Job Discussion Forums

[murray1978]

Hello,

First, I want to say that I really enjoy reading threads on this forum and it is very informative. It is a godsend for information in the Kingdom. My thread deals with two questions/issues and I would like some feedback on teachers at other colleges in TVTC.

My college is in Al Wajh and we are a start up. We are part of the TVTC which has about two dozen colleges put into unusual or remote locations. From what I have been hearing, the Saudi government and TVTC plan on opening up to another dozen colleges over the next year to eighteen months.

Currently, I have a class list of 44 students of A0 students that I have to attempt to push through to A1 by the end of the year or help them pass the PET/KET exam in June. Frankly speaking, it won't happen.

I have found that for the most part, students are unmotivated with poor literacy and study skills. A lot of my students have difficulty with Arabic which surprised me. I have assumed that the school system here prepares students with basic study and literacy skills. However, that is a topic for another day.

My first question is this: How good or poor is your attendance at your school/college/ academy? Currently, I average between 12-20 students per day but for the most part, students will attend one class or two the most and go home. They feel that attending two classes a day matches the stipend that is given out.

Students are given a stipend for 80 percent attendance but my Dean and Admin have been hesitant to dismiss students and it is affecting moral. Students treat the college as a bit of a joke and it feels more like a youth center then a place of learning.

My second question pertains to textbooks. We use Headway but it is way to advanced for a majority of our students. I was wondering what textbooks the teachers on this forum can recommend as supplements to help students progress.

I will go first:

- Side by Side (Students seem to have enjoyed using it)
- English Time
-Let's Go

I have heard good things about English Please and Interchange. I am hoping to have a database of phonics, writing and speaking books to hopefully help students at least progress.

It feels like the whole Saudiziation and TVTC is mired in quicksand. Unrealistic goals, unmotivated students and Deans who want to cook the books so they turn a profit rather then have a place of academic learning.

I apologize if this thread sounds jaded or negative. I like it here but plan on leaving the end of next year. There are parts that I like about TVTC but there is a lot that I don't like or can't comprehend.

Thank you for reading and any suggestions on textbooks or feedback on attendance at your school/college/ academy is appreciated!

[caliph]

Welcome to the Gulf.

Be happy that only 12-20 students show up, you might actually get some teaching done Administrations never support attendance policies and cheating policies and cell phone policies and so on...

Put your money in the bank and keep your mouth shut.

We used Kernal Lessons at one time and it was OK, don't know if it's still around. I actually had good students at the time. Worked for Civil Aviation Presidency. Small program, 80 students that sat a competitive entry exam. Students mostly came from remote provinces and this was a big opportunity for them,. They weren't spoiled city kids and just being in Jeddah was a big motivator. They lived on campus, so it they didn't come to class, someone went to their room and kicked them out of bed.

They were preparing to be Air Traffic Controllers, Communication
Specialists, Avionics Repair personnel, and Fire and Rescue at the airports.

They had to meet ICAO standards to get jobs.

When I worked for the military, again it was the provincial students who were more motivated, they had zero wasta and going to England or the States for follow on training was a motivator for them.

Lack of administration support is big problem and it's not going away.

In conjunction with our "techies" we deveLoped a "WASTOMETER", a device that would measure a student's wasta. If they had a high level of wasta, we would give them their diploma and send on their way hoping they wouldn't be in the tower when we were flying in or out. This allowed us to concentrate on the low wasta students. Saved everyone a lot of trouble.

Keep in mind that most tertiary education for the most part is a social welfare program to keep them off the streets grumbling why they don't have a palace and a stable of expensive cars.

[balqis]

Headway is dry Cantabridgensis pathos. Arabs have vivid imagination and mercurial intelligence that is not Cantabrigensis in nature, but more like quantum mechanics. It is where we do not expect it to be, it is not there were we expecxt it to be, we are unable to calibrate its position nor its nature. It has its own unique ways, and the Headway bores, i.e. its writers, have no clue about it.
Their motivation is also very different to the western one - they care little about this life, and a lot about the one after. Western values they don't give a damn about, as consequence of the previous point.
Check statistics on Ielts/UCLES - I did it once. Arabs in general do very badly with these exams - one of the lowest scores statistically as an ethnic group.
Do not expect that a change of the course book will make much of a difference. Stay away from course books as much as you can.
Explain to your TVTC management to drop the PET/KET idea asap.
Arabs use porous/rough grammar, they are traders of the desert and individualistic thoroughbreds, they do not care in general about such petty narrow-minded detail as the English grammar and its correctness, let alone PET or FCE. In their own local Arabic dialects, the distance between the Quranic Arabic and their own local one is hard to imagine, and yet it is all considered fine with them. Then why bother with TESL whims? The talent of Arabs lies somewhere else, and in classes with Headway and with a PET/KET torch ablaze ahead of them it lies fully dormant and soporific.

Low attendance means the programme your college offers is failing. Probably nobody there, in deep Saudi provinces, gives a damn about English taught the TVT/Cantabrigensis/PET/British Council/IELTS way.
Surely not Saudi young girls who learn to work as beauticians, fashion specialists, florists, dietitians, interior designers, etc..,

Besides, those students who after some 6 or so years of exposure to English in primary and high schools, are again level 0, face serious intrinsic learning difficulties, which will not be easily overcome, despite hefty promises the Colleges of Excellence' Briitish managements and educational money-makers have made to the Saudis to get their money out of their banks, promises that are empty, to the effect that there are miraculous ways to turn carrots into apples.

You might try a different approach - I taught such vocational college Kuwaiti girls with an approach based on TAFE system of discreet competencies [ one might say: langauge games ]. It works much better and students are at least happy as there is life and suspense in class. They also ''do English'', rather than ''Study English'', not because there is anything wrong with ''Study English'', but because they are unable to ''study English'' though they still can ''do English'' and enjoy it. But it requires the whole approach to teaching to be turned upside -down. There are no books and no standardized exams involved, just to mention one pillar to smash. Though they struggle, but at least they come to class, as they never know what is going to happen there next. Whereas they know all too well that after page 27 in be-it-Headway or be-it-any-similarity-of-Headway, there is only page 28 to follow, so why bother? It is better to stay home and watch Rotana Khaleeje...


balqis

[sicklyman]

[Grendal]

mark em all present and let God sort them out.

[scot47]

Al Ula ya akhi !

To construe in the tongue of the Frank - "Leave it for the Almighty to sort out !"