Do not ask your colleagues to translate for you. It is better to be confused and insist that the instructors relieve your confusion than to rely on the crutch of English translations. This will be difficult at first and will slow down your note-taking, but in the long run will help you to develop a facility with the script and speed up your language learning. Feel free to ask the instructor to slow down his or her presentation, to repeat, or to spell words for you so that you can take notes in Arabic. To Contents Grading I do not grade on a curve, which means that you are in not in competition with your colleagues for marks in this class.
Students can expect daily homework assignments.
These will include guided writing and essays in which you will be asked to use particular structures and vocabulary to treat a given topic. At the conclusion of each lesson, students will be asked to prepare a review of all grammatical structures covered in the chapter and all vocabulary used which is not listed at the outset of each chapter. These outlines will serve you as useful study guides. Three times during the semester students will be asked to learn to read one of the basic texts fluently. They will then be asked to turn in a reading of that text on cassette tape.