Job Discussion Forums

[dmb]

My only experience of the ME is Qatar. And to be honest the students, lovely guys on a one to one basis, were a nightmare to teach(wrong verb) so how do students vary between UAE, KSA, rest of the Gulf, military, industrial plant, university,etc. Who are best/worst students in this region? I know there always exceptions, but in general. I will return to this part of the world in the future, just wondering where?

[veiledsentiments]

DMB,

It probably very much depends on expectations and so many other things - not to mention your definition of the word 'best.' I have always taught university level, either first year or foundation year(s).

But, to talk in broad generalities, overall I enjoyed my students in Oman most. They were mostly respectful, co-operative, a bit shy, and often downright sweet. Few were going to set the world afire academically, but once the teacher's expectations get realistic, they will try extremely hard to meet them.

But, I also very much enjoyed teaching my women students in the UAE. Most of them arrived with better English and many of them had traveled, so they were a bit more informed. I was actually pleasantly surprised at how hard they worked to be able to stay in the college... even though it was obvious that their goals were more social than academic.

In Kuwait my mostly female students were first year medical, so they were all very serious and hard-working as medical students are the world over. They entered my classes with the best English.

I never had a class that was a nightmare to teach in all my years in the Gulf. I had individuals now and again who had emotional or mental problems that often made it a challenge, but even those could be worked with. I often think that women have an advantage in handling some of the problem students. Especially the male students often accept discipline better from us than from the male teachers... just a theory of mine...

VS

[Cleopatra]

[dmb]

I had a couple of female friends and they never had the discipline problems that myself and other males had with the students. I thought it was because the students were just not sure how to behave in front of women who werent a family relative so they behaved like lambs. It must be weird for them to be in the same room as an unveilled woman.

[moonraven]

I have been working with university students in Jordan for the past month--both undergraduates and graduate students. One of the ways that I have been getting to know what they are like is to have them do work on getting to know themselves--both as learners and as people.

What this means is that first I did a Jungian based recovering of memory process which also includes a template for writing paragraphs and essays.

Then we looked at dominant learning styles--visual, auditory, kinesthetic/motor. As usual, about 65% were visual. We worked about how to reinforce dominant learning styles in and out of the classroom.

We also looked at brain hemisphere dominance. In this technologically-oriented university, more than the majority of students in the groups I tested are left-brain dominant. We worked on how to give some juice to the right brain.

The next step was Meyers-Briggs profiling. The most obvious result of testing was the indication that more than the majority of students are extroverts, and students suggested that nurture dominates nature in the sense that because the Arab cultures are so family oriented and parent-dominated, that they had been trained to be extroverts. That might be true.

After that we worked with Enneagrams, and then with correlations between the Myers-Briggs and Enneagram profiling.

I should probably say that the two groups involved are both supposed to be the highest level before entering an all-English classroom to pursue their majors. What they turned out to be--due to misplacement and continued inaccurate testing--is an undergraduate group composed of first level through intermediate level students and a graduate group composed of high basic through low advanced level students. Even with that anomaly in the picture, they were able to work relatively successfully with the language when we were doing the work that was focused on learning about themselves. They have not been as successful when working with articles and information of general interest, although some political consciousness is beginning to take shape among the undergrads and to express itself pretty well among the graduate students.

I will probably be off to Bahrain in about 10 days and will see how those students compare with the ones here (who include Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Iraqis.)

[EnglishBrian]

I never had any problems with adult classes (men or women) but always found the more 'foreigners' I had the better. Compared to the locals (Qataris), the Egyptians, Syrians, Iranians etc. were so motivated, for obvious reasons. I had an Iranian mother and daughter in one class and I have never seen such beautiful notebooks and homework - They were models of perfection. The Palestinians were good too, but every time the Centre Manager (an old Mid-East lifer) was told a student had complained, his first words were, "I bet the bugger's a Palestinian". He was usually right too. Well you wanted stereotypes.

[moonraven]

It has been explained to me that most of these folks are used to not expressing opinions due to negative consequences for same.

Folks here tend to complain if they don't get good grades, as the practice of "wasta" is very prevalent in Jordanian society. Here we tell them that we don't do "wasta", but that doesn't stop them from trying.

[EnglishBrian]

[moonraven]

Thanks for sneering.

What do YOU do to facilitate students' self-knowledge?

[veiledsentiments]

First let's try to avoid turning this into the all too common one-upmanship that seems to occur on the rest of this board.

Moonraven, most of us who have extensive experience teaching in the Middle East have never had a class that was much beyond simple sentences, no less ready for a discussion of learning theory. And I'm talking first year university students. But, back to the topic.

Arab learners mostly come from schools teaching rote learning and memorization. The concept of questioning and creative thinking is not what they are used to.

As to women teaching males, I think it also 'may' be a matter of age. I'm not certain that a cute young 24 year old may have more difficulties than an 'older' woman. You can play the 'mommy card.' A problem student could be brought in and talked to privately... just pointing out how disrespectful and rude his behavior was towards both me and his fellow students. I'm sure part of it is not being used to working with unrelated women, but that usually wears off after about a month. But, that can give the teacher enough time to set the parameters and tone of the class.

There was a study done in Lebanon some years ago on Arab students. The one thing that I recall was that the most important thing to male students was that the teacher had a sense of humor. My thought was... goodness me, one does definitely need one!!

EnglishBrian, having a mixed nationality class certainly is a plus. In the smaller private colleges now you often have a few Pakistanis and Indians - and even other Arabs - who have much better English skills than most of your local students. It certainly adds a bit of spice to an essay writing class as they can help get discussion going.

VS

[dmb]

[EnglishBrian]

Apologies to Moonraven if she felt my post was lacking humour. I honestly don't try to post to wind anyone up (I fancy I could sneer better than that).

Her points were completely fair, but I just felt while I was reading it that I might have wandered by accident onto the 'Nature' website forum. It was such a gorgeously academic post it stuck out like a saw thumb here on Dave's.

[moonraven]

I am used to sticking out like a sore thumb on Dave's--precisely because I AM an academic.

Teachers who are willing to accept only simple sentences will probably never get much else from their students. I am not willing to accept that.

[veiledsentiments]

I fear that you will have trouble finding terribly 'academic' students in the Middle East. As teachers we have to take the students that we are given and provide them with the skills they need.

The vast majority of students in the Gulf enter university with high beginning to high intermediate English levels. I suspect that most of the university students that I have dealt with would listen politely to your lesson on learning styles and if you didn't quickly get down to their level by the next couple of classes, they would head down enmasse to administration to complain.

That is another characteristic of the Arab student. They never tell you if they are upset with you, they don't even bother with your supervisor... they go right to the top of administration... who is likely their uncle or cousin. You have to take care using methods that they consider 'unorthodox.' First you need to get their respect and you have to make sure that administration will back you up.

VS

[Henry_Cowell]