Report: Language course in Amman

I chose to travel to Jordan with a friend from my Arabic class in order to improve my speaking ability, a skill we do not practise much during our lessons in term. We spent our weekdays attending four hours of language classes each morning at the Deewan Institute in Amman where we were taught the local Arabic dialect, Ammiyeh, as well as improving the Modern Standard Arabic we learnt in Oxford. This involved a lot of conversation practice and our discussions in Arabic varied between our hobbies, favourite food and families to more complex issues such as racism and gender roles. One of my favourite topics we talked about was the concept of “بیَْع” in Jordanian culture, which broadly translates into English as “off” or “odd”. We were also set homework every day which usually involved writing a text or listening to a podcast which we would then discuss in class. The classes were a shock at first as I had to very quickly go from having rarely spoken Arabic in class to only speaking Arabic but this certainly helped me build my daily vocabulary and ability to think in the language.

Outside of class Deewan also organised trips for us, the best of these being our weekend trip to Petra and Wadi Rum with two of the Institute’s teachers. We spent the first day exploring the ancient city of Petra where Nabataean ruins still stand in fantastic condition and then spent the night in a Bedouin camp in the middle of the desert, enjoying a traditional dish called “zarb” which is cooked in the ground. We then enjoyed a sunrise camel ride the next day as well as a jeep tour to see the key sites of the desert before returning in the evening. In the evenings Deewan also organised cultural activities such as cooking classes, Palestinian embroidery and Arabic calligraphy, the latter of which I was particularly awful at!

My friend and I also explored the city of Amman and organised our own trips on the weekends and as we both study Classics we were particularly keen to see the Ancient Roman town of Jerash. However, our language skills were particularly tested trying to navigate the public bus system and even more so with our drivers to Wadi Mujib on the following weekend as neither of us had learnt the vocabulary for water slides or rap music until then. We also tried a lot of the local food, such as the national dish of Amman called Mansaf, Manaqish, Knafeh and a lot of Hummus.

Overall, my journey to Amman helped me so much with my Arabic both through the classes we took and through immersion in the culture. Without the trip, I do not think I would be nearly as confident in my ability to have a conversation in Arabic, a skill in which I now feel much improved.