Students at New York University in Abu Dhabi have signed a promise to speak, write and communicate only in Arabic for three weeks, during which time they must also live with a local family, in the hope of gaining fluency, according to the national newspaper.
The pledge comes as part of the Ramsa, which means “talk” in the local dialect, course offered to the university’s students after they finish three terms of studying Arabic.
During the three-week January program, they take local dialect classes at Al Qattara Arts Centre in Al Ain, followed by field trips to Al Qattara souq and "activities that symbolize the Emirati society in Al Ain", said their instructor, Prof Nasser Isleem.
The professor also selected host families and it proved to be a challenge to find Emirati families willing to accept male students.
"Thankfully, selecting families for girls proved much easier [but for] the boys, until now, I can’t find them local families," he said. Instead, Prof Isleem has put male students with expat families from the Levant, which he said proved useful to show them "the other side of the coin,” Isleem added.