feedback on saudi arabian paper unedited first draft

It's pretty good but some points:
1. You need to distance yourself much more without losing the personal insights.
2. There are too many typos.
3. There is a sudden jump to the Geetha Narayanan bit about Bruce Mau et al.
4. The bit from after Nirmal Selvamony about what it is in terms of Saudi Arabia - is it a vision statement you have cooked up or something you culled from elsewhere - the Competency, Creativity, etc. If it is culled from elsewhere, UK Curriculum? then it is too extensively quoted and you should just take up the relevant elements.
5. The key argument is that the Saudi's must exercise AUTONOMY in creating a curriculum, syllabus for its universities. This has to be elaborated in much more detail in terms of directionality and form and content instead of publishing the entire UK curriculum in the paper. For instance, you speak of taking in useful elements from Orient Longmans whatever ..Is there some sort of demonstration you can give of this mix n match, cut n paste? Or is it an entirely new combine you are talking of, indigenously developed? Give a picture of it.
6. Ideally, the UK curriculum and the questionnaire should be annexures and the paper should comment on both and integrate the comments with your vision for the Saudi Arabian future. The inclusion of both these things makes the paper take a nosedive in terms of energy. You need to boost the end.
That's it.
by A.V.Varghese

EFL in King Abdul Aziz Univeristy - Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - unedited first draft

CURRICULUM DESIGN AND ELT IN SAUDI ARABIA

Colonialism is a political, economic, cultural and religious intervention or intrusion into your place/space whereby the interveners settle on your soil, unless they are evicted. They use you for their profit. Down in the south India, in Kerala where I come from, my ancestors were colonized first by the Aryans who brought with them the story that Vishnu was superior and so was Rama, to Mahabali and Ravana respectively, and Krishna was superior because he was for the solar faction - the Pandavas - and not the lunar one - the Kauravas -, thus establishing a form of Hinduism that has become permanently ridden with caste discrimination. Then came the Mughal influence - read Muslim -, the Portugese influence - read Catholic - and the British influence - read English and Protestant – & later on, ideologically, the Marxist and Communist influence. The latest influences have been, of course, the influence of the Middle East via petro dollars and finally, the American neo-imperialist one represented by globalization rather than glocalization, capitalism rather than socialism and consumerism rather than planned environmental and sustainable development. Meanwhile, from the soil 2 or 3 movements have come up that needs mention here as pro, parallel or counter movements; movements that I would like to call Dravidian-ization, Dalitization and indigenization. So much for Kerala, which is where I happen to come from.

One of the thorny issues brought in by colonialism and its aftermath is that of the effects of language teaching and learning. Language learning all over the world suggests that the first language a child should learn is its mother tongue. This has changed now. What if the mother and father speak different tongues? What if the language at home is at variance with the language spoken by the majority in the child's surrounding environment and vicinity? What if the child has no mother and is being brought up by the father or in an orphanage or by the state or by surrogates or siblings?

Scholarly and noble souls have suggested that it is good to learn many languages. No language, ideally speaking, according to such academics, should be privileged above another as being better or worse.

We know that this is innately true, but it clearly doesn't work in religious, political, economic, national or cultural terms. Language changes us just as we change language. Thus, in India, one has to learn one's mother tongue { - though even learning one language is an impossibility if your child happens to be differently- abled as mine is, because he is autistic (another marginalization)}- and then Hindi - the national language - and English - the language of power/internationalism. This is not to mention the desire of Muslims that their children should learn Arabic and the desire of Hindus that their children should learn Sanskrit and the desire of some Catholics that their children should learn Latin in a seminary and the desire of the now non-existent Jewish community in Kerala that their children should learn Hebrew. My children have to compulsorily learn Kannada though their mother tongue is Malayalam, because they are now in Karnataka. Many shift to French as soon as they can to escape Hindi and Malayalam or Kannada if they are in such a system because French is again privileged, as it happens to be another Indian colonial tongue and an international language. In the international school I taught in one could even learn German. Kerala University offers Russian because of the Marxist influence and one can learn Spanish privately in southern cosmopolitan and metropolitan centres like Bangalore and Trivandrum, if so inclined. This freedom and compulsion to learn many languages, dead and/or living, relevant or not, is something that is there in India that is both admirable and detestable. Admirable because one has a chance to become proficiently multilingual and detestable because, in reality, when languages are thrust on the learners and not chosen voluntarily they end up learning only one or none, as a matter of fact. The case is more or less the same in Saudi Arabia too. My children now know only English properly. I too have become more or less a monoglot despite being taught three languages. It's the knowledge of my mother tongue that has suffered on the way, surprisingly enough, and not the colonizer's tongue. Here, so far, it seems to be the foreign language that suffers.

When power enters the equation, a country asks itself what language or literacy must be acquired/ learned to get, keep or increase in the same. India has driven out the British but retained ‘Englishes’ for this reason. It's the discourse in which the other discourses of power, economics, science, culture etc., constellate. This has paid India rich dividends, in the long run, in terms of economic gain. Saudi Arabia too has realized that it needs not just ‘Arabics’- the Arabic of the Koran and the different contemporary dialects - but also English. Which English will serve its people well? It is here that thought needs to be taken. Is it, strategically speaking, meaningful, that as part of its curriculum development efforts, it should go for homogenization and teach only American and/or British English as this is politically correct and shrewd? Or should they follow new theories of language teaching and learning, showing an awareness of post-colonialisms and post-modernisms and futuristic educationalists; thinkers who have a long term plan regarding education?

As one coming to grips with these same questions because I am a practitioner here in KSA at present, I can clearly state that the really progressive route is not the American and/or British English one but the other one of plurality/multiplicity in approach. Why? That will take some time to explicate. Before that I would like to debunk certain myths about language.

Two common myths regarding language are the sanctity of correct pronunciation and the concept that language is static.

Foreign English teachers and students have, for years, struggled helplessly with Jonesian concepts like RP, and its successor SP. While all linguists seem to agree that the best varieties of a language are probably its native ones, even this idea may not really hold good if one studies the matter. In “Pygmalion,” there is a humorous remark made by Henry Higgins to the effect that there are more Englishes in England than there are languages in India. This observation is made by an Irishman who became a naturalized Britisher, namely George Bernard Shaw. If we understand that this statement comes, in the play, from the mouth of a character who is an expert in the "science" of phonetics, a character based on a linguist called Sweet, rather than one like Shaw who is engaged in the imprecise field of writing dramas, we begin to understand that the idea of a King's English or a Queen's English or of BBC English, RP, SP etc., may only be deeply ingrained attempts at defeating what is seen as an anarchic linguistic Babel, with the intention to rule over the supposed chaos such variety can cause ; rather than to observe, study, analyze and then find solutions to what may not actually be a problem in the realms of linguistic expression, communication, media outputs etc. In Joyce's first great novel "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man" we see how two varieties of English have caused a rift between two groups of people – the English and the Irish -that Joyce feels is impossible to close anymore and his answer is to create a new English, one that is made up of all the languages in the world - as exemplified in his epic novel “Finnegan's Wake.” Shaw's Higgins is conservative and wants to establish one variety of artificial English that he considers “pure” over other living, lively varieties, as being superior, but Joyce has the courage to understand that Heraclitus spoke the truth - which is that "one never steps in the same river twice" as far as language is concerned and there is no such thing called a pure language. For language to be powerful and alive it has to be contaminated.

I know that what I am saying has far reaching implications for not only English but every other language on earth. We are looking critically at a philosophy that wants to be in love with petrification as well as opposing one that embraces change wholeheartedly –with both sides preferring to be unaware that there maybe be many via medias in between and not just one. What we realize after Lacan is that because every text has contexts innumerable and readers uncountable it is finally in no way a fixed entity even if it is preserved perfectly in ice from day one of its origin. Similarly, after Derrida, we understand that every text is so riddled with apercus, gaps, undecidabilities, inconsistencies, uncertainties and contradictions; pulled apart in different directions because of the irreconcilable variances among signs, signifiers, signifieds and referents that meaning is almost always perennially absent from them.

To return to English language teaching or language teaching per se - if I take the question of my mother tongue Malayalam and those who taught it to me - though I learned it for ten years and can read, write, speak and listen as well as think in it to some extent, I find that I am not very good at it, especially in grammar and vocabulary, because in ten years I had only two teachers who had a flair for the language and a passion for it which they communicated to their students and it did not or could not offset 8 years of bad teaching, so that by the time I left school I no longer wanted to learn Malayalam, not even as my second language.

I took Hindi instead.

All my ten Malayalam teachers were native speakers. Given the choice I would rather have had 8 non-native, good teachers who would have enthused me into loving and achieving some kind of mastery in the language, wherever they came from in the world, than the eight who only killed in me any spark of interest in overcoming my resistance to the language. I understand that these imaginary teachers from other parts of the world - since I was not given the choice - might not have spoken with the kind of "good, accent-less," Travancore-an, Malayalam accent that my parents used at home - but this would not have hindered them from passing on to me skills of reading, writing, gaining in vocabulary, increasing knowledge in using grammar, and skills of comprehension in terms of listening as well as 'generic' skills in speaking and communicating. For the sake of "learning correct pronunciation" I could have also had Malayalee/i teachers. I do not think this would have helped much initially, because Malayalam, like all other languages, and like Higgins’ Englishes, has several dialects and if the teachers came from different parts of the state I lived in, in ten years I would have picked up ten different accents rather than the one I was supposed to, the “official” one- the one used by the radio newsreaders which is considered the ‘received one’ or the ‘standard one.’ I was given neither choice nor variety; learning was extremely boring under such circumstances. In Trivandrum, as in England, the so-called received or standard way of pronunciation was connected to the power equation in the state - good or correct Malayalam was what the rich ruling landowning upper caste Hindus and upper caste Christian converts spoke, just as in England good English was that which was used, generally speaking, by the aristocrats and the landed gentry before the arrival of the nouveau riche because of colonialism and the industrial revolution.

I am not going to argue for the non-native speaker or the native speaker here. Both are adequate or inadequate depending on a variety of factors, but one cannot even enter into an argument weighing the pros and cons of who is better and for what , if one does not first of all accept the fundamental truth,- debunking the commonly held second, even more vicious myth and assumption about language; that of it’s fixity and its static nature, - about language, languages, any language, that language is not a once- for- all- given- to- us- ideal- entity but is instead a changing, living, growing or dying mass, evolving and devolving, generating and degenerating, cross-breeding, hybrid, pollinating and being de-pollinated, an agglutinate, a conglomeration, layer on layer, of a million different mutinies in various directions that hang together simply by a very tenuous common social consent which is itself precariously positioned on even thinner abysses of abrupt and gradual historical and sociological, not to mention philosophical and psychological, changes.

When it came to Hindi - another language that I learned, this time taught the language for fifteen years entirely by non-native speakers who were teachers of Hindi from Kerala and not from India's Hindi speaking belt - the result was the same. They could teach me basics but not "correct pronunciation." However they somehow managed to convince me that I could take it as my 'second language' in college/university and get through the tests and in that sense they, counter to commonly perceived ideas, did a "better job," than the ones who were native speakers who tried to pass on to me ‘more’ knowledge of my mother tongue, in that they at least gave me confidence that I could " manoeuvre" the language enough to get by; enabling me to pass exams without putting in too much effort into my learning of it.

When I came to Saudi Arabia I found, to my surprise, that I could more or less understand Urdu while listening to some of my north Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi colleagues and acquaintances talk in it. My non-native Hindi teachers and Doordarshan were not as inept as I thought, perhaps.

I learned in English medium schools which meant right from grade/class/standard one - whichever word you are used to - all the textbooks except for the language ones in Malayalam (and later in Hindi from fourth standard) - were in English. The English language books on the syllabus were called Radiant Readers, came from Britain, and were taught – not always - to me by Indian Catholic nuns or Jesuits. The interesting, engaging and intriguing coloured pictures and content the texts had made me incline towards them. Invariably the best teachers I came across in my years of learning in school and college/University spoke or knew one of the many registers/types/kinds of English quite well and had flair and passion for transferring their love for the discipline - not necessarily English - to the student, in what I called good English, so I was more and more drawn to English the most. I excelled at it. I started reading only English books. The only drawback for me was in what I said earlier, in the matter of pronuncation.

Reading silently as we did, in the Augustinian mode, which is what we were encouraged to do, left many doubts in my mind as to how to say a word or a sentence aloud. Added to this was the fact that English did not have certain sounds in Malayalam and vice versa. I believe that if a rigorous study is made – geographically, or even dentally and in terms of individual jaw structures etc., there may be physiognomic differences that mean that students and/or individuals from certain areas or having certain physical characteristics will find certain sounds more difficult than others, and this will differ from individual to individual or from students from other areas. For Malayalees it is s/z,p/b , a/aa etc. For my Saudi Arabian students it is p/b etc., while my Japanese students just couldn't say 'r' and ended up almost always pronouncing it as 'l' . Differently- abled students will have even finer distinctions. My autistic son finds it difficult not only to speak words, but to say the sound "m," for no apparent reason.

When I came up to what is called high school here, but in my land is called +2 or pre-degree or pre-Univ., I finally had to learn phonetics. I had as my teacher an Anglo-Indian, Mrs Tina Moreira, who was half -British and also good at phonetics. As she taught me phonetics, technical terms like morphemes, phonemes, the art or science of phonetic transcription and other things like accent, stress etc., finally fell into place for me. Her success lay not only in her ancestry - her British blood and the upbringing that came with that- but also in her ability to understand my difficulties because she came from the same place as I in India, namely Thiruvananthapuram. This should probably lead me to induce that successful teaching of linguistics requires a half-native speaker with expertise in the language and teaching, who also knows the local set up and the difficulties of the local students. I would have come to this conclusion which would have led me to opine that the best teachers for Saudi Arabian listening and speaking classes would be teams of a native Saudi and a half-native or native English language & linguistics expert with the requisite knowhow of teaching skills too, if I had not already had, earlier on, a teacher in school who had helped me in my spoken English after having been to America for a year or so. He was a history teacher primarily but also taught English. This opens up another hornet's nest as to who can teach English. Can only an expert do it? While doing my M.A. I was again taught linguistics and phonetics by two experts; one, a non-native Keralite speaker called Elias Valentine who did his Ph.D from Leeds and has now passed away, and another, an Indian lady from North India called Maya Dutt who had been abroad only on very brief visits and I was impressed both by the fact that they spoke flawless English, according to me, and that they were equipped enough to pass on the same skills to their students if the students were ready to take the trouble, as Eliza Doolittle was. There was no sound they could not reproduce exactly with their mouths.

Thus, by taking myself as a case study, I have found almost no rule regarding who should teach what or regarding language and languages itself, or at least no rule that holds, except briefly or sometimes even for a long period, till things eventually and surely change again. Change makes language slippery and contexts always change. If I were to deduce a rule at all it is this – that if I am in any way a high achiever in the realm of language it is because I have been a life-long learner and my teachers include my family, books, English music, Americans via the VOA, the BBC, English movies, Catholic nuns and Jesuit priests, an America-returned Indian, an Anglo – Indian woman, and a Tamil Brahmin writer called Nakulan who rivaled anyone else I ever met for excellence in critical thinking, vocabulary, grammar, reading and writing, not to mention various peer- students and friends who have helped me by adding their mite to me learning process. Further deduction would then force me to say what is true: that they were mostly Indians and primarily Christians. This may or may not be the result of colonialism, but I am unable to deny it. Similarly, I am unable to deny that my native speaking Malayali, Keralite teachers couldn’t teach me my mother tongue Malayalam very well, something of which I feel seems to happen here in Saudi Arabia too, if I am to believe my more vocal students who tell me that they don’t know Arabic well because they were taught it in a very desultory manner. The two good Malayalam teachers I had were upper caste Hindus. The evenly ‘mediocre’ and average Hindi teachers from Kerala that I had were all usually Hindus or Christians from the South of the state. Some things are strange. Why were there no Muslims amongst my teachers of language? Were Muslims discriminated against in the Catholic schools I was taught in by not being taken in as teachers there? Or were there none qualified enough to teach as yet in TVM? I honestly don’t know. Was it the same, there, as it is for Christians, especially Indian ones, now, in Saudi Arabia? Is this an example of history’s wheel turning? Again, I don’t know.

I had a good Muslim teacher facilitating my progress in my post-grad and she was the one who set up the Indo-Canadian study centre in the Institute of English there. Her name was Jameela Begum. She went on to become the Head of the Institute of English, in the University of Kerala – equivalent to the position of the Dean of the English Language Institute, KAU, SA. She was given this post because Kerala University has a policy in its constitution that seats should be rotated by taking into consideration the religion of the applicant too, if suitably qualified candidates can be found. Thus, my Ph.D guide who was the Head was a Hindu and Dr Beegum was a Muslim, whereas the present Head of the Institute of English, University of Kerala, is a Christian, and all three are women.

A common underlying fact that I have found everywhere is this – a language department is a bastion of culture and there is an implicit struggle going on in these bastions for power and power manifests itself in ways that mostly have nothing to do with merit or the base of good teaching theory or the superstructure of students’ results or teachers’ abilities or even plain old common sense or good new innovations.

To come back to my point – it is possible to question my analysis of my own case study by saying that I am not, perhaps, a high achiever in English. But I have students who are now studying in places like Harvard, Brown and Stanford - American Ivy League institutions - who will vouch for me by giving me their student references that I was one of their best English language and literature teachers ever, especially since they got ranks for the subjects I taught them in the Cambridge AS/A level exams, standing first in literature in India, the answer scripts of whose exams were corrected in Britain, despite being taught by a teacher like me who is Indian and Christian but hasn’t been to England or America and doesn’t have a native accent or a teaching degree like CELTA or DELTA or a TESL/TESOL/TEFL. However, I do have a diploma in teaching from a cutting edge institution in India called CERTAD that Saudi Arabians haven’t heard of, and have done an online American ASCD course on teaching pedagogy and methodology and I also have a report of my teaching class observation done by a Harvardian online instructor called Shuchi Grover who reported that my class was excellent, which report is available on my blog http:www.ppsekoshyav.blogspot.com.

Lesson observed on Tuesday, 5.9.06 Block F, 1 hour by Shuchi Grover

Teacher: A.V. Koshy

Std 11 AICE

Literature

The topic was a poem "The Spirit Is Too Blunt An Instrument" by Anne Stevenson

Setting:

5 students (3 girls G1, G2, G3 & 2 boys B1 & B2) sitting in a semicircle in front of the blackboard in the Tech Hub, with Koshy in the space in between.

Specific Observation Notes:

Koshy introduces the lesson by writing "Carol Ann Tomlinson" on the board and saying that the aim of his lesson was to teach in a way that different kids would be able to understand the poem and that it would become "fuzzy --> clear" G1 responded "You've lost me already." and Koshy smiled and dropped that thread.
Koshy gave a brief introduction to the poem saying that it was from the "Sceince" Poetry genre.
The students by turn then read about 4 lines of the poem each.
Then he asked the kids to split into 2 groups; B1 & B2 in one and the 3G's in another with a short explanation from Koshy that he was leveraging "Multiple intelliegences" and verbal/ling and spatial/visual capabilities of the students. The boys were asked to look up meanings of various words on the internet and list out adjectives, see how the words were being used in the poem. The girls were asked to use the internet to pull up images of the various parts of the human body that were being talked about in the poem. Both groups were to make presentations after 20 mins.
The kids got to work.
After 20 mins they made their presentations along with all-class discussions about their views. The discussions were awesome!
The class was not too impressed with the poem and questioned the poet's objectives in writing such a poem.
Koshy asked in the end if the poem had become fuzzy--? clear and one of the kids said that it was fuzzier than before which made Koshy smile. He clarified to the student that perhaps the intentions of the poet or the subtext of the poem may be fuzzy, but he believed that they all comprehended the poem at least. I agree with this assessment of his.
Analysis:

I did not see any reason for the teacher to explain things like Differentiated Instruction and MI to kids. It is part of the teacher's strategy and not part of the lesson. Koshy stressed that he wanted the students to know.
Koshy explained in his lesson plan as well as to me in person that this was a very bright class and that they were all very bright kids. I felt that perhaps differentiated instruction was then not a necessary strategy at all!
That said, I think the lesson was very well thought out and executed. I found myself enjoying the lesson thoroughly
The tie-ups with DI were evident and well-executed
.

This is how transparent class observations are done, complete with prior notice, lesson plan discussion and feedback as to what was good and bad about the lesson so that the teacher can develop himself, or at least how it is done in world class institutions. If I have blown my own trumpet and boasted loud and long, unashamedly, it is for a reason – to point out that this entire process of learing and teaching and educational excellence of which I am a proud product has gradually crystallized for me as belonging to a new nexus in the 21st century and that nexus is Indian – British –American. This is because India has shown the courage to defeat every kind of colonialism not by throwing out the baby with the bath water but by retaining what is best in the Other at every encounter, by finding oneself in the Other and the Other in oneself, as a friend of mine whom I will talk more of later said, whether it be in the Indian encounter with the Aryans or the Mughals or the Mongols. It has continued to do so even as the encounters multiply and include colonialism, partition, Islamic fanaticism, Chinese opportunism, Marxism, Occidentalism, neo-imperialism, Britian, French, Portugese and Dutch occupations, American capitalism, terrorism, religious and linguistic chauvinism, fanatic Hindutva, the Indian diaspora etc. The Dalits have been especially in the forefront of this effectively osmotic rather than ontic process, and have even been able to incorporate in their fight for equity and equality elements as diverse as post-culturalisms,post- modernisms, post-feminisms, post-Marxisms, Buddhism, Islam indigenous Christianity and Eurocentricism, not to mention Judaism, in their search for powerful ideas and ideals and metaphors that will help them achieve their vision of an equitable society in which they finally get what they deserve , a getting that can be sustained. An example of such a Dalit thinker, up-coming , bilingual, powerful, is Anilkumar Payyapilly Vijayan. Another is Kancha Ilaiah. A third is Chandra Bhan Prasad who said “the British came too late and left too early.” If India can continue to defeat the colonial who still remains inside and outside of India in the disguised but discernable forms of religion/class/caste/gender/geography/language etc., it will be the greatest power on earth in the twenty first century or of the twenty second, indisputably.

To come to Saudi Arabia. This land that is the cradle of Islam and abundantly blessed in energy/oil and resultantly wealth, has become extremely central, important and strategic like India in the world’s political and cultural scenario, not to mention its religious one. The policy of the nation is rightly enough to look forward to the future and hence, mastering English has become an urgent necessity. The question returns insistently. What is the best way forward in teaching and learning English at the University level in this country? A curriculum needs to be made that can redress the wrongs done to the students at the inefficient school level. Material/content has to be chosen carefully. Who will be the ones delivering this material to the students? What teaching qualifications should they have and what methodologies and pedagogies should they follow? What learning outcomes are expected and how can they be attained? What should the overarching vision, mission, objectives, themes or agenda be? Who will the students be and where should they reach? What skills and attitudes do they need for the future? Weighty questions, every one of them, questions that only policy setters and curriculum development experts can produce answers to. But much thought needs to go in before the answers are reached. I hope to suggest, tentatively, some answers.

What ails English Language Teaching in countries like Saudi Arabia where ELT is a young phenomenon?

That's not the real question.

Before asking that, one has to ask several other questions.

1. If one is to learn a language that is not one's mother tongue somewhat well, when is the latest one should start? Generally speaking? It was 4th standard/4th grade in India - when one is about 9, 10 or 11 years old, during my father's time. I started learning English much earlier, in the 1st grade itself.

2. Why learn English at all?

3. Can a person who believes that one language is better than another or than all other languages learn any other language properly at all?

4. If the foundation is laid wrong -at school -can the superstructure stand?

Answers: 1. Introduce English as early as possible in the schools here.

Or: Let only those who want to, learn the language.

2. Why not? Every language has its own beauty.

3. Yes - but it may be good to let go off the belief that any language is better than any other and instead learn all the languages that are socially needed or one is interested in or, better still, master the needed present day world literacies that includes things like internet savviness and computer usage. This alone would automatically protect the language you wanted to ensure remains supreme or believe is supreme in terms of the existing environment and culture, as well as help you learn the requisite ones that you're now forced to or want to, and are therefore trying to, learn.

4. If the foundation is laid wrong the superstructure cannot stand.

Having said all these things, I would like to face the existential dilemma that I ‘entertain’ which is how to teach students who came up through this system where all things have already , environmentally as well as culturally, moulded them into an error- ridden and resistance filled crowd of English language learners.

Ideal solutions:

First -there has to be an unlearning.

The wrong foundation has to be undone and the student has to become a tabula rasa once again. Since that seems impossible, one can only plug on. Levels, into which they are divided now, both help and hinder because while it helps the teacher it destroys the self- esteem of the ones in the lower levels, and make some others lazy. They want to be in the lower levels because it’s easier. Having a common exam, they are also denied the chance of actually performing to expectation.

Change the school system -again an impossibility at present. Out of my hands.

Take in only those who want to learn - not possible.

Take in only the proficient –again not possible. They all have to study English whether they want to or not - for the sake of their futures.

The immersion method is what we more or less try to follow at present. Cram them full of language and then try to test them. It does give the students a kind of working knowledge of English but does not remove their inability to become self-learners.

So we have to look at curriculum design to help to make the change happen that will actually benefit the students and the nation. Where shall we look for the philosophical ideas that will do this? My advice is again to refer back to the new nexus – India, Britain and America in that order. The vision for good education and best practice that a nation like Saudi Arabia needs is not found only in Western thinkers like Bruner, Howard Gardner or Carol Ann Tomlinson alone, but also in Eastern and Indian thinkers like Gandhi, Ambedkar, Rabindranath Tagore, J. Krishnamurthy, Irfan Habib, Aijaz Ahmed – both products of AMU -, Nirmal Selvamony, Geetha Narayanan and Dalit thinkers like the three I named earlier.

For instance before we need a mission statement for teaching English in KSA we need a vision – it is clear that the vision is already there in the Koran that encourages people to learn as many languages as possible. The mission must also be about the how in the twenty first century. What should the methodology or the pedagogy be? I would like to quote two thinkers in this context who have given me a clearer sense of direction regarding the vision:

Anilkumar Payyapilly Vijayan: “Let me quote the dirty boy of twentieth century philosophy, Gilles Deleuze:

“To learn is to enter into the universal of the relations which constitute the Idea, and into their corresponding singularities….. To learn to swim is to conjugate the distinctive points of our bodies with the singular points of the objective Idea in order to form a problematic field….. learning always takes place in and through the unconscious, thereby establishing a profound complicity between nature and mind.”

Yes, swimming. We know that once we have learned to swim, we never forget it and the strategies and techniques that we adopt in different waters (“to conjugate the distinctive points of our bodies with the singular points of the objective Idea”) are unconscious. This also happens with walking, running, driving, bicycle riding, etc. They are the lessons one cannot master with the help of the penetrating brain of the Professor-Father. Unlike two lines of ‘Words-worthless’ that the worthless Professor has taught us, we never forget them. And the most beautiful thing about them is that our conscious mind is free to do whatever it wants when we walk, swim or run because we have learned these lessons “in and through the unconscious”.

The task of revolutionary and radical learning (RRL) is to conjugate Simondon, Jacques Monod, Kamala Das (Suraiyya- addition mine) and Keki N. Daruwalla with the singular points (nationality, citizenship, migration, religion, fanaticism, fundamentalism, glocalization, ethnicity, race, gender, caste, color, sex, alienation, exploitation, sweatshop, etc.) of the bubble universe through the unconscious. In other words, one must learn and use Lacan and Delueze and Marx and Max Hardcore in and through the unconscious so that one’s conscious mind is free to do whatever it wants. In other words, it is when one complains, after reading a book, that she has not understood a single thing that we know that we are in the presence of RRL.”

(http://idonotsee.blogspot.com/search?q=swimming)

This is the only way English can be learned, it has to become one’s blood stream. The way to it is not cramming in language but through initiation, baptism, full-scale insertion into and absorption by and of the students of the literature of the target language, yes, of its Words worth.

Geetha Narayanan: “In an earlier paper I wrote that Bruce Mau’s statement “Now that we can do anything what will we do?” centralizes the dilemma of an era of what can only be described as

one of “massive change” This era was forecast in 1979, by the French social theorist,

Jean-Paul Lyotard who predicted that the miniaturization and commercialization of

machines would change the way in which “learning was acquired, classified, made

available and exploited”. This prediction turned out to be prophetic, creating what

Lyotard has described as a postmodern condition, resulting in altered societies based

on economies of information and a new form of thinking called globalization.”

Her paradigm for best learning practices is slowness, participation and conviviality

GN: “What is slowness and what is my interpretation of it within the education and media outputs?


Slowness, in my view, is more than just an antidote for fast knowledge. It is more

than just a reaction to technology, mobility and speed. It is a value that works at the

level of culture and of nature. Slowness, as a value, places an importance on cultural

dignity and seeks to preserve linguistic and cultural heritage. It is a way of finding an

alternative view of life and work, one that is not based solely on speed and

convenience. Slow schools are an idea that is being discussed around the world as a

way of moving education beyond standardized tests, unnecessary digitally simulated

lessons and easy access to de-contextualized information. Slow schools reject speed

in the same way that slow food rejected rushed meals. Just as the slow food

movement values tradition (as culinary knowledge) and character (respect for

practices), honors complexity and is about making moral choices, so must it be with slow schools.

Slowness allows for the first-person consciousness to have primacy over the third person.

Slowness redefines literacy by allowing people to create their own parameters

and boundary conditions, develop definitions and assumptions that are contextually

and culturally appropriate. Slowness creates time for engaging in ways of world

making that come from traditions of orality. The use of storytelling and narrative

structures for sense-making integrates the inner psyche and the mind with the changes

in the outside world. Slowness allows for the vulnerabilities and deprivation of the

hidden or null curriculum to be exposed. There is time to value, to share direct

experiences and in doing so attempt a recovery of self that may have been lost in

conditions that de-value or de-grade real human experiences. Slowness allows people

to participate in the development and creation of essentials to human wellbeing such

as the growing of food locally in edible gardens, study science within contexts and

create pieces of art that are both exciting and meaningful to them, in their world, their

contexts.

Designing slowness and designing conviviality needs a conscious and artful

integration of three very powerful but not very new ideas- intuition, imagination and

intelligence

Project Vision has been developing four inter-related, non-linear and integrated steps

through which learners can develop intuition, imagination and intelligence.

I present here some illustrations of what the four stages can look like in practice

together with annotations that explain its value.

• Expanding the Inner Self – this involves building for ‘presencing’, deep

connectedness with nature, finding the essential “self” and the creating

generational moments

• Designing the Mind- this involves working with simplicity at the right scale,

an efficient and frugal use of resources, sound regional economics and social

resilience. It is often targets the uniqueness of places and uses play, as a

preamble to real life.

• Wellness-this addresses vulnerabilities, targets deprivations, involves being

critical and often, in curricular terms this means including the excluded.

• Generating Freedoms- fundamentally this involves creating conditions for the

expression of constructive dissatisfaction or creative discontent; it involves

going beyond the notion of capital as narrowly instrumental and utilitarian to

one that encompasses the whole-social, cultural, physical, environmental and

economic.”

(http://www.eeaonline.org/india/test/images/india/Image/File/output/Geetha%20Keynote.pdf)

Before the student learns, in short, the atmosphere and environment has to be made conducive to learning, not externally but internally, is the main point here . One thinks of “tiNai” in this context and hopes to achieve that inner and outer harmony and balance in the ‘university’ –the kernel of the universe, as a Nirmal Selvamony would perhaps have put it.

What does this mean in Saudi Arabian terms? If the vision and mission statement are to some extent, temporarily at least, clear; then the curriculum’s objectives need to be stated.

“English is vital for communicating with others in school and in the wider world, and is fundamental to learning in all curriculum subjects. In studying English, pupils develop skills in speaking, listening, reading and writing that they will need to participate in society and employment. Pupils learn to express themselves creatively and imaginatively and to communicate with others confidently and effectively.

Literature in English is rich and influential. It reflects the experiences of people from many countries and times and contributes to our sense of cultural identity. Pupils learn to become enthusiastic and critical readers of stories, poetry and drama as well as non-fiction and media texts, gaining access to the pleasure and world of knowledge that reading offers. Looking at the patterns, structures, origins and conventions of English helps pupils understand how language works. Using this understanding, pupils can choose and adapt what they say and write in different situations, as well as appreciate and interpret the choices made by other writers and speakers.

1. Kkey concepts KEY

ey cThere are a number of key concepts that underpin the study of English. Pupils need to understand these concepts in order to deepen and broaden their knowledge, skills and understanding. These essential concepts promote pupils’ progress in speaking and listening, reading and writing.

1.1 Competence

Being clear, coherent and accurate in spoken and written communication.
Reading and understanding a range of texts, and responding appropriately.
Demonstrating a secure understanding of the conventions of written language, including grammar, spelling and punctuation.
Being adaptable in a widening range of familiar and unfamiliar contexts within the classroom and beyond.
Making informed choices about effective ways to communicate formally and informally.
1.2 Creativity

Making fresh connections between ideas, experiences, texts and words, drawing on a rich experience of language and literature.
Using inventive approaches to making meaning, taking risks, playing with language and using it to create new effects.
Using imagination to convey themes, ideas and arguments, solve problems, and create settings, moods and characters.
Using creative approaches to answering questions, solving problems and developing ideas.
1.3 Cultural understanding

Gaining a sense of the English literary heritage and engaging with important texts in it.
Exploring how ideas, experiences and values are portrayed differently in texts from a range of cultures and traditions.
Understanding how English varies locally and globally, and how these variations relate to identity and cultural diversity.
1.4 Critical understanding

Engaging with ideas and texts, understanding and responding to the main issues.
Assessing the validity and significance of information and ideas from different sources.
Exploring others’ ideas and developing their own.
Analysing and evaluating spoken and written language to appreciate how meaning is shaped. These are the essential skills and processes in English that pupils need to learn to make progress.

2.1 Speaking and listening

Pupils should be able to:

present information and points of view clearly and appropriately in different contexts, adapting talk for a range of purposes and audiences, including the more formal
use a range of ways to structure and organise their speech to support their purposes and guide the listener
vary vocabulary, structures and grammar to convey meaning, including speaking standard English fluently
engage an audience, using a range of techniques to explore, enrich and explain their ideas
listen and respond constructively to others, taking different views into account and modifying their own views in the light of what others say
understand explicit and implicit meanings
make different kinds of relevant contributions in groups, responding appropriately to others, proposing ideas and asking questions
take different roles in organising, planning and sustaining talk in groups
sift, summarise and use the most important points
use different dramatic approaches to explore ideas, texts and issues
use different dramatic techniques to convey action, character, atmosphere and tension
explore the ways that words, actions, sound and staging combine to create dramatic moments.
2.2 Reading

Reading for meaning

Pupils should be able to:

extract and interpret information, events, main points and ideas from texts
infer and deduce meanings, recognising the writers’ intentions
understand how meaning is constructed within sentences and across texts as a whole
select and compare information from different texts
assess the usefulness of texts, sift the relevant from the irrelevant and distinguish between fact and opinion
recognise and discuss different interpretations of texts, justifying their own views on what they read and see, and supporting them with evidence
understand how audiences and readers choose and respond to texts
understand how the nature and purpose of texts influences the selection of content and its meanings
understand how meaning is created through the combination of words, images and sounds in multimodal texts.
The author’s craft

Pupils should be able to understand and comment on:

how texts are crafted to shape meaning and produce particular effects
how writers structure and organise different texts, including non-linear and multimodal
how writers’ uses of language and rhetorical, grammatical and literary features influence the reader
how writers present ideas and issues to have an impact on the reader
how form, layout and presentation contribute to effect
how themes are explored in different texts
how texts relate to the social, historical and cultural context in which they were written.
2.3 Writing

Composition

Pupils should be able to:

write clearly and coherently, including an appropriate level of detail
write imaginatively, creatively and thoughtfully, producing texts that interest and engage the reader
generate and harness new ideas and develop them in their writing
adapt style and language appropriately for a range of forms, purposes and readers
maintain consistent points of view in fiction and non-fiction writing
use imaginative vocabulary and varied linguistic and literary techniques to achieve particular effects
structure their writing to support the purpose of the task and guide the reader
use clearly demarcated paragraphs to organise meaning
use complex sentences to extend, link and develop ideas
vary sentence structure for interest, effect and subtleties of meaning
consider what the reader needs to know and include relevant details
use formal and impersonal language and concise expression
develop logical arguments and cite evidence
use persuasive techniques and rhetorical devices
form their own view, taking into account a range of evidence and opinions
present material clearly, using appropriate layout, illustrations and organisation
use planning, drafting, editing, proofreading and self-evaluation to shape and craft their writing for maximum effect
summarise and take notes
write legibly, with fluency and, when required, speed.
Technical accuracy

Pupils should be able to:

use the conventions of standard English effectively
use grammar accurately in a variety of sentence types, including subject–verb agreement and correct and consistent use of tense
signal sentence structure by the effective use of the full range of punctuation marks to clarify meaning
spell correctly, increasing their knowledge of regular patterns of spelling, word families, roots of words and derivations, including prefixes, suffixes and inflections.
2. Key processes

3. Range and content

4. Curriculum opportunities

oncepts




2. Key proceThis following section outlines the breadth of the subject on which teachers should draw when teaching the key concepts and key processes.

The study of English should enable pupils to apply their knowledge, skills and understanding to relevant real-world situations.

3.1 Speaking and listening

The range of speaking and listening activities should include:

prepared, formal presentations and debates
informal group or pair discussions
individual and group improvisation and performance
devising, scripting and performing plays.
The range of purposes for speaking and listening should include:

describing, instructing, narrating, explaining, justifying, persuading, entertaining, hypothesising; and exploring, shaping and expressing ideas, feelings and opinions.
3.2 Reading

The texts chosen should be:

of high quality, among the best of their type, that will encourage pupils to appreciate their characteristics and how, in some cases, they have influenced culture and thinking
interesting and engaging, allowing pupils to explore their present situation or move beyond it to experience different times, cultures, viewpoints and situations
challenging, using language imaginatively to create new meanings and effects, and encouraging pupils to try such writing for themselves.
The range of literature studied should include:

stories, poetry and drama drawn from different historical times, including contemporary writers
texts that enable pupils to understand the appeal and importance over time of texts from the English literary heritage. This could include works selected from the following pre-twentieth-century writers: Jane Austen, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Blake, Charlotte Brontë, Robert Burns, Geoffrey Chaucer, Kate Chopin, John Clare, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Dickens, Arthur Conan Doyle, George Eliot, Thomas Gray, Thomas Hardy, John Keats, John Masefield, Christina Rossetti, William Shakespeare (sonnets), Mary Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Jonathan Swift, Alfred Lord Tennyson, HG Wells, Oscar Wilde, Dorothy Wordsworth and William Wordsworth
texts that enable pupils to appreciate the qualities and distinctiveness of texts from different cultures and traditions
at least one play by Shakespeare.
The range of non-fiction and non-literary texts studied should include:

forms such as journalism, travel writing, essays, reportage, literary non-fiction and multimodal texts including film
purposes such as to instruct, inform, explain, describe, analyse, review, discuss and persuade.
3.3 Writing

In their writing pupils should:

develop ideas, themes, imagery, settings and/or characters when writing to imagine, explore and entertain
analyse and evaluate subject matter, supporting views and opinions with evidence
present ideas and views logically and persuasively
explain or describe information and ideas relevantly and clearly.
The forms for such writing should be drawn from different kinds of:

stories, poems, play scripts, autobiographies, screenplays, diaries, minutes, accounts, information leaflets, plans, summaries, brochures, advertisements, editorials, articles and letters conveying opinions, campaign literature, polemics, reviews, commentaries, articles, essays and reports.
3.4 Language structure and variation

The study of English should include, across speaking and listening, reading and writing:

the principles of sentence grammar and whole-text cohesion, and the use of this knowledge in pupils’ writing
variations in written standard English and how it differs from standard and non-standard spoken language
the significance of standard English as the main language of public communication nationally and globally
influences on spoken and written language, including the impact of technology.
During the key stage pupils should be offered the following opportunities that are integral to their learning and enhance their engagement with the concepts, processes and content of the subject.

4.1 Speaking and listening

The curriculum should provide opportunities for pupils to:

experiment with a range of approaches, produce different outcomes and play with language
engage in specific activities that develop speaking and listening skills
use speaking and listening to develop their reading and writing
evaluate and respond constructively to their own and others’ performances
make extended contributions, individually and in groups
develop speaking and listening skills through work that makes cross-curricular links with other subjects
watch live performances in the theatre wherever possible to appreciate how action, character, atmosphere, tension and themes are conveyed
participate actively in drama workshops and discuss with actors, playwrights, directors and other drama professionals the impact and meaning of different ways of performing and staging drama, wherever possible
speak and listen in contexts beyond the classroom.
4.2 Reading

The curriculum should provide opportunities for pupils to:

develop independence in reading
engage with whole texts for sustained periods
develop reading skills through work that makes cross-curricular links with other subjects
meet and talk with other readers and writers wherever possible
become involved in events and activities that inspire reading
discuss reading interests and preferences, and sustain individual reading for pleasure.
4.3 Writing

The curriculum should provide opportunities for pupils to:

develop independence in writing
produce extended writing to develop their ideas in depth and detail
play with language and explore different ways of discovering and shaping their own meanings
move beyond their current situation and take on different roles and viewpoints
evaluate and respond constructively to their own and others’ writing
draw on their reading and knowledge of linguistic and literary forms when composing their writing
develop writing skills through work that makes cross-curricular links with other subjects
work in sustained and practical ways with writers where possible to learn about the art, craft and discipline of writing
write for contexts and purposes beyond the classroom.”
(http://curriculum.qca.org.uk/key-stages-1-and-2/index.aspx)




This is the National Curriculum for English in the UK. Emphasis is placed equally on language and literature. The finesse of it can only be matched in KSA only by offering the students here a syllabus that is worth their while. As Indian universities know the syllabus should be crafted out of the best existing materials to suit the nation’s highest expectations and demands. What this means is right from the beginning instead of buying lock, stock and barrel into an academic company’s products, however excellent they be, a committee should be appointed to pick and choose from among the products of different companies to decide the syllabus. Surely we would need to take something from Cambridge, Oxford, Longman-Pearson and the American curriculum and syllabus makers as well as something from Saudi Arabia’s own writing to make a good syllabus. The long term plan would be to equal and thus to gradually limit the power of the Occident so that it is not a threat, and the earth becomes flat again.


Who would deliver this syllabus effectively to the students? As a reply I would like to show you parts of a survey that I had to fill in recently. It was sent to me by my dear colleague in KAU,,, Randy Hanif Fouse as part of his data collection for his upcoming scholarly dissertation; one that I await the release of eagerly.



.

5. The Ideal Teacher Trainer


1. What is the minimal certification that a teacher trainer should have? (tick only one)

What is the minimal certification that a teacher trainer should have? (tick only one) Ph.D
M.A.

Practical Diploma (e.g. CELTA/DELTA)

B.A.

TEFL Certificate

high school diploma

not applicable


2. How important are each of the following characteristics for a teacher trainer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to have?

Very Important Somewhat Important Slightly Important Not Important at all
native speaker

How important are each of the following characteristics for a teacher trainer in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to have? native speaker Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
non-native speaker

non-native speaker Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
Ph.D. holder

Ph.D. holder Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
Master's Degree holder

Master's Degree holder Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
bilingual

bilingual Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
former teacher

former teacher Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
presently teaching

presently teaching Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
training experience

training experience Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
previous experience working in an Arabic-speaking country

previous experience working in an Arabic-speaking country Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all
knowledge of technical terminology (i.e. phonemes, syntax)

knowledge of technical terminology (i.e. phonemes, syntax) Very Important

Somewhat Important

Slightly Important

Not Important at all

If you chose very important or somewhat important for any of the characteristics above, please explain why for at least one of those characteristics.

3. How important is it that a teacher trainer has teaching experience at the specific age level of the students that you teach?

How important is it that a teacher trainer has teaching experience at the specific age level of the students that you teach? very important
somewhat important

somewhat unimportant

not important at all

If you chose very important or somewhat important for question number three (3), please explain why.

Frankly speaking, these three sections stumped me because I felt that good curriculum implementation needed people of every sort and every type, having different qualifications, gifts, abilities, talents and most of all coming from different backgrounds and with different levels of experience. Though for my colleague’s sake I answered these questions, my heart was for ticking all the choices as right ones. I know that is what would make education valuable ultimately, if the word value has any more meaning left in it in Baudrillard’s hyperreal world of today. “Difference” among teachers and students is what makes a successful educational system work.

Lesser stakeholders like the management and the parents and society, in matters of curriculum implementation, need to evince greater trust in teachers and students and provide them with the best facilities possible and then leave them alone for quite some time to get the work done. Teacher assessment and student assessment are things that must be done with the utmost care after a suitable period elapses, if one is really seeking for a superior form of education. Assessment of teachers has to be done by subject experts on objective criteria and the process must be transparent at every stage. The complex balance of variety that is needed, that I spoke of earlier, must be kept in mind at every stage so that the curriculum implementation plan, in all its totality and breadth of view, must not be affected by disturbing the mental wellbeing of the teachers and students.

Let me come to the last part of the curriculum – the person for whom it is designed who is actually its central element – the student. I must admit that my thoughts here regarding how education must be student-centred in KSA have been influenced tremendously by my students who have been good enough to share their concepts and views with me in class. The students have certain expectations from university learning. Whatever “level” they are at, their main expectation and demand is pragmatic, utilitarian and functional – that the curriculum and syllabus is age appropriate and will be handy to them not only in the classroom but in the world and in the future. Students are disappointed if teachers do not give them feedback after written or oral tests and they would love to see fair play in things like being ‘shown’ the results of their MCQs with feedback on how to improve. They want to be given the chance to do something that stretches them in a fun way – the portfolio could become a good contributor as a stage for their reading, writing, speaking and movie making or technological talents and skills, if done in a more serious way, - and do activities that make use of hands on learning, field trips, experiential learning, out of class or in class exercises with classes as a space and not just as a place etc. They would love to be paid one on one attention and be given group work and paired work, not to mention differentiated instruction projects based on multiple intelligences etc. Ultimately, they would like to be stakeholders in their learning and have ownership over it regarding things like choosing the syllabus and having a dialogue with the teachers that is not based on fear or punishment but on sensible admonition and reward. They want technology to be leveraged adequately. They want a better form of education, one that fetches them results, in that actual learning takes place. These are opinions I got from my level 2 and level 5 students. They may not yet be ready to take in a philosophy of education like constructivism which is what I belong to – the thinkers include Piaget etc., - where the student decides why and when and where and how and what to start learning and also where he wants to reach and designs the path of learning, all with the help of his facilitators, to get there; but they are already wise enough to know that good education is not like the banking method of teaching Ivan Illich fought against or about rote learning or punishment or plain repetition without comprehension or only about the use of memory. I have great hope for them. I hope the country follows a wise path in making the right curriculum and ensuring its implementation in a humane manner so that their future, especially in this project of their mastering English, will be bright and not a dead end.