Job Discussion Forums

[aussie_teacher]

what do u guys think of the job that was posted on dave's ESL @ INTERLINK Riyadh? Any good???

[shadowfax]

I approve the idea of promoting student ownership of responsibility in learning and critical thinking skills. This is largely what real education is about. However, the fact that they are stipulating exclusively MA ESOL or lingusitics to teach English language suggests that these people really know very little about critical thinking skills or student ownership of learning responsibility.

[aussie_teacher]

I know what u mean. It is pretty stupid. However, i've noticed that most Saudis want their employees to have an M.A. Maybe it's something to do with Saudi prestige. Maybe the expats can give us an insight.
I don't think it's got anything to do with INTERLINK in particular though.

[shadowfax]

Yes, but I have an MA in English literature and find it suspicious that the critical skills this fashions, as well as the technical knowledge of English, are disregarded by MA tefl-fixated institutions in the region. I suspect the motive behind this is more to do with surrendering to cultural paranoia than with establishing prestige.
However, as an expat with Saudi experience, this job seems fairly interesting otherwise, and I can't see any obvious catches (apart from security, of course; especially for the white-skinned amongst us and especially in Riyadh).
One final caution: the business students I taught in a private institution in Saudi were a rabble of disrespectful cheats and the management weren't prepared to back the teachers to do anything about it (except to put more pressure on the teachers). But the salary offered suggests Interlink might well be more professional.

[Cleopatra]

Shadowfax,

So far as I know many institutions throughout KSA and the Gulf demand that their teachers have a Master's in TESOL or Applied Linguistics, but will not accept one in English language or literature. I don't think this is at all unique to Interlink, but believe it to be in fact the norm.

Whether or not having an MA makes you a good teacher is very much a moot point. However, if you're going to insist on teachers having a Master's, I can see some justification in demanding that that Master's be in a teaching-related subject. In my experience, MAs in English lit do not in any way prepare you to teach basic English to foreigners. MAs in TESOL or Applied Linguistics are primarily concerned with language teaching, so in that sense they are relevant in a way which an English lit. degree is not.

[shadowfax]

I don't recall syaing that Interlink was 'different ' in any way.

I think it fair to doubt your implied assertion that most students in Saudi are beginners in English. The overwhwelming majority that we meet in tertiary and private institutions would, I suggest, have at least four years schooling in English, and usually significantly more. In addition to this, English verges on the status as a second language in the Middle East.
Now, if we wish to see the skills of critical thinking and autonomous learning developed alongside English, then people with a solid degree in literature are eminently equipped to do that. The use of literature for teaching English is also much neglected, if not positively suppressed in some quarters (not just the Middle East). Hence the decline in communication skills and intellectual culture generally, and the incursion of scientism and short term commercialism into the realms of the humanities.

[Cleopatra]

Well, I never said that "most" Saudi students were beginners, but many have a fairly basic level of English, particularly in the written language. This despite many years of school "teaching" in the language.

"Now, if we wish to see the skills of critical thinking and autonomous learning developed alongside English, then people with a solid degree in literature are eminently equipped to do that"

I don't doubt that many can be, though doubtless many are not equipped to teach anything, as their degree does not usually deal with teaching. Not that I'm saying that all TESOL or Applied Ling. graduates are great teachers, but their degrees are at least directly concerned with teaching. Simply having a Masters' - in English Lit, TESOL or even in advanced basket weaving - does not make one a good teacher. Nor does its absence neccessarily make one a bad teacher. However, as I've said, if employers have decided that they require an MA, it makes sense that in this, as in any other profession, that that MA should be in a subject directly relevant to the job.

[shadowfax]

And my contention is that literature is directly relevant.
Why? Because it teaches sensitivity to the deep structures and semantic systems of the English language.
As for the recent obsession with courses in teaching, I am highly sceptical. Anyone who is intelligent enough to gain a good command of their subject should be able to teach it, as was the practice before the 1960s. The point is, in those times any students who entered into higher education were expected to apply themselves to the task in hand with all diligence and a large degree of self-direction. But now we have entered the age of the Nanny College, with all its fancy bells, buttons, and teaching qualifications. And I think the results speak for themselves.
For centuries, the way people learnt a foreign language was through its grammar and its literature. It yielded excellent results.
Your quip about basket weaving adds nothing to your argument.

[Cleopatra]

"Your quip about basket weaving adds nothing to your argument."

Oh for God's sake - lighten up a bit!

[veiledsentiments]

It might be dangerous to step in between you two, but I just wanted to add a comment based on my experience. My first degree is in Literature and my MA is in TEFL.

While I felt that my MA was helpful in my classroom teaching of English as a Foreign language, I felt my literature degree was pretty much irrelevant. But, if Shadowfax feels that it has helped his teaching, my feeling is that whatever works. Whatever helps you to get down to the student's needs and how to help them is what matters.

As to whether people can actually be taught how to teach, I'm not convinced one way or another. This is one those topics that repeatedly comes up when you get a bunch of teachers together - haven't heard the answer yet either.

VS

[aussie_teacher]

so do u guys like or dislike interlink?

[shadowfax]

[shadowfax]

"While I felt that my MA was helpful in my classroom teaching of English as a Foreign language, I felt my literature degree was pretty much irrelevant".

A lot can depend on your grade, and the institution where you studied literature. As far as grades and attitude to grades is concerned, quality counts, and counts more than whether the qualification in question is linguistics / tesol / esol / literature. This has been my experience with many of the best teachers and institutions I have encountered. On the other hand, I have met people with MA tefl who quite frankly hadn't a clue, whether in teaching or civil behaviour.
It is also the case that tefl / tesol etc., outside of tefl itself and language schools in Asia, carries a very low cachet in the academic world.

Sorry for the interruption, Aussie.

[veiledsentiments]

Aussie teacher,

It looks like the bad news is that nobody that is currently on the board knows anything about the place. Personally I have never heard of them. This is a bad time of the year to get information here. Most people are traveling and those of us who come on the board are easily distracted onto flights of fancy and the usual debates. If anyone knows anything useful, they will usually jump in, but meanwhile:

Shadowfax:

I got my English Lit major eons ago - and it was directed towards education (what with that being about the only thing one can actually DO with such a major. ) But, though it theoretically prepared me to be a secondary school literature teacher - and allowed me to get credit to do what I loved most - read, it certainly didn't prepare me at all for the nitty gritty of EFL teaching. I found my linguistics courses in my MA many times more useful in learning such things as how the brain processes language, and how sounds are produced, and the existence of deep grammar. But, again, it still didn't prepare me for what to do on Wednesday afternoon with a bunch of bored college kids - who were one semester away from having to write academic essays and could not yet write a simple gramatical sentence consistently. (as is the usual in the Gulf)

To me, being and becoming a good teacher is putting all this disparate stuff together and liking the students enough to try to figure out how to get them to learn English whether they really want to or not. That is why IMHO, teaching is more of an art than a science.

But then we have academia, which isn't going to give anyone respect who doesn't have that PhD. And unfortunately, there is no degree of any level that guarantees civil behavior (or common sense) - and that goes for all fields - from business to TEFL to artsy basket weaving kinda majors.

VS

[shadowfax]

There's something we can agree on: teaching, like being a human, is more of an art than a science.