Job Discussion Forums

[fof]

Could experienced ME'ers clarify what this includes regarding topics, texts, conversation, and so forth in the ME Classroom.
A picture of a pig roast? People on a beach in Australia? A woman breast feeding a child? A young unmarried couple walking hand in hand???
Does the concept "culturally sensitive" even exist in the west (ie. Is it "practiced" in the classroom as opposed to age appropriate materials/ content; religously, politically and racially sensitive materials/topics etc depending on the students?)

I can understand that ME students find some "western" pictures and perhaps issues, etc."offensive" or "uncomfortable", but isn't learning about other cultures severely curtailed with the censorship of materials/topics, etc. that I have been led to believe is in place in the ME? What exactly are the concerns?

[bje]

[windstar]

Based on my experience, I found that
a. pig and anything related with it
b. dating, going out with the opposite sex
c. nudity even at its most innocent exposure -including a woman breastfeeding her child
d. leaders -amirs of their country
e. anything questioning their culture

There might be more.

[Neil McBeath]

It is hard to specify exactly what could cause offense, because the rules change from country to country.

I know of a case where a Saudi English teacher took great offense at a magazine left lying around in the TEACHERS' room of an institution. The magazine in question was the Dubai Duty Free Magazine (Please take one), but it had illustrations of the bottles that contained alcohol. Interestingly, the same magazine had been seen by the official Saudi customs officials and they had raised no objection to it at all.

Obviously, this is taking things to an extreme, but the Saudi teacher received a respectful hearing.

At the other end, there was a woman in Oman, writing materials for the Military, who omitted any mention of the Sultan because, she said, she did not think it was appropriate for her, as an expatriate, to mention his name.

It was, in fact, a pretty feeble excuse; an attept to cover up the fact that she either forgot, or didn't realise that it was important in military circles to (a) make such references, (b) make them frequently and (c) make them in full - His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said, Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces.

In this case, her excuise backfired. The Omanis interpreted her omission as a lack of respect, rather than as the exaggereted respect that she claimed it to be.

[veiledsentiments]

Neil is correct that you can't be sure - even after years - of what will offend a particular group of students.

In Oman, while teaching intermediate writing, we were covering the adjectives related to describing people. Some of the students got upset because when we got to 'salt and pepper hair' - I said that a perfect example was Sultan Qaboo's beard - at the time. (it is pretty much all silver now) So, as we went on, I added 'handsome and distinguished' and that evened things out with them. I asked our Omani Asst Director about it after class and her response was that they were just being silly. After reading Neil's post, it may have been that I didn't use his full name and honorifics.

In the Emirates, I had a girl student who rushed down to administration because when I gave the 'official population' of the UAE, it included expats. She got all snippy in Arabic in the class and the another student explained that she felt that the UAE population should ONLY include Emiratis. I explained that if their brothers were studying in the US, they would be counted there... and that I had been counted in the census in both Egypt and Oman, so I was included there. It was how all countries reported their population. It was not a count of citizenship, but a count of the people living there. Fortunately admin fully supported me and told her that she was wrong.

So... you are in a bit of a minefield. Students in the Middle East tend to go to Admin regularly to complain about teachers. The key is to work for sensible employers who will back you up and be able to smooth out things like this.

VS

[smedini]

[ghost]

[Dedicated]

There is now a Headway Middle East version.

I don't know about Interchange.

[veiledsentiments]

[fof]

I just don't get it (bje's comment). Why would I learn Arabic if I didn't want to learn about Arab culture(s)..why would I learn French if I didn't want to learn about French culture..how can language and culture be seperated? Why would the Arabs need English for job purposes unless those jobs had something to do with "the English world" -with "English" culture(s)? (I apologize if I sound naive, but I better have this figured out before I get there...)

[veiledsentiments]

They are not learning English for the same reason that most of us study another language. We chose to study a language BECAUSE we were interested in the culture.

These students are already sick of having our culture shoved down their throats (by colonization or military means) and unless they plan to go to the West to get further studies, they are not only not terribly interested... they find the cultural issues bizarre enough that it interferes with the goals of the course... which are to teach the language. Of course, you can not totally separate the two, but they have no need to learn about drinking habits, dating rules, or eccentric Christian religious cult practices - things that I have found in way too many textbooks used there.

They are learning English not because they want to, but because their counties have made the - to me - odd decision to teach their tertiary education in English rather than the Arabic that they have used for the previous 12 years. The reality is that most of the students will not use the language all that much after they graduate.

Don't look for logic to all this fof... it will only frustrate you.

VS

[basiltherat]

Is there an apt word in Saudi dialect of Arabic for 'logic' ?
Just curious. I mean, does such a term exist in their vernacular ? What about 'common sense' ?
best
basil

[007]

[sheikh radlinrol]

I found that Gulf Arabs were very relaxed and tolerant when it came to material that we might have thought offensive to them. For example, in a Headway book there was a nun who drank whisky.
However, you only needed one ''muttawa'' in the group to kick up a fuss. I remember one beardie being able to impose his will on a much more senior officer simply because he had the religion behind him.

[Neil McBeath]

If you remember, last year there was an interesting case in the Suda.

A woman teaching children gave her students a teddy bear, and asked them to give it a neme. The kids decided to call it Mojhammed after one of the booys in the class.

The bear was then taken home by each kid in turn, and they were tasked with writing one page in Mohammed's journal.

Sweet, isn't it? The kids loved it, none of their parents raised any objection, thye schooll dirtector was happy with the idea. Then, a CLERICAL ASSISTANT - nothing at all to do with the class, reported that the teacher was "insulting Islam".

The upshot was that the teacher was arrested, there were 10,000 strong demonstrations in the streets by people demanding that she be beheaded, and Muslim members of the House of Lords had to go out to the Sudan to explain the effect that all this was having in Britain. In the end the court, overcome by embarrassment, gave the teacher the lightest possible sentence available and she was departed.

But everything stemmed from the actions of one busybody.