Class

Class is going really well, I’m learning a lot. Abderrahim was the instructor the first week. He’s a teacher trainer, does work as an ‘inspector’ for the state education system as well as work for the British Council and is an all around funny, generous & nice guy. Our teacher for the remainder is an American woman name Gyl who is based in Montpellier, France. She overseas programs in Montpellier, Marrakech, Genoa, and Nice, and is trying to start one in Turkey. She has a reputation for being kind of strict, has a good teaching style, a fun sense of humor, many useful anecdotes from her years of teaching English around the world and has (often amusing) insight into the French people/culture after her years living in France.

In addition to studying phonology (the study of the sound of the language) we have been planning/presenting lessons for one-on-one English instruction. 

I’ve been working with a very nice young Moroccan man named Abdelillah. He wants to study English because he likes American movies and music. He plays in a band & likes to read a lot. We both got a good laugh when he told me about his favorite movies: romance (“Titanic” is his fave!) and horror (a big fan of “Saw I, II, III...).  His music likes are quite diverse as well, people like Celine Dion and heavy duty stuff like ACDC & System of a Down (I’ve never heard of them, evidently Armenian screamers! go figure). He’s been very willing to talk about his life here in Morocco, which has been a great way for me to learn more about the country & customs. For example, he’s a little unusual because he does not live with his parents in Meknès, he lives here in Marrakech with his older brother (his brother is out of university and has a career here). Usually kids live at home until they marry. We also had a good discussion about family life, I explained that in the US it’s common for people to live far from their extended families, kids usually leave home (move out) when they’re 18 or so, divorce is common, we don’t often have grandparents, aunts/uncles living with us. It’s very common here to have extended families living under one roof. In ‘my house’, for example, there is the family of four, as well as Zahra’s widowed mother, and her single sister. He said that he feels fortunate to have had his extended family together, the way it allows you to know & support each other.  He talked of how hard it is for his sister & husband who live in Connecticut, being so far away from their family. He talks a lot about what it is like to be Muslim, how caring and generous the people are, distinguishing, quite astutely, the difference between the religion and the politics. He spoke about how similar Jewish faith & families are to Muslim faith & families and when I said that was quite ironic given their “difficulties”, he pointed out that it is not differences of faith where there are problems, but differences in politics.  Quite a thoughtful young man.