The importance of a tutor

When I started learning Moroccan Arabic, I was studying everything on my own. All the resources I found were on the internet and I had literally no interaction with anyone. I did get a basic understanding of the language and was able to say simple sentences but if I ever had a chance to speak with a native Moroccan, I could never understand any response to me. Eventually, I ended up marrying a Moroccan woman and I felt after so many years of studying, I should be able to speak to my wife in her own language. It was at this time I decided to get a tutor to help me to get to the next level of my journey. Some of you may be asking, what is the importance of a tutor in language learning?

The importance of a tutor in language learning is that they are able to assess your skill level to tailor your learning in a way to challenge you to push yourself further, help you with any questions you have, and give you the opportunity to improve your speaking and listening. Like I mentioned before I learned a lot on my own (check out my post on learning Moroccan Arabic) but because I was not speaking a lot, I could not get to the next level. The tutor was able to help me with those weak skills. What about school? Could I take a class or even attend a program to learn Moroccan Arabic?

The problem with classes

I originally thought I could find a class that teaches Moroccan Arabic. However, the reality is that this is not a very popular language so it will be very difficult to find this class. Most Arabic classes will be taught in Modern Standard Arabic which is the formal Arabic that you will hear on the news or at more formal places like a courthouse or ministry. Moroccan Arabic is a dialect that is spoken in the homes or on the street. If you are thinking, maybe I should learn formal Arabic, and then learning the Moroccan dialect would be easy. This is a good plan and in fact, I originally chose this path because I could not find a Moroccan Arabic class.

The problem with these classes is that everyone in the class is an absolute beginner. If you are a regular reader or a registered member on my site, you will be ahead of the class and feel like you’re not learning anything. By the time the semester ends you may learn a few new things but the people in the class will slow the pace of what you learn. I spoke to some people who have taken Arabic classes in university and it’s the same story. The teacher will always teach for the majority of the students and if the majority are learning at a slower pace, the teacher will teach at a slower pace which will not benefit you. This is why the importance of a tutor is so critical to learning a language.

Immersion programs

Now there are some Bootcamp programs that will teach you Moroccan Arabic. These programs are taught in Morocco for around 6 months – 1 year. The program typically works as 6-8 hours of intensive class learning for 5 days a week. You will stay with a host family, which is a good idea because you can practice. The programs are usually expensive and I’m not sure about the food and lodging expenses so you may have to accordingly. For most of us, we don’t have the time or money to commit to a program like this but even if you did, I have heard mixed reviews about these programs where one person has said that they are fluent in Moroccan Arabic and I have heard from another person who attended an intensive program for a year and was not able to achieve fluency. I would feel so upset if I invested a year into intensive learning and I ended up not being fluent. The importance of a tutor comes into play in these scenarios as you can change fluency with the right tutor and at a fraction of the cost.

How a tutor helped me

When I started with a tutor, I immediately saw results. Not only did the tutor help me with my weak skills but he even helped me to improve my stronger skill set as well. Let’s explore how the tutor helped me.

Assessment

Our first interaction was a conversation in Moroccan Arabic. The reason for this was because I had told the tutor that I did some self-study and had knowledge of Arabic. The conversation was not long, maybe around 2 min. I basically told the tutor about myself. After speaking the tutor wrote the sentences that I said and corrected any mistakes I made. At the time, when I was at a loss for words, I would use formal Arabic to “fill the gaps”. He then showed me some phrases I can use instead of the formal sentences. Based on the first interaction, I definitely needed to practice listening and speaking. What surprised me was that although I learned a lot, there were a lot more words and phrases I needed to learn so his plan was to send me sentences every day. I would then repeat the sentences and send him a recording of me saying these sentences so he could check the pronunciation. He would also send a recording of a few sentences which I would listen to and type the translations and send him. Eventually, this grew to more advanced sentences, translating an English sentence to Moroccan Arabic, and sending Moroccan videos to me and having me translate.

Answers your questions

As you’re being challenged, you will run into problems. When I started getting the sentences to translate to English, I was having a difficult time with the translation. I would have to listen to the sentences sometimes up to 10 times and still not be able to translate everything. Luckily when I told the tutor about this, the tutor said that this is completely normal as my hearing is not accustomed to the sounds, eventually, it will get better and I will be able to translate everything.

With my Arabic background, I studied a lot of grammar. This caused me to want to understand things grammatically. The tutor was able to answer all of my questions when it came to grammar. Moroccan Arabic has some phrases that do not necessarily use grammar correctly. Understanding which phrases use grammar and which ones do not is a difficult concept to understand. The tutor helped me to know when to not worry about grammar and when you can pay attention to grammar. Just a quick note. In the beginning, when you’re starting to learn Moroccan Arabic, do not worry too much about grammar otherwise, you will get confused.

The importance of a tutor is shown as a great resource when I was stuck or wanted to understand something. Before the tutor, I would have to research the internet and hope to find my answer, most of the time I didn’t find the answer.

Speaking and Listening

The main reason to learn a language (at least for me) is to be able to speak and listen. Writing and reading come secondary. The issue with self-learning is that you are mostly writing and reading. While you can communicate with someone with just writing and reading using apps like Whatsapp, Skype, or Facebook messenger, there is so much more use you get from speaking and listening. For example, when you go to the store and need to speak with someone, you will need to speak with them. If you’re listening to music or watching a film, you can really use writing and reading to help you understand. For most self learners of languages speaking and listening are always the weak skills, just based on the limited time used.

In my scenario speaking and listening were issues but not because I couldn’t find anyone who spoke Moroccan Arabic. In fact, I know several people who are Moroccan and speak Moroccan Arabic. The issue I had was that the seemed to speak so fast and I spoke so slow that it was a combination of the frustration of my friends and the embarrassment of my speaking skills that caused us to just speak English.

Increases good study habits

For a few people, self-study is a breeze. They are able to create a study plan, allocate time every day, and can commit to learning. I can’t do this. I do have the desire to learn and I can create a study plan. The issue with me is trying to stick with the plan. A good tutor will always give you some exercises to work on to help you improve your skills. With these exercises, it will be your responsibility to complete these exercises before your next meeting. By continually receiving exercises and completing them, you will soon find yourself putting aside some time every day for studying. If you are like me, who struggles with good study habits, then you will understand the importance of a tutor in building and reinforcing those good study habits.

Encouragement

This point is really important. As I was trying to self learn Moroccan Arabic, I would always find myself discouraged when I try to listen to a Moroccan conversation. Not being able to understand a single word in a conversation especially when you have been studying and learned a lot can be devastating. The importance of a tutor is so vital, especially with encouragement. My tutor has encouraged me (many times) to not worry about not understanding in the beginning. Things will be clear in time. The interesting thing is that when I speak with people who are trying to learn this language, almost all of them who have given up have told me that the reason for giving up is that they felt defeated, after studying and trying to have a conversation. I just wonder what would have happened if they had someone in their corner encouraging them.

Red Flags

So we have now seen the points illustrating the importance of a tutor. Unfortunately, not all tutors are the same. I have found some tutors are just not that good. Either, they are not serious in teaching you or just in it for the money, or some other reason. The last thing you want is to waste your time with a bad tutor. I’m going to illustrate a few red flags to be aware of. Always remember the importance of a tutor is to help you. If you feel you are getting this help then the tutor is not doing their job.

Some places to find tutors

We have seen the importance of a tutor when trying to learn Moroccan Arabic but where do you find these tutors? I will list some places that you can find tutors. This list, however, will contain some places where you will find tutors with “red flags”. Always try to contact the tutor before starting with them so that you can understand what they are able to do to help you improve. Most of the time through the first conversation you can determine whether the tutor is genuine and will be able to help you or if they will just waste your time and money.

• Italki – This is maybe the most popular of the language sites. I used this site before but I ended up with tutors that did not really want to help me learn. I’m sure there are good tutors on here but you just have to talk to them before starting. There are also tutors who will not teach but rather they will just talk to you. If you make any mistakes they will correct you. For those of you in the intermediate or advanced level, this could be another option.
• Conversation Exchange – This site is supposed to resemble a pen pal. You would exchange messages with the person in the language you are learning and in exchange, they send you messages in English, Eventually, you can exchange your contact information and converse with these people on other platforms. One of the selling points of this service is that it is free. As long as the person you contacted accepts your request or vice versa, there is no money involved. Sounds really good, right? I thought so too until I set up my account on the site and was bombarded with requests. When I filtered through the requests and accepted the people I thought this would benefit me. The conversation was ok at the beginning but soon enough the conversation would just end up in English. What was worst was I found some women who pretended that they wanted to teach you only to want to convince you to marry them and I found one guy who pretended to want to teach me only to want me to send him money. Since this is a free service, when accepting the requests make sure you specify your intentions to learn. If you see the plan start to derail, you can easily drop that person
• Facebook – There are so many learning groups on Facebook, I’m sure you can find a group for Moroccan Arabic. The issue I found with groups is that most people just wanted translations or the topics were not about the language. Try to contact the owner of the group and ask them if they are interested in tutoring you. Make sure you keep an eye open for the “red flags”.
• Friends – This one sounds a bit weird but if you have any Moroccan or Arab friends ask them if they know anyone who can tutor you. In my experience, most of my Arab friends could not tutor me but they knew someone who was willing to tutor or they knew of some teachers who were willing to teach.