Nick 1

What motivated you to study Arabic?

I: Nick you are a student in (.) ah: Arabic

N: yes

I: uh is it first year Arabic

N: yes first year

I: so is this your very first time

N: it’s my first time u:h in the class yes yeah

I: and what have your I’m gonna just follow this script pretty much all the way down

N: that’s fine

I: so it says here uh just (.) describe your past experiences (1) as a learner or speaker of Arabic (2) in an (.) or out of the classroom before this course

N: u:m yeah in high school one of my better friends was Moroccan and i and he was just kind of uh you know you’re really cool guy and always (.) so I became good friends with him and this this last summer (.) he: invited my friend and i to (.) to Morocco he went there for summer to visit his family and stay with his family the whole summer and his both of his sisters were getting married and huge Moroccan double wedding it was gonna be a big fanfare, people from all over the world were coming and so we decided to to go over there and you know we I stayed two weeks and I just I loved it like I loved all the people were incredible and everyone was just amazing and I also like the Arabic culture just I like the food I like the music I like the the language especially and u:m (1) Arabic wasn’t a language I’d even thought of taking my freshman year (.) i really wanted to get into Italian and it was always full and all that and and I just decided to take Arabic now cuz I’m interested in going back to Morocco (.) next summer I’d really like to go back and I’d like to be able to interact with people (1) and so that’s u:h (1) that’s pretty much my only experience with it is going to Morocco this summer but it really just (.) influenced me and I have have uh (1) big interest in learning the language now

Reflections – Both Nick and Serem were inspired to study a second language due to real-world encounters with language and culture outside of the classroom. Do you find that your students have had similar experiences or encounters? Do you feel that cultural connections are an important component of language learning in the classroom? What proportion of a language course should ideally be devoted to cultural awareness, learning, and sharing? Have you found ways to make these connections in the day to day lessons? If so, what are some examples? How do students respond to these types of activities? How have you or might you incorporate students’ experiences into the cultural aspects of language learning?

Nick 2

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