Job Discussion Forums

[scot47]

Does anyone in KSA take this seriously ?

[007]

[desert_traveller]

Some people, mostly freshly arrived Western academic managers, do seem to be taking it seriously, true to their form and work culture, and being completely ignorant of the fact that more often than not it is not the teachers' professional knowledge and performance that determines the upper level of what is mistakenly called 'education' in the KSA, but rather the students' schooling background (including learning skills etc) and motivation (neither of which would I qualify here).

When I arrived to the KSA, I did take it seriously. When I left a year later, 'professional development' was a phrase we used to have a laugh during hard times.

Anyone taking it seriously after say a year or two should seek therapy for denial of reality.

Imho.

[Imdramayu]

To be honest and open, I believe in CPD. IMHO, it's one of the best ways to stay fresh, current, growing, and uncynical/unjilted as language instructors. For me, otherwise, I get in a rut. I'll be transparent and say that this summer I'm taking CELTA as part of my personal CPD. Even though CELTA deals with TENOR (Teaching English for No Obvious Reason) or General English and I'll be teaching EAP, it provides an excellent refresher in general language instruction. I already have an MA in TESOL with years of classroom experience. But I need to stay current. TESOL Arabia and other such conferences don't do it for me (in terms of CPD). I went to TESOL Arabia 2008 and don't remember a single thing from the conference (except for the friends who I met).

Scot47, to answer your question directly, I don't know because I haven't lived in KSA long enough to know what many language instructors think. I'll revisit your question after a few months or years.

[johnslat]

Dear scot47,

"Does anyone in KSA take this seriously ?"

I would imagine that anyone making money off of it does.

Regards,
John

[balqis]

The real question for me is how much western tesol applies to the Gulf culture?
In my opinion it applies very little, and ''very'' can't be stressed too much. Also, why should it apply? Too imperial an attitude to say the least and leaving most not spelled out.
One might defend the followng point: the more tesol one soaks in - or the thicker one's tesol spectacles on one's nose - the more of the cultural Gulf context is is left out of the game. The Arab culure becomes lost in the tesol translation.
balqis

[Geronimo]

In response to your query, scot47...
The British Council offer some CPD opportunities in Saudi Arabia:-
http://www.britishcouncil.org/me-english-teaching-teacher-training-workshops.htm

In my view, it is important for salaried workers, irrespective of their occupational area of expertise, to be engaged in CPD. The rate of technical and technological development is so fast these days. If you're not going forwards, you're going backwards.

[desert_traveller]

[Imdramayu]

Then, desert_traveller, how does a EFL instructor design his classes to optimize the Saudi students' learning? How do we make the classes not "remote", "alien", and valueless? If this an issue of contextualization, how do we contextalize the class and the learning process? Would using books written specifically for the Gulf help (e.g., Richard Harrison's textbooks (Keep Writing, English Please) or something else also?

I do agree that a lot of communicative language teaching and other TESOL methodologies were designed in the West and work well in those kinds of classrooms. But what else is there? What has developed to meet the needs of our Saudi students and to give the teacher something to teach for a Saturday morning class?

[Cleopatra]

Obviously, teaching Saudi students involves its own particular approach, but I think this can be overstated. After all, every 'culture' is different and students from China, Italy, Columbia, Korea ...whereever, are no more or less unique than students from the UAE or Saudi Arabia.

So, while it's true that it would be naive to approach a class of Saudi military recruits in exactly the same way as you would a class of Spanish and Italian teenagers in a language school in London (ie the "Headway" target group), there are some universals in second language learning. It wouldn't hurt for teachers, whereever they are in the world, to be kept up to date with the latest developments in SLA research. Other than that, I have mixed feelings about PD. If it's done well, it can help to give teachers a sense of purpose and, as baedebook says, help prevent them from falling into a rut. All too often, however, "PD" is more of a chore where teachers feel they are merely going through the motions, for the sake of some senior staff members who feel they 'should' be offering "PD". More often than, not, I have found that impromptu conversations with colleagues in the staffroom provide me with far better classroom ideas than stilted "training" sessions ever could.

[scot47]

Cleo, as always astounds me with her combination of Youth, Beauty and Wisdom.

[Imdramayu]

Agreeable Cleo. I have sat through hours of "PD training" on a multitude of topics (blogs, Symposium/Robotel, Hot Potato, ICDL, vocab, etc.) and I rarely come out of these sessions knowing anything more. Half the time the workshop instructor lead the workshop b/c the manager told him to and/or he wanted to put it on his CV or professional teaching portfolio.
Whatever learning outcomes the workshop instructor had in mind weren't achieved (in my case)? This is the same for most sessions at TESOL conferences I've attended (TESOL Arabia, KOTESOL (Korea), TESOL (US), etc.). Real PD has to be carefully targeted, worked-out, and taught. One such session was led by (MOD edit*) at TESOL Arabia about storing vocab taught in class in a spreadsheet and using it on quizzes/tests.

(*please don't post names without the person's permission)

[Stephen Jones]