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[MESL]

JEDDAH TEACHERS COLLEGE
Money and academics

First, let me say that the staff of Jeddah Teachers College displayed the highest level of respect and professionalism I have witnessed anywhere, and I have had the privilege of working with some pretty impressive staff at schools all over the world. I also had the privilege of teaching and befriending many excellent students. Meanwhile, I enjoyed exploring Saudi, Arab, and Muslim culture. I experienced plenty of frustrations in the KSA, but I made many wonderful friends and left with plenty of fond memories.

The founding chairman of the English Department was a man of exceptional character and talent. He ran the department like a well oiled machine, and was greatly admired by students and staff. He even supervised the founding of other teachers college English Departments across the Kingdom at the same time. When he was offered a promotion to vice dean, he accepted on the condition that he name his successor. His successor struggled hard against overwhelming odds, trying to maintain academic integrity. Two things happened during his tenure that turned the tide against him. First a new dean, then a community center.

Students in the English Department are 4 year Bachelor candidates, and receive a scholarship from the king. Students in the Community Center are 2 year Diploma candidates, and pay a hefty tuition. The Diploma students graduate without being able to speak or write a complete, correct sentence in English. Indeed, without ever even participating in classroom activity.

The new dean has no interest whatsoever in academics. Rather, he is obsessed with construction. Guess where he�s getting the money for a new office building, a new parking lot, new air conditioners, etc.

Translation: Diploma students pass - no matter what. At 16,000 riyals per diploma, the dean and the community center director are not going to risk students dropping out or flunking out.

Under the first two chairmen, academics reigned. Under the current chairman, the current dean, and the current community center director, students reign. Plagiarism, cheating, and absenteeism don�t bother them. Pathetically low skills are of no concern to them. Sending large numbers of unqualified teachers into the public school system is considered someone else's problem.

The Diploma students have always known this. The Bachelor students are catching on. The result is a steady and increasing stream of complaints, challenges, and accusations - complete with an ever more creative list of lies, invented facts, and tortured versions - all of which are accepted without criteria or consequence.

The best example of how far the students are willing to go, and how much they can get away with, was a particularly unruly and mischievous group of Bachelor students, all of whom had been promoted from the Diploma program. Several of them knew they would fail or receive a very low grade. They had too many absences or turned in ridiculously unacceptable homework. A few weeks before the final exam, they broke into my file cabinet and stole all my reading folders. Attendance forms, evaluation forms, quizzes, homework assignments were all gone. The dean told me to write a report and have it translated. He never investigated and never responded to my report. So the current administration is not only unmoved by substandard performance and immoral/unethical behavior, they are unmoved by criminal activity.

The current chairman put me in charge of English Club. I proposed many activities. Nothing ever came to fruition. I was never even given a room. I was left with informal trips to restaurants. Meanwhile, I made the mistake of telling the students that they would soon have their much sought after, long sought after, and much needed opportunities to practice English.

I was assigned to write reports on plagiarism, textbook problems, and Diploma problems. Nothing ever came of any of these reports. Meanwhile, I tried to show a listening movie, wrote the script for a listening tape, and proposed a staff visit to the ESL bookstore. I also tried to get more Macmillan dictionaries - very useful, popular with the students and staff, and the official textbook for our dictionary class - for our dictionary, vocabulary, and reading students. Nothing ever came of any of these projects either.

The reality of priorities began to sink in when the new mosque opened. The old mosque was first used for sports, then converted into a student center. Meanwhile, a tent went up on campus for a coffee shop, which happened to be owned by the community center director. So the students had a place to play billiards, play fuse ball, play ping pong, sip coffee, sip tea, and lounge, but no place to practice their English.

I committed such hideous offenses as refusing to give credit for plagiarized material, taking away the exams of cheaters, and disqualifying from the final exam for too many absences.

I did such strange things as take my reading and vocabulary students to the bookstore to survey graded readers, periodicals, and encyclopedias; take my reading students to the Internet caf� to show them how to research the Arab News website; take my vocabulary students to the Internet caf� to show them how to research idioms; and have my reading students write a book report.

The highest scoring students were always enthusiastic about these type of activities. It was a refreshing change from the tedious routine of going through exercises. More importantly, it provided them with the tools and insights they needed to truly learn, understand, and use the language. By contrast, the lazy students simply wanted to know what would be on the exams.

Students in 3 classes - Bachelor, and Diploma; vocabulary and reading - signed petitions saying that I was one of the best teachers they ever had and that they benefited enormously from my methods. The current chairman did nothing with these petitions. I was not offered another contract and the dean refused to give me a letter of no objection.

I wrote exams, I coordinated a reading committee and wrote the committee's curriculum, I collected information about study abroad programs. And many other things I did for the department and for the students.

I have a lot of experience to show for it, but my career and finances were disrupted. And I was prevented from accepted a much better offer from a school in the same town. The other school was even close to my apartment.

There were many pay problems. There was no professional development. And in my case, there were major passport problems. All of this from people who claim to be extremely religious. Including two from among the bearded ones, both of whom tried to convert me.

[zaytuni]

deleted by poster

[MESL]

One of the professors in the English Department coordinated the diploma program for the community center. The stress and overwork that accompanied this responsibility - for which he received comparatively little compensation - almost certainly caused his stroke. When I left, he was still in the hospital and still an invalid.