have Thursday off!!

But here’s the kicker: we have a makeup class next Monday.

And I’ve also realized that, contrary to what I thought, I do not have a good poker face. Trying to hold in your laughter hurts when your professor says “I bet you all are conspiring against me so I will cancel class.” One guy accidentally laughed when his mic was unmuted. All in all, it was a good day for Arabic. And I hope my professor is able to relax and enjoy her vacation.

Arabic Word of the Week

picture / sura / صورة