Qatari culture wows American students (02/5/2005)

Qatari culture wows American students

By Bonnie James WHEN Sam Parker and Jennifer landed in Qatar from the US in September last year to learn Arabic at the University of Qatar (UoQ), they were not too sure of what to expect. “But now, we should say that this is a great experience and we are learning a lot about the culture, heritage and traditions of Qatar too,” they told Gulf Times in an interview. Parker, 27 and Jennifer, 25, from Georgetown University, Washington DC, are among the foreign students for the current batch of Arabic programme for non-native speakers, under full scholarship from UoQ. Having had previous exposure to Arabic back in the US, both are on a mission to improve their skills in what Jennifer describes ‘the hardest language in the world’. “When Georgetown and the University of Qatar approached the master’s students at Georgetown, it came as an amazing opportunity,” recalled Jennifer. Parker, who has had three years of study in Arabic before coming to Qatar, was interested in Arabic philosophers of yore, including Ibn Sina. Jennifer, also doing a master’s programme at Georgetown in Arabic Studies, had studied Arabic at the University of Virginia for three years before joining Georgetown  two years ago. Rating their experience at UoQ, Parker remarked that the course has really been very instructive and the teachers much better than they thought. Further, Parker also rates high the exposure to the distinctive Arab and Gulf culture and interactions with different nationalities. Jennifer, who chose to ‘punish herself’ by opting for Arabic, instead of Spanish or French as most Americans do, for her undergraduate degree in anthropology, thinks she is ‘semi-fluent’ now in the language. The young lady, who claims she fell in love with Arabic after the initial ‘struggle’, feels she has also got an insight into the cultural and religious aspects with which the language is heavily loaded. “The course has been going very well, the level of instruction is very good, the texts very interesting and I am learning new things every day,” she said. Jennifer has had the chance to meet an ‘amazing family’ who has become very close to her. “They have taken me to their home, we have had lunch and dinner and I am picking up a little bit of the Qatari dialect,” she remarked. But Jennifer still feels it is very difficult when her hosts speak very fast or when their children speak in their accent. “But I understand more and more, try to watch soap operas on TV and sometimes understand that they are about marriage, divorce and other family matters,” she said. Armed with her knowledge of Arabic and experience from her interactions, Jennifer thinks she can now understand a lot of things just from people’s reactions. Parker, who admits he has not had the kind of interactions with Qatari citizens as Jennifer, focuses more on learning classical Arabic and the local culture and traditions. “I think I will try to find a job doing Arab political analysis or perhaps teaching Arabic in the US,” he hoped. Jennifer, however, feels she may come back to the Gulf region itself after completing another year of her master’s upon returning to Georgetown. “I was probably thinking I would like to teach English to people who speak Arabic,” she said. Jennifer does not want to be a teacher of Arabic back home. “I have problems pronouncing a couple of letters and I would not want to have people take after my bad pronunciation,” she maintained. UoQ’s College of Arts & Sciences, which runs the Arabic programme for non-native speakers, is planning to expand the programme, according to Dean Dr Shaikha Jabor J al-Thani. “We are designing a new programme and thinking of launching some evening classes also, hopefully from September this year,” she explained. Though the students for the current full-time programme are coming under scholarships, those joining the proposed evening programme would have to pay fees. “We also intend to upgrade the curriculum and teaching methods and want our students to ‘live’ in the Arabic language and culture,” Dr Shaikha al-Thani said. Citing the examples of Parker and Jennifer, the dean pointed out that students are coming not only to learn the language but also to understand the Qatari culture and traditions.