Podcast project

The recording of the podcast can be found at the end of this post. 

This spring, us students of ARA B had the opportunity to improve our Arabic skills by making a podcast, using the vocabulary learnt from Alif Baa and the new vocabulary from Al Kitaab.

Though this roughly consists of only 300-400 words, we were all able to make some really fun and enjoyable podcasts, which produced both laughter and a sense of accomplishment of how fast we are learning! 

Groups were formed at the very beginning of the semester, and ideas started forming in our minds right away. Some wanted to interview a famous artist, and others were perhaps more interested in politics.

My partner and I, on the other hand, wanted to interview none other than Aladdin and his monkey friend, Abu. Abu certainly lifted the mood in the interview when he started speaking in fluent Arabic!  

We all certainly spent a lot of time on this project, but let me tell you, it was a lot of fun! We had to create characters to interview, give them a voice and a personality, and of course the key to it all- we had to write a script.

Writing the script was probably the hardest at first, because at the beginning we were still not used to producing our own sentences. This became more and more natural as we progressed throughout the semester and learnt new grammar and vocabulary.

As such, the project was a very nice way of engaging with what we were taught in classes. We might have gotten stuck at certain points in our script, but then after a few more classes, the missing piece was found, again and again. 

A special thanks has to go out to our dear T.A.’s who helped us dramatically improve the pronunciation and general flow of our scripts.

After all, this was our first chance at prolonged Arabic speech, and finding the correct rhythm was important. The weekly meetings with a T.A. also made space for us to address anything we struggled with especially and was a nice opportunity to iron out any kinks. 

When the time was ripe and the script was done, we all received a tour of the University’s very own podcast recording room.

It was in here that we put the script we had worked so hard on to life. How fun it was to just sit there and speak in a foreign language for an entire hour; mind you, we had to do more than one take!

This was probably the first taste we got of what we will get more of in the near future - the taste of completely throwing English or Norwegian out of the window!

When the recording was done, the project had to be edited in a program called Audacity. Special effects were added, and awkward silence was cut out. In the end we were all eager to show our final product to our teacher and our co-students! 

Mashallah, listening to the podcasts of everyone in Ara B was the most fun we had all semester. I believe we spent about 1,5 hours listening to everyone, and this might have been the longest abdominal workout I have had! 

If you ever get the chance to make a podcast, either scripted like us or not, take it! And if you already have, what were some of your experiences with it like? Was it scary, was it fun? 

Next semester, we will have a new project, and I look forward to sharing my experiences with that too, so stay tuned! 

This is our podcast!

Episode Description

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Hello! My name is Håkon, and I am 27 years old. I am from Tromsø, a city in northern Norway. I am currently a student at the University of Oslo, where I study Middle East studies with Arabic, at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages. This is my second year at the program.

Hello! My name is Tobias, and I am 25 years old. Originally from Denmark, I have been a big fan of learning languages ever since I moved to Norway as a kid. Now, I study Middle East studies with Arabic at the University of Oslo, and I am having a lot of stressful fun! Learning Arabic is hard, but very rewarding.