Job Discussion Forums

[BrownSauce]

I can sympathise with Sheikh Shamal - and I do! It's a real paradox that certain colleges and universities in the UAE claim to be looking for PhD holders when anybody with a TEFL/TESL certificate and a bit of experience could do the job of teaching Elementary-level English. I have my trusty MA in Applied Linguistics, but was quite happy to surrender my 'teaching' post in the UAE to a desperate (and soon to be deluded) PhD candidate!

I taught foundations students at Diploma level for a year, and found it the most dispiriting experience of my teaching career. The girls behaved like they were at a market, had no respect for their teachers, and were, as Failed Sentiments said, 'spoilt little rich kids', trapped inside their gilded cage. So sad, really.

The problem is, in my experience, not just that 'they weren't academic enough', but that management usually backed the students when it came to disputes between them and the teacher. Clearly, the 'Supine School of Management' was quite popular at some colleges, where Supervisors were more concerned about keeping their jobs and not upsetting the locals than defending academic standards (and professional, experienced and qualified teachers).

Most students soon came to realise this, and the whole idea of 'education' was abandoned as they realised they could get away with almost anything. Hence the 'social club' analogy that used to be quite common at HCT womens colleges.

Anyway, what's wrong with management (and teachers) expecting high standards of behaviour and attainment from students? If you don't, you'll hardly get it from the teachers, and they will just slip into 'cruise' mode - or worse.

On a personal level, I have taught at tertiary level in four different countries, and the UAE has been the worst by far, regarding students' maturity, attitude towards learning, and academic achievement. And that's very strange, considering they have the best resources. Clearly, it's a matter of the retarded mindset and primitive restrictive customs and traditions - dare I say religion too?

Yes, I dare say it. The fact is that the 'brand' of Islam in the UAE, if not the Gulf overall, is much more stultifying than in other moslem countries in the world. And I have taught there too, so I do know.

OK, now go and crucify me for daring to display an honest personal opinion which is different to yours!

[veiledsentiments]

Well I too taught in universities in 4 different Middle Eastern countries. With the exception of one, I received good to excellent support from my various managements...

Fortunately I had few behavior problems and those that I did have were cured rather quickly with professional action on my and management's part. The students learned to follow my rules and fulfill my requirements. I failed students at every institution and never once was my grade over-ruled.

But I will agree that there were many teachers in all of these places who were unable to handle classroom management and motivate their students. And at the time, I heard the same whines from some of the other faculty who were unable to handle the systems. But, I wouldn't put the blame on the students.

VS

[anaxiforminges]

[Noor]

http://www.clevelandpeople.com/images/arab/love-emirati-girls.jpg

[ItsJustMe]

[Sheikh N Bake]

Yes, I wore that at Dubai Women's College in class but it didn't impress them.

Seriously, I agree with Brownsauce. DWC was a hellhole of spoiled, vicious children who became especially hateful right after the last intifada and again at 9/11, since they assumed, naturally, that the US government perpetrated that event to make Arabs look bad. That is still accepted as fact. Then the little darlings sent emails to US male faculty accusing them of being Jews and whatnot.

Well, heaven forbid I should be a high-achieving US Jew (I'm not) and not a racist, ignorant, useless little shoe-shopping princess.

Well, ok, not all of them. Some were nice. The absolutely worst, most viciously arrogant ones were third-year software engineering majors.

[helenl]

The problem with DWC HD students is that they are consistently told how very "good" (intelligent/bright/well read/fill in space here) they are. Unfortunately, except for the handful who really are all those things - it's a sham. They also can be quite hateful to students from the other women's college, considering them to be inferior to themselves. Rather sad.

[veiledsentiments]

DWC has always been a world of its own... ahh the stories. But my friends who have taught there enjoyed their particular classes. Funny how that works. I hated Kuwait... and dealing with Kuwaitis in the bureaucracy was a nightmare... but my students were absolutely lovely.

There is definitely a class structure amongst the students in the UAE... even at my college it was obvious... lots of cliques. But, then... so was my high school in the US. Many of the problems teachers have are as much age related as culture related. I have also noted that men teachers have more problems with the women students than the women teachers do/did.

VS

[Sheikh N Bake]

Well, VS, you zeroed in on it: HCT "young ladies" were like high school students in the States. Some will say more like middle school pupils. But when comparing tertiary institutions, there is no comparison. At my undergraduate college, a modestly known regional state university (enrollment 6,000) in Pennsylvania, students could be anyone they wanted to be--especially themselves. Who cared if somebody else was different? And more often than not, students I didn't even know smiled and said hello on the street.

[anaxiforminges]

Having just read a nightmarish description of conditions at UAEU on a Chronicle forum, it sounds like DWC is a paradise by comparison.

[Noor]

anaxiforminges, link please.

[anaxiforminges]

Noor:

http://chronicle.com/forums/index.php/topic,59235.30.html

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