Job Discussion Forums

[veiledsentiments]

Bebsi!! Where have you been?? or as my students used to say, "Where are you?"

VS

[graftonstreetgulf]

Take him on .. say without pay for 6 month or so and train him up .. Tis Christmas after all ..



ALPH - It looks as though you could do with a bit of training yourself

[Bebsi]

Bizeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

Just surfacing for a sort of Xmas/New Year look-see at what's happening out there in Sandland and such places.

A somewhat belated Merry Xmas...ok, ok, very belated...and a Happy New Year to all our readers.

[balqis]

1. certain, if not many, universities in the Gulf as a rule - i.e. must -employ 50% of Arab teachers so by this principle you stand a fair chance; no idea how it works in language schools, though; this market is a ritzy one so the rules of the hiring trade might be tougher there [ i.e. only native speakers are showcased there, though from my saudi experience i know it is not always the case]

2. you don't say what your degree is; celta is usually only an additional tefl certificate to a B.A. or Master's; a lot is up to the degree you hold;

3. as a non-native speaker you are entitled to certain language errors and no big deal about [ it is just a matter of degree]; i guess celta interview, if carried out properly, should evaluate your language command and tell you if your english is up to the standards required in the tefl world;

4. yet again, unis require a couple of years of experience [ two at least], sometimes at tertiary education; not all of them, though, i mean the tertiary one;

5. celta i hated [ a personal statment]; anyway, good luck and keep going; personally i don't mind ''advices'' at all;

p.s. many unis in saudia can be quite desperate for teachers, especially those in bedu areas and especially for female teachers for those bedu areas; so yallah, future is open...

balqis

[007]

[balqis]

1. for example University of Bahrain, which I know first-hand, has this hire proportion/policy as mandatory and most Arab teachers and profs there are not on anglo-saxon passports but on their - so to say - ethnic ones; there is also many profs there from iraq, syria, tunisia, palestine and jordan, which makes this place worth a stay and the conversation there worth one's ears; true they need to study abroad and this is where they get their degrees from, but this goes down to the political situation in the Middle East, as one may inanely and spuriously add;
from what I know some/certain/many Gulf unis have to hire half of their staff Arab teachers; maybe this rule applies only to government universities, or maybe to those associated in AAU [ The Association of Arab Unis ]; don't know but I know that is the case in certain/many places; and good that it is the case, at least to my mind;

2. not all saudia is bedu; i wish it was, at least to a degree, but the one I am in currently is for example very aramco-stricken; if you have no taste for aramco-stricken saudi stuff, then tough luck;
there is nothing wrong about bedu, at least to my taste, at least it is pure, but it is damn hard to find it here, verging on the impossible;
the ''facade'' as you call it has thickened enough to penetrate - as it were -deep into the building;
undoubtedly, there are more bedu areas and less bedu areas in saudia

[scot47]

In KSA there are bedu ("tribal")and non-bedu. The latter are looked down on as 'Trash Bahr' - flotsam, but are often important and wealthy.

Remember that Jeddah and the two holy cities have been at the centre of the Muslinm world for hundreds of years. for centuries people have come to the Hejaz and stayed. Just look at the racial diverity and the exotic surnames !

[007]

[balqis]

yeah, but i never claimed there is justice or fairness, neither in the world nor in the tefl world; for there is not, in none of them;
i was just trying to answer Muslim's enquiry, especially that i felt spurred by the collection of pretty spiteful replies he had got, not really addressing his question;
and what i'm saying is a fact; Bahrain Uni does hire 50 % of Arab teachers on principle;
tribal thing is an arab thing by the way;

[007]

[Stephen Jones]

OK, so where do we start with this one?

First of all hiring of people for the same universithy they studied in, is not far from the norm.

As for 'bedu' this sounds like the same joke that Islam is a desert bedoun religion. Islam is a, sociologically, the product of a middle-class urban environent. Look at the Prophet's occupation and look at the place he hailed from.

The mix in Saudi is massive. There are blacks which appear to have lived in Saudi for hundreds of years, recent Hajj immigrants, Moslem Caucasians fleeing the tsarist expansion, and who knows what else.

[007]

[Bebsi]

Well, one thing is certain: based on the number of grammatical, punctuation, spelling, syntactical and idiomatic errors evident in the postings of a number of people here, command of the English language - or lack thereof - is certainly not a bar to one's becoming an English teacher in the Gulf.

Indeed, I doubt if it is an obstacle to becoming an EFL teacher anywhere!

[Queen of Sheba]

It is false to say all Saudis are Bedouins. Some tribes are "bedu" meaning they belong to nomadic tribes, in origin; Al Otaibi is one large one that is bedu in origin. Yet, other tribes stem from cities or villages that were originally farmers, and settled people, thus not Bedouins. These farmers were continually invaded, robbed and annoyed by the invading bedu and still seem them as a nuisance. The non-bedu tribes possess family names that are named after their cities are the most recognizable in that they are names after regions or cities, if you know Arabic and the local regions that is.

007-I think you were being sarcastic about all Saudis being Bedu, as I am sure you are aware this is simply false as far as tribes are concerned. I got your point however, and when comparing them with other Arabic countries in particular, would tend to agree. However the UAE are much more "bedu" in the real sense of the word, being nomadi, as well as the other sense of the world, and being much less educated than Saudis, yet they have no such visible problems with outsiders, in general, and with modernization. I think the real problem with Saudi isn�t so much from the bedu as it is the religious interpretation being rigid and the insular location of the desert, Riyadh in particluar was hard to penetrate and take over by any other tribes, or foriegners. I realize some of this is also up for interpretation, so let the games begin!

[007]