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[redeyes]

Iamherebecause wrote --

[veiledsentiments]

[007]

[veiledsentiments]

No Thanks... happily retired...

VS

[Sheikh N Bake]

I've never met Americans or Canadians who don't know how to use or teach articles, comparatives/superlatives, and conditionals. That's preposterous. As for texts, Azar has every grammatical construction there is. Azar is not a writing text, however; it's a grammar text. I don't see why you need advanced writing texts to teach writing. Use something like Azar for the grammatical elements in your writing course and your own teaching skills for teaching writing. If you don't know how to teach advanced writing without a dedicated writing textbook, you shouldn't be teaching advanced levels of writing.

I agree that I haven't found any advanced writing textbooks for the Gulf market. I do have two lower-level ones, however: Write to the Point by Kim Henderson and Better Writing by Richard Harrison. I suppose there are more--I am no longer in the Middle East.

[redeyes]

Shake n Bake, I am sorry to say that I have met highly qualified Americans and Canadians who didn't teach the tense differences I mentioned, or only skimmed over them in the most cursory fashion.

However -- I emphasise -- I am not taking a shot at American and Canadian teachers. I have also met highly qualified British teachers teaching at reputable Universities who knew their stuff and were old hands at the job -- yet who didn't know what comma splice, run on sentence, fragment and -- wait for it -- narrative and clause meant when teaching writing classes. ( I have also noticed that the British tend to use more culturally inappropriate listening material -- but that is another topic)

My point is not to make Americans, Canadians or British teachers look bad -- but rather, I am trying to point out how methodologies are so very different. And perhaps part of that, as I have previously mentioned, is the method/terminology taught on British CELTA/DELTA/MA courses vs US MA's. I am not saying one is better than the other. But it seems they are different.

For example, a cursory glance at British EFL/ESL books will plainly show that terminology such as "comma splice, run on sentence, fragment" , is conspicuously absent. "Independent Clauses, Dependent/Subordinate Clauses" are also barely mentioned in many Brit texts, whilst "relative and indirect relative clauses" are typically mentioned in British EFL books. The term "verbials" is an alien one to a British teacher -- yet seems common parlance to some US/Canadian teachers.

I even know one teacher who gets consistently good results from his writing classes and who has a very good reputation with staff and students -- but who stubbornly barely teaches anything about the tense system: not out of ignorance, but rather relying on TBL and CR theory he studied on his MA. Bearing in mind he never teaches the diferences between, say the present perfect and the past simple, or past simple and past perfect,or the diversities that make up 1/2/3 Conditionals, I am staggered that he gets good results -- but he does.Every time. Often his results are far better than the very careful, extremely thorough grammar/tense teachers. ( I have a lot of time for TBL and CR, but some marked reservations too -- I still follow really old theorists like Skinner, so hey, what do you expect. )

That difference in method interests me, and as I get older, I realise how many different roads there are to the same place.

[Gulezar]

When teaching writing/grammar I tend to focus on "You, the writer." There is not a right or wrong form, but several choices that a writer may find more appropriate for his/her purposes. I suppose I am more flexible in accepting past or past perfect. In conferencing with a student I might ask why a student chose one form rather than another, or I might suggest various forms which could be used.

Other teachers that I've worked with seem to work from a more authoritarian viewpoint and to be less flexible. There seems to be a sense that teacher knows what the student is trying to say and that there is one correct form, rather than several options.

That said, I think Gulf students, and particularly Saudi students, prefer the second approach. I've often heard, "But which way is the correct one?"

[kiefer]

Gulezar,
My livelihood depends on convincing students that their futures depend on believing there's a vast difference between a. "I went in Mecca" and b. "I'd gone to Mecca". If they figure out both a. and b. pretty much report the same information and that choosing one over the other probably won't have an impact on their careers--I might have to go back to tending bar.

[Gulezar]

I suppose that some focus on the "several ways to say it wrong". I prefer to focus on the several ways to "say it right."

"I went in Mecca." We can fix that, if the students is speaking about a specific day. If Mecca is a destination, we can use "to".

"I'd gone to Mecca." Perhaps the student wants to to state an unreal situation.

My point is that we teach grammar and correct papers and sometimes forget to ask the driver (the writer) where he/she is going.

Grammar is important, but so is intent. Grammar is not an end in itself, but a menu for writing. Sometimes we get the cake that fell. Go back and help the student with the baking powder, but what if the student is trying to make a cheesecake?

[redeyes]

Interesting contributions and perspectives. Thanks for the insights -- keep them coming. I think there is much food for thought and reflection here, however long we have been teaching, and however much time and money we have put into our respective qualifications, and whatever our particular "school of methodology and praxis" has taught us is the "right way to do it".

[007]

[Gulezar]

Here is nice video for a listening activity. I hope you can open it.

"Krishnan Guru-Murthy presents a lively debate about what being British means, and the role of schools in teaching Britishness."

http://www.teachers.tv/video/29032

I suppose it is about the role of ESL in Britain.

[redeyes]

Do Muslim students in UAE view teachers in a different light depending on whether they are Americans or Brits and depending on their respective govts/nations meddling in their region's politics ? It's not a loaded question inviting trolling posters re. US troops or inviting anti US or anti Brit rants etc -- after all,both nations are equally to blame. Britain is ( in the longer term ) equally culpable for the region's woes after carving up the map in earlier decades and, most of all, for the Balfour Declaration --

So -- expat ranting and personal teacher to teacher inter cultural grudges aside now -- DO the students ( and wider cultural/societal prism) view British and American teachers differently, and if so, why, and how does that impact the workplace, teaching, and living in UAE?

It's an open question I am very curious about -- In some parts of Asia, Americans fulfil the role of hated, despised devils and at the same time, the role of aspired to dream model. It's a Manichean duality in some places in Asia, inspiring the deepest loathing, chimeras and hate, and at the same time, invoking banal stereotypes and cliches they have long desired and dreamt about. The Brits for their part, are often thought of in Asia as coming from a forgotten dark isle of top hats, castles and fog. All the cliches are trotted out -- either that, or they are supposed to embody an up to date bubble gum cliche in which Brits are supposed to represent Harry Potter, David Beckham, Hugh bloody Grant and Manchester United....oh, and Sherlock bloody Holmes....

(Some teachers -- irritatingly, annoyingly -- exploit that of course : there's a lot of mileage in pretending to be an "all American sports jock/ivy leaguer" or acquiring a silly Hugh Grant fringe/Beckham hairdo....)

But it's the Americans who get all the political flack -- the British role in world affairs is considered too innefectual/eclipsed by the USA to bother giving them a hard time about.

And UAE?

[Never Ceased To Be Amazed]

[Iamherebecause]