Job Discussion Forums

[titanicman]

Has anyone heard of a TESOL group in KSA? I'm interested in getting involved in one. It would be formed to help English teachers in KSA to grow professionally. Also, it could help newbies to get oriented to teaching life in KSA (like me!). TESOL Arabia in the UAE is doing a fine job so I thought there might be a KSA version.

Drop me a line. Titanicman

[scot47]

In Saudi Arabia you CANNOT just get together and set up an association. You have to get official approval. Do not hold your breath while waiting for this to come through.

In my experience most EFL teachers/instructors in KSA are too cynical and too mercenary to get involved in anything unless there is a cash connection.

[Mark100]

Scott

You are so cynical!

Well no real teaching takes place in KSA anyhow.

Better to do a a Masters or PHD or better still a course which can get you out of ESL teaching!!

[scot47]

I may be cynical but I am not sure about your assertion that no teaching takes place in KSA. Compare the spoken English of Saudi students with the level in Korea or China. Then you can talk about how poor the teaching is in Saudi Arabia.

And incidentally it is not "Scott" but "Scot47".

[abudhabi]

Scot47, would you attribute the good speaking ability of the students in KSA to the teaching of English there?

I'd put perhaps more emphasis on the students' ability to pick up English via satellite TV and during their holidays in English-speaking and other countries. They seem to have a great ability to pick up English orally.

[Cleopatra]

Most of the students I know have never been outside the Middle EAst and not all of them even have satellite TV, but still the level of spoken English is high. I think Saudis are verbal people who are good at communicating and are generally un-self conscious about it. Plus, I suppose there's the fact that English is almost a second language in KSA - for example, if you want medical treatment or even service in a restaurant, you may well find yourself speaking English rather than Arabic.

I don't, however, think it is being overly cynical to state that most expats here are too interested in piling up the rials, rather than trying to improve their skills. That goes with the territory, I'm afraid!

[Mark100]

Scot47

I agree that the level of spoken English by students is quite good compared to Asian students but that may have more to do with cultural factors rather than with teaching expertise.
My experience and that of the majority of teachers that i have spoken to in KSA is that they are more child minders or crowd controllers rather than teachers.

[Mark100]

Cleopatra

Most people are indeed in KSA for the money.

Nonetheless initially many would also like to do a good job.

However the sad fact is that there so many obstacles thrown in your path that most give up trying to do a good job and sadly just ride out their contracts.

[scot47]

There is SATE Saudi Association of Teachers of English. This was set up some years ago in Jeddah and is still largely confined to Jeddah and the Hejaz. It took some time to get the association officially recognised. Without this it cannot function as a legal organisation, and this has all sort of ramifications in handling money and getting premises for seminars, lectures, etc.

There was an attempt to set up an association in Riyadh but I think that came to nothing.

In the case of SATE, attempts to involve Saudi teachers were largely unsuccessful.

One of the main problems dogging any organisation like this in Saudi Arabia is the question of gender and gender-mixing. is the association only for men ? Are women accepted as members ? How can we have mixed-gender meetings in a society where these are not permitted ?

Saudi Arabia is not the same as Kansas, or even the UAE. I think you should think some of this things through before jumping into the fray.

[shadowfax]

Yes indeed, Mark 100. I myself had long since begun to tire of Cleopatra's reiterated besmirchment.
One doesn't go there out of charity, or sheer professional zeal, unless one is one of those late developers who suddenly finds a frenetic sense of 'mission' in TEFL.
Many of us are struggling to gain money to survive, and perhaps to afford a decent place to live back in our homelands. Who is 'Cleo' to deny us that right; or to cast objurgations on us for seeking to meet our needs?
There are some who become obsessed with selling their gimcracks on leaving:, yes, that is true. I have never felt a passionate need to inveigh against that small minority and I don't see that it's that bad a sin anyway. A harmless obsession.
A more unhealthy obsession is that of those who vituperate against teachers in general out there in the Middle East, who very often do their best with the poor motivation of students, and myriad obstacles placed in their path.
One must be wary of blaming things on teachers. A large part of responsibility should be placed on students (setting the question of institutions aside, for the nonce: unfortunately, it is the folly of many educational institutions in the Middle East to do the diametric opposite). That is the whole point of adult education, which has the aim of promoting a satisfactory level of intellectual autonomy in its recipients. Those who direct devaluating broadsides at teachers, and who subscribe to methodologies or pedagogical attitudes which support student reliance on the obstreperous freneticism of a certain breed of teacher, do education an ignominious disservice.
In this instance, English instructors of the Middle East might be forgiven for having recourse to the old tag: nemo me impune lacessit. And to be thus impugned, 'Cleopatra', may not pass without riposte.

[Cleopatra]

I was not 'besmirching' teachers, as the above post says. I work in a hospital, so the vast majority of the expats I know are not teachers. I stand by what I have said - that way too many (and I never said all) "Western" expats cannot see beyond their next paycheck, and have a cynical, jaded attitude to the country in which they have freely chosen to live.

Of course, I would never deny anyone the right to earn a decent living. And yes, KSA is one of the few places where EFL teachers can do so. However, many of the expats I know - I'm not talking about those from the Third World - could earn perfectly good salaries in their home country. They are not here out of desperation, but out of a desire to save some extra cash for a mortgage or to put away for the future. I never said there was anything shameful about this - if I did I would be being hypocritical.

I agree with you that teaching in KSA can be challenging, to say the least. You are often up against the indifference of both students and management, as well as other factors, such as "Vitamin W". I respect all teachers who do their best in what are often trying circumstances, but then they are well paid to do just that.

If you have had the good fortune to only come across a minority of people who are rial slaves, then I envy you. Unfortunately, the mercenary attitude of much of the expat community with which I have come into contact is one of main reasons I probably won't be renewing my contract here.

[shadowfax]

When you speak of people working in hospitals, I do not pretend to question your conclusions as I have little knowledge of that situation.
However, for teachers simple, it is almost impossible to get a comparable opportunity to save in the UK or similar western countries. The options for people with backgrounds in the humanities has been restricted for some time. That is one of the main reasons teachers go to the ME, if not the principal reason.
With your Cleopatran sense of self opulence, you might afford yourself the luxury to call that desperation. And I see you use the word desperation in its fuzzy modern sense: to act from a motive of reckless hopelessness and extreme need.
The more established sense of the word is a simple condition of hopelessness. If one were so hopeless, one would not bother getting out of bed to go to the ME in the first place.
I think I can understand some of the reasons for your reservations out there, but I feel bound to question the accuracy and justice of your critique where teachers of English are concerned: though there is no doubt that there are some unconscionable boors amongst them, whose cynicism and jaundice is a part and parcel of their captious and hollow, unrefined and nasty characters, they do not constitute a majority-rather, an irritatingly sizeable minority.
I would rather all such petty rascals arrived at a condition which permitted them to partake of a civilised and pragmatic cynicism where necessary, tempering their desert jaundice with somewhat of redeeming and civilized humour. However, I feel that many of those will never do so, as the same shall never achieve to know their true station under the vault of heaven, until the hour be too late.
O Diogenes, patron saint of barrel-dwellers and other unfortunate cynics, and (I fear) of too many English teachers, lead us not into despair, but intercede for their speedy amendment!

[Mark100]

I see nothing wrong with piling up the riyals especially if you are very short of them in the first place.
One has to be realistic and recognise that everyone is in KSA for the money and as such this does affect behaviour.
Nonethless I have made the best of my situation here and am much better off financially , emotionally and career wise than i would have been had i stayed in Australia.
At the end of the day i don't care what others are doing just what i am doing.