Job Discussion Forums

[SaharaDesert]

Hi,

Just was wondering what everyone thinks of this new ADEC
project where expat teachers will be teaching Grade 1
and Grade 2 Emirati students in local schools ?

Will it be difficult or almost like being an ESL teacher ?
I could use some advice........

Thanks.

[SaharaDesert]

Anyone with any kind of point of view or opinion
on this ?

[veiledsentiments]

I think one of the problems is that we have very few posters here who have done the early grades... and the few that have may very well be traveling and not reading. July/August is a bad time to get the answers to questions.

VS

[SaharaDesert]

[Camel Stick]

Many of the Grade 1 and 2 students I worked with have some conversational English. However, you cannot approach teaching these Ss in the same way as you'd teach native-English speaking Ss. You are teaching from an ESOL perspective; you need to plan lessons with this in mind. Just curious: I assumed most people using this forum are ESOL folk. Are ADEC recruiting Ts with general primary training and/or ESOL training??
I think the biggest challenge teaching primary boys is their terrible behaviour not the language issue.

[sunshine21]

From what I understand they want teachers with experience teaching period not specifically ESOL

[Takahiwai]

In my humble opinion, having worked for one of ADEC's provider companies for 3 years, ADEC does not value EFL in its own right, and is quite content for inappropriate course content to be provided in primary schools. The particular provider I work for is of the same mind, and therefore the poor students are expected to learn English via material which was designed for Grade 1-5 native English speakers. The teachers of English are currently being advised by primary school teachers from English-speaking countries. No experience of EFL is required, or particularly valued. Grade 1 and 2 teachers, who have bent their backs to learn English during the 3 years of the PPP1 project were horrified to discover that they were simply going to lose their jobs because ADEC (and the Ministry of Education) have capriciously decided that they can't be bothered to introduce educational reform properly, but must have it yesterday - hence the massive recruitment campaign for Grade 1 and 2 teachers who are native English-speakers.

[mishmumkin]

I was a few PPP schools this past year. Edunova had been in one particular school since August at this point. We were told that the level of English spoken by the children was much improved from the beginning of the last academic year. I would say an ESL teacher walking into grade 1 would classify these kids as false beginners. VERY low level, and limited classroom vocabulary. You'll have your work cut out for you, but the young ones are particularly sweet.

[joycegoth]

[Zoot]

Takahiwai, the teachers who have been moved on are those who were given opportunities to update their skills over the past 3 years, but who because they had been in place for such a long time, believed they didn't really have to. These were usually also those who did their very best to make certain the PPPs failed making it possible for everything to remain as it had always been.

ADEC does have a lot of problems as the mediator between the schools and the desires of the Shaikh, it does need to provide/secure appropriate resources for the classrooms because the parents and teachers don't want to see classrooms without texts at this point, and it certainly does need to be considering ESL qualifications and what these can bring to a classroom, but it does seem to have jumped off the deep end with hiring a whole bunch of teachers who have never been in the middle east, who have no ESL qualifications and/or experience and is paying a pittance for their services.

The next 2 years will prove interesting to watch!

[Takahiwai]

Zoot, I can only speak from my own limited experience. To cite an example, 2 of our very best Grade 1 and 2 Maths and Science teachers have lost their jobs because of the expected influx of English native-speakers this year. One of them has been sent to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies in a boys' school, and the other is to be a relief teacher for the whole of the Western Zone, despite the fact that she lives in Abu Dhabi and has to make a 330km round-trip every day just to get to MZ, which is the nearest of the WZ settlements that she might have to travel to. It doesn't seem to me that these teachers lost their jobs because they had failed to seize their opportunities, but because jobs for the local (UAE)teachers had to be reserved, without regard to skill or commitment, and therefore all available teaching berths were automatically assigned to those teachers. It certainly will be interesting to see what happens over the next period of 'educational reform'. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the change will be positive, but I'm not holding my breath