On Arabic lessons

Yesterday, on Monday, September 15th , the junior fellows gathered for our first Arabic class. Classes will meet four times and week and will meet in the mornings for about an hour. Out teacher informs us that, for the first three weeks, he would like the first half of class to be used to learn the alphabet and the second half to be used to learn conversational speech. While all the junior fellows are glad to see the class finally start, there are a few concerns. For instance, some of the junior fellows already have a slight foundation in Arabic and thus feel that the current lesson plan is inadequate. And nearly all the junior fellows are concerned that a class size of 17 is simply too large. Unfortunately, we cannot split into two groups because our teacher only works with the school part time because he already has a teaching position with a school in Amman. We'll just have to wait and see how effective this class will be. I hear, though, that the junior fellows last year didn't start their classes until the middle of the year and that they still learned a fair amount by the end of the year. While I plan to start our Arabic class with an open mind, what I'm really looking forward to is the "Junior Fellow Seminar" that I believe will focus on Middle Eastern history and Islamic theology.