MSA Level 5

I'm four weeks into my new semester at Qasid so I suppose I should tell you how it is. It's great! There are two 75 minute sections, Sunday - Thursday. The first one is focused on Media Arabic, meaning that we read a new article every day or so and then discuss and write papers on it. In my second class, we read short stories or chapters from Arabic novels and then write about and discuss them. I like the literature class better because reading stories is a bit more exciting than reading newspaper articles in my opinion. I feel like my ability to read has reached a very high level and I am enjoying the classes a great deal. There is alot of discussion in the classes, which gives me a good amount of speaking practice. The problem is very few people speak Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) outside of a school setting. To that end I have hired a tutor to practice speaking the local dialect. She is very good and I feel like I am picking it up quickly. After studying MSA for 5 years, speaking the dialect just feels plain wrong. It's very different from the written language, almost like ebonics, but it's a necessity if you want to be able to understand and speak with most people you interact with outside of class. Luckily, I still have seven more months to practice it and hopefully get proficient.