VALPARAISO | Not since high school French -- and that was more than 30 years ago -- has Dave Richards studied a language.

But now the Schererville college finance instructor is wrapping his tongue around Arabic to keep mentally sharp and learn about an important part of the world.

Richards and five others are taking an informal course taught by Valparaiso University international student Bassam Almasalami.

Almasalami, a native of Saudi Arabia, is studying finance at VU on a scholarship from the Saudi government. He already has a bachelor's degree in teaching Arabic and decided to offer the lessons because of his love of teaching.

Last week he took the class through the intricacies of markers indicating vowel sounds in written Arabic during a lesson on weather and the seasons.

Richards, 52, said he hopes to get enough exposure to the language from the course to continue with self-instruction later on.

For Brandon Carter, 18, taking the course sprang from a general interest in languages -- the less mainstream, the better. No French or Spanish for this Valparaiso High School senior.

Carter has recently done some self-study in Ethiopian and Hausa, a language of West Africa. He is enrolled in Japanese at school.

Almasalami looked at the public library for Arabic cassettes to supplement his classroom instruction, but all he could find was recordings of Bedouin nomads in a dialect that even he couldn't understand.

So he decided to bypass the language lab with some help from newer technology. He records his own listening and speaking exercises and sends them by e-mail to the students, who can practice at their own computer.

The course, he said, allows him to share both his culture and his linguistic expertise.

"I feel good and I'm happy because I can contribute something ... which is my native language."