Intensive Cultural and Linguistic Immersion

I had an incredible experience in Amman with CET Jordan! We were constantly in a state of learning throughout our entire time in the program. Every moment became a teaching moment, which I loved. Every class learns a Jordanian recipe with their teachers and we get the opportunity to go shopping for ingredients with our teachers. Upon our return from this grocery excursion, my teacher brought out the dallah and served us Arabic coffee as many Jordanians would do upon returning home from an errand. On another occasion, a few of us went out to buy shemaghs in preparation for our trip to Wadi Rum. One of the teachers pulled us aside and taught us how to put them on in order to block the sand from our faces. She even had us take a video to send to the other students if needed.

I hate to define my experience by the end, but it has cast quite a large shadow over the semester. Unfortunately, I was in Jordan when the war started between the US, Israel, and Iran. As you can imagine, this was very shocking to a group of Americans who had never experienced anything quite like it in our lifetimes before. Most Jordanians still lived their lives normally while Americans were told by our embassy to shelter in place, so our classes were moved online for a day. The next day, we were given the choice between going into the CET Center for classes or staying online once more. On the third day of classes during the war, we all went in person for a program wide meeting during which we were told we had to leave the country. We journeyed home and continued classes online from there. I am incredibly grateful to our teachers in Jordan for being so accommodating timewise as our classes took place from the mornings to the early afternoons in Eastern Standard Time.

I will say that our teachers did their best to keep us as immersed in Arabic as possible despite being in an English speaking country. This immersion did grow isolating at points, I often spent almost 12 hours a day alone in my room to attend various sessions of Office Hours, meetings with my language partner, classes, and not to mention the amount of homework I was being assigned.