Studying Arabic in Ghana has not gone as well as I hoped. Finding the class turned out to be an immense challenge only to resolve itself at the very last minute. Next, acquiring the course pack was a minor hurtle due as the class had met without the professor to take orders for the course pack. I acquired it eventually. Other hurdles included trying to read the professor’s handwriting, difficult in class assessments, and hard to get right homework assignments. While the professor commented that I do my own work, he did so by implying that my low grades on it indicated such as some students simply pay older students to do their homework for them.
What did I learn? Well, not much. The professor is a nice guy but his teaching methods are difficult to “get.” By the time I understood the structure of the class, I only had about three more classes left in the semester. Language courses require more time but the University of Ghana only allocates a single two hour lecture per week. The department also provides a relatively unstructured tutorial class, kind of in the spirit of a discussion section but with much less structure and lacking the quality of the TA’s of my own university exhibit. My other issue is that language books should contain more English to promote self-study. The Arabic books my mother provided halfway through the semester have this down but UG does not.
The straw that has almost broken my back was the oral examination. When I checked Friday on the language department noticeboard to see when my examination would occur, I discovered my name was not on the list nor were any of the other three obrunis. Therefore, I knocked on doors until I found one with a person behind it. The TA told me that our names had not been added to the list but showed me where my name should appear, Tuesday at 2p. I passed this along to the other obrunis.
Today, I show up, anxious as could be. I have trouble memorizing things but this test required recitation of a passage. I had this down but would have to read an existing passage first and answer questions in Arabic. While I learned the basics of answering questions last semester, in essence matching one string of words to the one in the question and copying that down word for word, this was also taught this semester although mentioned might be a better word than taught. Before our first in class assessment (held on a Saturday), we were told what I had learned last semester and to learn the Arabic words for what and when. Once the test actually arrived, I saw that my memorization of the words what and when were not helpful as only a few questions contained that word, the professor’s test contradicting what he had said would be the case. He also asked about moon/sun letters despite failing to mention that in class, replacing the section that we would have all done well on.
Back to today, our names are still not on the list despite one of my colleagues strongly asking the professor to make sure that they were there in the last class. That meant that we would either wait for all 62 people in front of us to take the oral despite only three being present or we could wait until tomorrow. Since I was still unfamiliar with Arabic question words and how to respond to them, I decided to wait until tomorrow despite the greater grief it will cause. One benefit is that it takes place at 9am which is a slight improvement as I won’t have to wait all day.
What I do not understand is that the University of Ghana has been dealing with obrunis (international students) since its inception when we constituted a full 12% of the student body (currently at 4%). Yet, the Arabic department does not seem to understand this despite pleas prior to the oral exam schedule. Yes indeed, my frustration is palpable!
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