Sooo I have had Abeer 2 times, the other times I had Azza and Sahar, both are very kind and care about their students. Abeer is probably the best at teaching the grammar of the language by FAR.

However, she is also strict and at this point after teaching Arabic for 10 years or more she is very jaded I think. She's extremely strict, its not longer that easy to get an A.

She says she will grade you based on how much effort you seem to be putting in. The problematic thing about that is in your homeworks, you won't get a full score even if you tried because she will judge it "not enough effort" if it isn't good enough in her opinion. What sucks about this is its a language class and everyone puts in the effort, she has ALL KINDS of requirements for us, we literally come in 6 hours a week and do homework at least 2 hours after every class.

Her new policy is no absences without a doctor's note or some other evidence (an obituary for example). And those who do miss class for other less sanctioned reasons (out of town, brother's graduation, whatever) don't get to make up any dictations quizzes or tests they miss.

Also if the online drills don't work, sometimes they don't because its a buggy website, but anyway if they don't work its your fault. Go find a different computer because she will not make allowances. In fact one drill requires you to read a paragraph and record your voice. One student couldn't get the recording to submit through the website so she recorded it as an mp3 and sent it to Abeer's email. Abeer found this inexcusable and told us all in class we can never do this and it's our faults if we can't find a computer that works with the website. AND she sent a snide email saying the same stuff again.

She also is extremely intimidating and if you don't say something right depending on her mood she'll sigh and look at you...

When she's in a good mood she's very nice, and really in office hours she'll take the time to teach you whatever you need. Overall a good professor, but short tempered and jaded with everyone.

I took Arabic 102A, B, and C and Arabic 111A, B, and C with Dr. Mohamed. She is a fantastic Arabic teacher, one of the best I have ever had. She is also one of the nicest profs I have ever taken. She gladly answers questions after class and is very helpful during office hours. Her only fault is that she may be a little too nice, she rarely puts students on the spot or asks them do do things she knows they cannot. Her MA is in translation between Arabic, English, and Spanish and she is very good at helping students translate the meaning and is flexible with translations on tests. She explains difficult grammar concepts very clearly and almost always explains things in a much better manner than the book. She also does her best to speak as much Arabic in class as possible. She is a very generous grader and wants her students to succeed. The biggest problem with Arabic at UCLA is that the classes aren't demanding enough. Many students expect to be able to walk in, do the homework and "learn" Arabic and if they don't they blame the teacher. Learning a foreign language (especially a difficult one) is not like any other class. Constant review is required. You can't forget chapter 1 when you're in chapter 3. In fact, you need to know chapter 1 better in chapter 3 than you did for the chapter 1 test. Language learning is much like learning an instrument, you must build upon and constantly review everything in order to move forward. It's not like a History class where you can skate by and memorize a bunch of facts for a test and then brain dump, every test is a cumulative final. The Al-Kitaab text is not the best, but it's the one most universities use and in fact, there aren't many other texts to choose from. Use of Al-Kitaab also allows students from other universities to study at UCLA and vice versa.
My favorite class I've taken at UCLA was her Egyptian Arabic (111A, B, C) class. The first two quarters were difficult and I felt like I wasn't learning a whole lot, but by midway through the third quarter we had finally covered enough material that things started to click. All of a sudden I could just understand. I now can watch Egyptian movies and actually know whats going on. I am looking forward to taking Advanced Egyptian (Arab112) with Abeer next Fall.