Week Twelve Reflections

[Becky Walker]

This week was spent almost exclusively practicing my oral skills. I created sentences for the week, and read them with my drill instructor, who helped me both with pronunciation and grammar. Fortunately, this week I had only a few errors with my grammar. The sounds that do not exist in English such as the 'kh' or the 'gh' have posed a problem for me throughout the semester, however this week I was able to pronounce them "like a pro (according to Mona)" so long as they were the last syllable in the word. When they fall mid-word they still cause me to stumble if I am reading them, however when I am speaking, I do better.This last week of reflection is a bit bittersweet. My greatest fear is that when I return to studying Arabic this summer that I will lose much of what I have learned and accomplished in Farsi this semester. Thus my next goal is to learn how to learn both Arabic and Farsi together, so that they supplement each other as opposed to hindering my learning process. Overall, this course has been a wonderful experience of how much I can accomplish without direct instruction--my ideal learning style for most classes.