Reem Faraj

Prof Reem is one of if not the best professor I’ve had at Columbia. She is a super engaging and effective teacher and also very kind. She both won’t make you miserable but also pushes you to learn as much as possible (and you learn a lot). The class is definitely not easy, but she makes it very enjoyable. She brings her linguistic background to lessons often which makes them even more interesting.

I honestly love her so very much. She treats you like her own child, or like a niece maybe. But don't be fooled: Arabic is really hard. You have to stay on top of your vocab and grammar. She is hard only because Arabic itself is hard, but she is a wonderful teacher. She really helps you understand the "why" behind a language. She makes language learning colorful. She is one of the most genuine, kind and real professor out there.

She was an incredible professor and cared a lot about her students. To do well in her class you do have to put in a lot of work but she will always be there for support.

Here is a small fact: Arabic is horrifically tough. No, I don't mean, "Ugh we have 800 pages of reading but if you just skim the summaries we can get done in four hours" tough, but "Oh my god I have taken this language for 15 months straight and just now learned the word for 'bad'" tough. Your friends taking Spanish and Italian will get to study abroad using what they learned in class, and you will go to Jordan and speak MSA (because Columbia stubbornly refuses to allow dialect classes) and look weird. Do you know what the jussive case is? Do you want to know? This language is not for the faint of heart. All this being said, you're going to want Reem to be with you through the tough times. She is demanding in terms of wanting students to understand what a lifelong commitment learning Arabic is, but empathetic in that she understands that the textbook will sometimes suck, that you will cry if you end up having to conjugate the dual form on the fly, and that you've probably got four other classes to deal with in addition to this 5-credit monstrosity. This does not mean that she's going to give you an A+ for showing up for every class, but she's been flexible with letting us turn in second drafts of writing assignments, turn in homework for new grammatical concepts after we go over it in class, etc. Arabic grammar "rules" have so many exceptions that they're hardly rules at all,…

You will learn a lot in this course and the pace is very reasonable. The workload is very reasonable (one hw assignment per day, shouldn't take longer than half an hour), a handful of quizzes throughout the semester and a final at the end (no midterm). Professor Nouhi is amazing. 1 Columbia University: Arts & Sciences Fall 2021 Course: MDESUN2208_001_2021_3-ARABICFORHERITAGESPEAKERSI : MDESUN2208_001_2021_3 - ARABIC FOR HERITAGE SPEAKERS I Instructor: Youssef Nouhi

I could not disagree more with the post before mine. Her class was very, very good. The syllabus is departmental, so it's very well thought out and everyone in other classes are doing the same things at the same time. However, she makes sure not to move on unless everyone understands everything. Her priority is for students to learn and really know the language, so grades definitely fall behind that. She will edit and mark every assignment handed in, even if the purpose wasn't vocabulary or grammar, she'll check for it and follow up with you about it. At one point near the end of the semester before the exam, she even took a huge chunk of a class time to go over all of the mistakes made on a writing assignment, even though they were things we "should" already know or were sort of the foundations of the language that we missed or forgot about, something I've been denied doing in other Arabic classes I've taken. Reem genuinely cares about her students, has always made herself available to me and my classmates, and makes it clear when she is free. For example, she definitely won't check her email on Saturdays and Sunday, so don't count on that, but she'll always be free otherwise. She's very personable, is great at explaining the many difficult grammar rules, and if a student doesn't understand something, she will come up with a new way to explain it. I recommend taking Arabic wi…

Reem is an incredible professor. I had no background of Arabic before taking the class, and after one semester with Reem, I can read, write and hold a basic conversation. She is understanding but expects you to put in the hard work. If you work hard in this class, you will do well. I really recommend taking this course with Reem if you are ready to put in the hours because you will learn Arabic.

Don't even think about taking this instructor if you want to learn Arabic. Inconsistent, permits regular use of dialect including her own. Dialect is really wonderful when learning how to understand this magnificent, beautiful language, but the standard for all other Arabic professors, and the Department, is MSA (modern standard arabic). She favors certain students (regardless of how hard anyone works) and lets some do homework in class, and ignores others altogether. Don't expect her to be too available for you. You'll find yourself relying solely on the book, a tutor, other Arabic speaking-- or learning-- friends, the grace of the heavens or some other spiritual source, or all of the above. When it comes to Arabic, you will need all the things she is not. One good thing - if she likes you, she'll let you do anything you want.

About 10 hours of homework a week (essays, worksheets, reading, listening) in addition to just straight studying new concepts. 4 tests per semester, 1 final with writing/listening/reading/grammar.

There's a pretty big workload, about two hours of work a night, but between quizzes and daily homework, you end up getting so much regular practice in that when exam time rolls around, it's not so overwhelming.