CASA Oral Interview

The oral interview aims to assess your level of speaking proficiency in Arabic.  It consists of a telephone conversation conducted by an experienced oral proficiency tester.  The interview will last between 15 and 20 minutes, and may include questions about your life, family, study, hobbies, past, present and future plans, and daily activities. You also may be asked to discuss certain social, political, economic and cultural issues that will help CASA gauge the depth and breadth of your vocabulary. You should make sure to be an active participant in the interview. The questions will be given in FuSHaa, but the applicant should feel free to use Amiyya and mix it with FuSHaa as she/he sees fit. The main objective of the interview is to see how well you can speak Arabic and to determine your proficiency in switching and mixing the two varieties (FuSHaa & Amiyya).

CASA is changing the way it administers the oral interviews.  Instead of asking each applicant to take the oral interview, we will administer the interview only to students who have been admitted to the program.  These students will be contacted in April—after they have confirmed their enrollment in CASA—and asked to take the oral interview.  The CASA office will provide each fellow who has been admitted to the program with contact information for the interviewer so that s/he can arrange a date and time for the phone interview.  At the agreed-upon time, the CASA fellow should call her/his interviewer at the telephone number provided to take the interview. CASA, unfortunately, does not have the financial resources to pay for these calls, so we will need your cooperation with this.  Some applicants may be able to work out an arrangement with their department or center to use their telephone during the interview. However, you must have a quiet place in which to conduct the interview without interruptions. The interviewer will then contact the CASA office and report the proficiency rating to us.