QM News 63 (pdf 752KB) - Queen Margaret University

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PAGE 04 INVESTORS IN STUDENTS AWARD SCHEME GIVES LOUISE A TASTE OF MIDDLE EASTERN CULTURE Louise Gillam, a second year dietetics student, was one of the lucky recipients of an Investors in Students Award in 2005, which enabled her to embark on an educational trip to Jordan. Here is Louise’s account of her experience. Alongside my degree course in dietetics, I have been learning French and Arabic at evening classes, as I hope in the long term to work overseas in the field of nutrition with a non-governmental organisation or aid agency. Whilst the French was ticking over nicely, having studied this to ‘O’ Level standard at school, I was aware that, with a different alphabet, Arabic would be a bit trickier and I set about looking for an established course in an Arabic-speaking country where I could kick start the learning process. With the backing of my Head of Department, Dr Isobel Davidson, I applied successfully to the Investors in Students Committee for funding to cover the course fee for the summer semester of ‘Arabic for Speakers of Another Language (Level 1)’ at the University of Jordan, Amman. The project exceeded my expectations in many ways. The university, with in excess of 30,000 students, has a beautiful campus, the teaching staff taking particular pride over the Language Centre, which, whilst established in 1979, was in a brand new building only opened this summer. The quality of the teaching was nothing short of excellent, as were the lesson structures and course materials, published by the teaching staff in the university. Lessons totalled four hours every day and were very fast-paced, requiring at least the same amount of hours in home study to keep up. Over the course of the eight weeks, we learned to communicate predominantly in classical Arabic, but with some colloquial phrases to be able to understand local differences. By the end of the course, our reading, writing and communication skills were classed as fluent at an intermediate level. We were able to read and write lengthy paragraphs and conjugate verbs in the past, present and future tense and had a vocabulary in excess of 1000 words in the end. The students came from all over the world. Our class included students from North Korea, Japan, Brazil, Ukraine, America, Denmark and Germany. Each student had their own interesting tale as to why they were learning Arabic. In addition to a French journalist there were several students who had one parent from an Arabic country who had been forced to leave many years ago for political reasons. Hearing the mix of students tell their stories during my time there was both fascinating and, at times, very sad. In addition to making many new friends from all over the world, I made local friends and visited their family homes which gave me quite an insight into the different culture we were living in. I learnt about the differences between the Arab Muslim culture and my own, in addition to eating local food, smoking the traditional flavoured tobacco in a giant pipe and gaining fantastic help with my homework and revision! I found the Jordanian people to be the most welcoming people I have ever had the pleasure to meet. Whilst in Amman I stayed in a women’s hostel for students, just outside the north gate of the university, which had a 10pm curfew - a little different from student halls back home but deemed very liberal in comparison to the oncampus hostels which had a 7.30pm curfew! I could not quite decide if I was deemed to be in danger or deemed to be the danger! The Language Centre ran trips for students every weekend to various tourist spots which included overnight stays in Petra, a festival in Jerash, floating in the Dead Sea and staying overnight in Bedouin tents in the Wadi Rum desert. The trips were all great fun and a fantastic opportunity to see the teachers chilled outside of the classroom and to meet other students. As for highlights of the project, the list goes on and on - gaining 95 percent in my final exam, meeting so many interesting people and having so many fun times - but one highlight I did not
PAGE 05 expect was to receive my first job offer as a dietician in Karak, Jordan! I took the opportunity to return to a small town where I had undertaken some voluntary work the year before, assisting the midwives in a hospital run by Italian missionary nuns. Sr Dolores was delighted to hear about my course at Queen Margaret and my Arabic course and had me earmarked to return as the hospital’s first-ever dietician. She was not at all put off by the fact I had three years to go until qualifying and was determined it was meant to be! Watch this space… Since returning, I have spoken with the course organiser of Arabic evening classes at the University of Edinburgh and have enrolled at Year 3 level. I only hope I can keep up! Many thanks are due to the Investors in Students Committee for supporting me in this project. It is a summer I will never forget. “The quality of the teaching was nothing short of excellent, as were the lesson structures and course materials.” Main picture: Language Centre, University of Jordan Inset picture: Louise Gillam
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QM News 63 (pdf 752KB) - Queen Margaret University

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