Next poem shortlisted again on angelic dynamo - here's the documentary evidence.

Alexander Freer This week:

Something is wrong but we may not need an operation by Daphna El-Roy
Occidente Express by Andrea D'Urso

derrida✻ by A.V. Koshy


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Ecocriticism

Christian Eco-theology: A Brief Overview

By Dr. A.V. Koshy

I want to examine the Bible as an ancient, Asian, religious, eco-critical text and make the effort to find an alternative Christianity within the Christian tradition that may still be other-worldly but is not therefore, as is commonly considered, detrimental to the earth. Au contraire, it is instead beneficial to this world’s ecology. This will of necessity mean a deconstruction of some commonly held or perceived notions of Christian theology as well as of the ecological world’s perception of Christianity as a threat to the future well-being of mankind. My reading has been influenced by Derrida but it does not mean that it is Deridean.

I would like to start with the etymology of the name Adam.

“Adam is traditionally the first human male, but that tradition is presently under attack. See Eve or The Chaotic Set Theory for the counter argument.

Adam is one of five words that indicate a man (words like dude, guy etc). This particular word indicates man as a being created from material; a dustling, or earthling. Adam is the masculine derivation of the root ('dm 25 and 26, Hebrew sounds*). The feminine derivation (adamah 25b, Hebrew sounds) indicates the ruddy earth found in the Middle East and means acre, ground, land. The words (adom, adem 26a, b, Hebrew sounds) indicate the typical red color of that earth.

The name Adam means Earthling.

Other names from this same stock are, Edom - the nickname of Esau - which also means red, ruddy, and Admah.

Other names that have to do with words that mean man are Enosh (Mortal), Gabriel (God's Man), Methushael (Man Of God) and perhaps Zechariah (YHWH's Male) and Ishi (My Man).

A name that may be a playful reference to the name Adam is Javan, Mud Man.”

(http://www.abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Adam.html)

The binary opposition is between the heavenly and the earthly, throughout the traditional reading of the Bible. However the points of reconciliation are also there in an alternative reading of the Bible, in Jesus as he is represented in the gospels, in some of Blake's and Hopkins’ ideas, in Francis of Assisi’s yearning to preach the gospel to "all" etc.

To start with, a reading of some sections of Genesis may be essential. In the first section Adam is shown as one who can eat all the fruits in the garden including of the tree of eternal life, except one, and name – a divine function - all the living creatures. He is given Eve as a helper and it is more or less clear that their job is not looking after the garden or the living creatures but enjoying fellowship with God and remaining in their rightful place in the scheme of things, as the crown( highpoint) of creation.
When they fall, they are not tempted by the serpent, according to my ecological reading, though this can be combated - but either by Satan entering the serpent or Satan coming to Eve in the ‘form’ of a serpent. Having fallen, they are shown to be no longer in their rightful place. God does not want them to use the vegetation for clothing but animal's skins. This might offend an eco-critic. However, the validity of such a decision would depend on the geography of the area that is unknown. But it is also double edged, in that God seems to love plants and trees more than animals. Adam now has to work and vegetarianism is no longer the order of the day. Delight and Paradise is lost to both of them.
When Cain offers fruits etc., to God, God's displeasure may be at the fact that he tried his hand at farming but is unable to do it well. He is unable to bring him the "best produce." Similarly, the same care for agrarian products that should not be wantonly destroyed is perhaps shown. Contrary to expectation the early revelation of God as creator of the people in the land of Nod and the two in Eden- that is, of a special man and a woman who herald the next step in evolution as not just of the human race, ushering in a new age for the race of mankind - is "agrarian" in outlook. Cain is a 'poor' gardener while Abel tends the flock well, though he continues the tradition of slaughtering animals, maybe in remembrance of the story of his parents as to where their clothes came from.
The things written so far have been addressed more to Christians to remove certain innate biases they have developed over the years in reading the Bible, to see it only as a spiritual text.

Now we turn to a very interesting facet in the King James translation of the Bible. I do not know Hebrew or Greek but even in the Amplified Version an echo - two echoes- of what the translators of the KJV brought out cannot be entirely stifled.
It is about the earth as a living being. Adam is earthling -child of the earth - from dust to dust - but the earth itself is different. Blood is also considered living, interestingly, metaphorically.

8And Cain said to his brother, [b]Let us go out to the field. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.(B)

9And the Lord said to Cain, Where is Abel your brother? And he said, I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?

10And [the Lord] said, What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to Me from the ground.

11And now you are cursed by reason of the earth, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's [shed] blood from your hand.

12When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength; you shall be a fugitive and a vagabond on the earth [in perpetual exile, a degraded outcast].

The earth has a mouth, - personification - does not want to drink blood, again an agrarian trait, - and turns against its murderous child by appealing to a higher power for justice – “by reason of the earth”. It will not yield its strength from then on to Cain.
Now the interesting thing is this: while the Amplified Bible uses "it" for the earth the KJV uses "she." Which translation is correct? I believe both are. Any scripture worth its salt deals with individuality, family and community as the foundation stones and the Bible which may be the archetype of all Scriptures deals, as it should, first with the individuality of the plural Elohim, with an unmentioned feminine aspect to Him that is hinted at in the verse that says "in the image of God created he them, male and female created he them" in the first version of the story of creation in Genesis, then with a brief mention of a community that seems to be not very relevant - the dwellers of Nod etc, then with mothers , Eve and the Earth and also with family, or children, sons , wives and grandchildren, dealing simultaneously also with the ideas of work, reproduction, fertility, sacrifice ( of flora and fauna) and the formation of new communities. The humility of these early men and women is noticeable in that they understand that they have to be allied with the forces of nature - represented by how Adam's disobedience and Cain's murder is punished symbolically, and literally, both figuratively and metaphorically by references to the earth mother or the living "it" or organism that the earth is that is being displeased with their actions. Thus it will bring forth “thorns and thistles” to Adam for choosing mortality over eternal life and withhold its strength from Cain for murder.
The message is clear if we read it this way. The Deity and the earth preferred sheep-herders and genuine farmers to the artificers and metalworkers that then came up from Cain's line - people like Tubal Cain - the first industrialists, in a sense, because the latter would try to preserve the natural balance of the earth , instead of upsetting it. There had come about a lack of connection both with the heavens and earth. The earth's position towards the fallen angel Satan who lives on it is also made clear in its/hers attitude to Adam and Cain. “It” is antithetical.
Thus we can consider, as Christians, the bible as an ur-text that actually exhorts us to repair the breach within ourselves towards God and the earth and to each other so that the earth may once again become a fruitful place. This is eco-criticism coded into the Bible at its very inception, in its nascent phase.
If we read carefully, the opposition is not between the heavenly and earthly but between, on the one hand the heaven and earth conjoined and, on the other hand, the force that was in the serpent that tempted Eve.
This force seems to have as its aim, ultimately, not just the destruction of mankind but also of the earth itself by turning it into thorns and thistles, and not allowing it to feed its own children, by making it use set laws of causality against its children if they go wrong, and thereby, tragically, turn against and destroy itself, in the final analysis.

However the Bible seems to nose-dive after that in terms of ecological concern. Moses's law expands social responsibility amazingly but seems to care nothing for the surrounding habitat or environment or animal rights. The division of animals into clean and unclean ones is a case in point. Even animal husbandry becomes slowly economic. Here too, it is possible to look at it in another way. A friend of mine points out that not gleaning the edges of the field, giving the earth a year of rest every seventh year, not eating anything except a certain limited number of prescribed species can all be seen as ecologically sound practices. But for me personally, the high points in the Bible, ecologically speaking, after the beautiful book of Job that celebrates animal variety and then Noah's care for all living things, are Isaiah pointing out that God doesn't require animal sacrifice, David speaking of how the heaven and earth are full of God's glory and Solomon conversing or at least communing with plants, trees, spiders, ants, horses etc by close observation somewhat akin to a naturalists but perhaps going deeper because he almost suggests what is considered by most a theological fallacy, that these creatures have a soulful kind of ‘intelligence’.
We have to come to the New Testament to see a new era begin in eco-theology with the advent of Jesus. The first noticeable difference is in the parables of Jesus. He harks back to Ezekiel's nature parables in his style but his are better, as are his examples that are homespun and from close observation of nature around him that work well, whether used as similes or metaphors. For the first time after Job and Solomon we see a God who cares for birds of the air(sparrows) and the flowers and grass of the field (lilies). In the wilderness we see Jesus dwelling with wild animals, if we are to believe the narrative in Mark, peacefully. Noah's dove reappears at his baptism, and he rides meekly upon a colt, the young one of an ass. Most eloquent of all is his ability to control nature; fishes, winds, storms and breezes respond to him. He fights for animals in the temple, setting them free , and talks of God as a gardener and himself as a shepherd dealing with fig trees, vineyards and sheep respectively , harking back to David but also looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth. He also behaves like God destroying pigs and a fig tree with impunity but the measuring rod seems to have been taken out of our hands by this Jesus who seems able to act exactly like a force of Nature and not like man , as if he is not only one with God but also with Mother Nature or earth. Nature not only creates, as Jesus does birds in another apocryphal story, but also destroys, and since he is united with God, man and earth in perfect harmony when Jesus dies people are resurrected, the earth grows totally dark and weeps – an eclipse? - , there is storm and thunder and lightning etc. The earth has been traumatized by the death of the first great Eco-warrior but also galvanized to hope that other such warriors will come up. In Paul's letters we read the hope, “creation” groaning for the revelation of the sons of God. We also read of it metaphorically in John's gospel and Paul's letter, of a seed that dies and comes back as something else harking back to the trend-setting parable of the sower and the seed. The journey of a new ecological awareness continues in Peter's vision too, when he understands that all animals are clean.
I understand that my 'reading' of Jesus and aspects of the Bible are not of the usual kind. I have chosen to read the text literally and not figuratively in many points, to bring out the ecological aspect.
The “unity” of my ecological reading, however, is not imposed. For instance, the earth that appears as a she in Genesis appears again as a she in Revelation.
Revelation 12. 16 "And the Earth helped the woman, and the Earth opened her mouth, and swallowed up the flood which the dragon cast out of his mouth."
But this time she is on the side of the “woman clothed with the sun having the stars for a crown, the moon under her feet.” They are perfectly aligned in protecting those who have the same mind of Jesus, against Satan , the old serpent form, the dragon, that wants to destroy all of them. They finally win the battle.
Then comes the millennium, and finally the new earth and new heaven.
Thus the Bible can be seen not only as a spiritual blueprint but also as an ecological one that will restore everything to its rightful place so that in a new earth ruled by Jesus and his disciples who will care for all things well there will be a new dispensation with no ecological problems too.
Unfortunately this side of the Bible seems to have been lost to future generations except for a Blake who wrote of “the marriage of heaven and earth” and also poems like “the tiger” and “the lamb”, and, more relevantly, a Francis of Assisi, a G.M. Hopkins in a poem like “Inversnaid” where he praises “the wild-er-ness and the wet” and perhaps, in India, a Sadhu Sundar Singh (both Francis and Sundar Singh knew how to be at peace with wild animals like their Master), so that it is partly right to speak of the wanton destruction caused by Christians to mother earth and Nature in their zealous evangelizing that concerned only humans. A Ray Bradbury posits telling the gospel to other planets and stars but the idea of a gospel for earth has percolated into the consciousness of Christians too slowly. The Romantics understood the need to connect to the circle of life much, much better. Francis Schaeffer alone glimpsed the need. In one book of his he quotes Jim Morrison, therefore.
"What have they done to the earth? What have they done to our fair sister? Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her. Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn. And tied her with fences and dragged her down." JIM MORRISON
This is the empathetic voice one wants to hear. It is a voice that connects everything as did St. Francis in his addressing of everything as brother or sister.

The Canticle of the Sun
by Francis of Assisi
Most high, all powerful, all good Lord! All praise is yours, all glory, all honor, and all blessing. To you, alone, Most High, do they belong. No mortal lips are worthy to pronounce your name.

Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially through my lord Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him. And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendor! Of you, Most High, he bears the likeness.

Be praised, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars; in the heavens you have made them, precious and beautiful.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brothers Wind and Air, and clouds and storms, and all the weather, through which you give your creatures sustenance.

Be praised, My Lord, through Sister Water; she is very useful, and humble, and precious, and pure.

Be praised, my Lord, through Brother Fire, through whom you brighten the night. He is beautiful and cheerful, and powerful and strong.

Be praised, my Lord, through our sister Mother Earth, who feeds us and rules us, and produces various fruits with colored flowers and herbs.

Be praised, my Lord, through those who forgive for love of you; through those who endure sickness and trial. Happy those who endure in peace, for by you, Most High, they will be crowned.

Be praised, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death, from whose embrace no living person can escape. Woe to those who die in mortal sin! Happy those she finds doing your most holy will. The second death can do no harm to them.

Praise and bless my Lord, and give thanks, and serve him with great humility.

(Translated by Bill Barrett from the Umbrian text of the Assisi codex.)

The question is, having traced out the lineage of a Christian eco-theocentricism for my personal satisfaction, primarily addressing the Christian population that consists mainly of evangelicals, fundamentalists etc., in the course of which I’m sure I’ve said nothing new, there being “nothing new under the sun,” how can all this be connected to today’s pressing ecological problems like global warming, the use of coal, carbon footprints, environmental degradation, lack of conservation, the rent in the ozone layer or to a natural disaster like the one that happened to Haiti? Is all this due to the dragon or mother earth in action, to use my own metaphors? And what can ecologically minded people do to bring the earth back on course to avert such natural 'disasters' and bring about a new earth? Or are they not ‘natural’, these new earthquakes etc., but brought upon ourselves by our Cain-like misdeeds, in which is a spiritual remedy the one that should be sought?

My experience in India, Saudi Arabia and presently in Libya has convinced me that India is better off than the so-called Islamic nations in trying to care for the earth. In India the philosophies of monism and ‘advaita’ have no doubt helped and ignorance or lack of awareness is often more the root cause of non-alleviation of environmental problems and concerns than unwillingness. I think the presence of these philosophies act as a healthy balance on other religious philosophies, so that in a place like India the Christians at least are not at all averse to taking suitable measures for sustainable development etc. I do not know much about how other religions in India react to the global crisis regarding environmental issues. In Saudi Arabia and Libya, 2 oil rich nations, the wastage of resources has to be seen to be believed. This is especially so in Saudi Arabia where, for instance, in the university in which I worked lights would be on 24 hours, paper would be used recklessly (in stark contrast to the international school I taught in, in India, where it was compulsory to use two sides and recycle paper) and petrol is never meant to be conserved, to name only three things. Libya is not as bad in its ways, by comparison. However, in Libya too there is a crying lack of awareness. The difference between someone like me who gets regular updates by email from activist political and environmental organizations like Greenpeace, Avaaz etc., in my mail box daily, not to mention emails of local, zonal and national groups and those who are at the other extreme of the information spectrum in that they haven’t even heard of an organization called Greenpeace reflects the uncertainty of post-modernity as a phenomenon in its full measure. Facebook offers ‘green’ internet games but these countries do not encourage games in the public sphere. They are not considered welcome in the spaces of learning as tools and would be labeled a “waste of time.”
In keeping with the concepts of a Red Cross and a Blue Cross, allied to these as a sister institution or asset, what Christians could do is start a Green Cross. The question must arise as to how it would be different in its greenness from other such organizations and how, at the same time, the same or similar, and in or of what its ‘pan-Christianity’ that would still be so that it can be of practical and spiritual use to the entire material worlds of the here and now and the future. Since these issues go beyond this paper, I will not venture there but will end on this abrupt note, constrained as usual by time and space.

*the root can be expanded in different ways using vowels and that changes the meaning, in Hebrew.

Writing Curriculum

Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
University of AL- Margib
College of Education
Department \English
A Model Descriptions of Curriculum
Course Name
1. General Information
B.A., Writing II (4 credits) Course Name
English Section
English Support posts
EL 221 Course code
Academic year 2009-2010 Academic year/ semester
50 x 3 The number of hours
English The language used
Dr A.V.Koshy Course Coordinator / Professor of Article
History and the adoption of the decision

2. Number of weekly hours
Lectures Laboratories Training Total
3, 6 hours , Year II, sections A,B,C. 6 hours

3. Course Objectives
1. Revising Paragraph Writing
2. Planning and writing a whole Composition. (Short essay)
3. Writing a narrative short essay
4. Writing a descriptive short essay
5. Writing an opinion essay
6. Writing cause and effect and comparison and contrast essays


4. Learning outcomes targeted
A. Knowledge and understanding
1. Learn academic writing
2. Explore opinions through written communication
3. Discuss ideas through written communication
4. Share their experiences through written communication
5. Understand different and relevant modes and forms of written communication
6. Tools of writing

B. Mental skills
1. Confidence for college success.
2. Analytical skills.
3. Interpretative skills.
4. Critical thinking skills.

C. Practical skills and professional
1. Understanding structure in writing
2. Exam- taking skills.
3. Consolidating knowledge of mechanics, syntax, etc.
4. Addressing particular rhetorical modes
5. Application in real life situations
6. Mastering forms of writing

D. General skills and transmitted
1. Writing sentences that are connected.
2. Organizing paragraphs.
3. Essay writing.



5. Course Syllabus
Number of lectures The number of hours Course Topics Number
1 2 Introduction of essay 1.
2 4 Body paragraphs 2.
1 2 Conclusion of essay 3.
1 2 Arrangement of sentences, supporting sentences etc. 4.
2 4 Unity & coherence 5.
2 4 Contrast & comparison 6.
2 4 Cause & effect 7.
2 4 Narration 8.
2 4 Description. 9.
2 4 Paragraph outlines 10.
2 4 Expanding . 11.
2 4 Editing & revising 12.
1 2 Planning 13.
3 6 Practice. 14.

6. Learning methods
Analysis of role models Brainstorming & Writing outlines Writing paragraphs Editing & Revising Final drafts.
Analysis of structures of writing Discussing, doing research & writing paragraphs Writing outlines of essays Editing and revising Final drafts

7. Methods of assessment
Number Methods of assessment
Assessment
Date Percentage Notes
1. Mid- term test 1 20%
2. Mid-term test 2 20%
3. Final exam 60%
4.


8. References
Number Reference Authors Publisher Country Publishing
1. Effective Writing 2 The Short Essay Alice Savage/Patricia Mayer Oxford UP USA
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

9. Potential required
Number The potential availability of the required Notes
1. Digital projector in each class.
2. Computer in every classroom
3. Laptop for the teacher
4. Internet connection –wireless in the building.
5. More books and magazines and research journals in library.
6. Staffroom cubicle with desktop, locker etc for teacher.


Instructor…………………………………………………………….
Course Coordinator…A.V.Koshy…………………………………………..
Head of Department…Abdul Salam Bel Hajj……………………………….………
Date………………………………………………………………………

Spoken English curriculum

Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
University of AL- Margib
College of Education
Department\English
A Model Descriptions of Curriculum
Course Name
1. General Information
B.A., Spoken English (4 credits) Course Name
English Section
English Support posts
EL 223 Course code
Academic year, 2009-2010 Academic year/ semester
50 The number of hours
English The language used
Dr A.V. Koshy Course Coordinator / Professor of Article
History and the adoption of the decision

2. Number of weekly hours
Lectures Laboratories Training Total
1 lecture , 2 hours 1 1 2

3. Course Objectives
1. Teaching standard English pronunciation through speaking and listening exercises
2. Teaching content in speaking
3. Teaching grammar and syntax in speaking
4. Teaching vocabulary in connection with speaking
5. Teaching organization or structure in speaking
6. Teaching presentation skills and communicative competence


4. Learning outcomes targeted
A. Knowledge and understanding
1. Of pronunciation.
2. Of vocabulary.
3. Of contextual relevance in speech.
4. Of meaning or semantic relevance in speech.
5. Of the use of formal and informal registers.
6. Of organization and grammar and syntax.

B. Mental skills
1. Thinking in the target language.
2. Mastering appropriate audience related forms of expression.
3. Mastering suitable expressions.
4. Mastering communication in its nuances.

C. Practical skills and professional
1. Confidence and fluency in expression and communication in day to day real life situations.
2. Confidence and fluency in public speaking.
3. Confidence and fluency in addressing an audience or raising questions & answering in a discussion
4. Confidence and fluency in facing an interview.
5. Confidence and fluency in speaking in academic contexts
6. Confidence and fluency in speaking in interpersonal and job contexts.

D. General skills and transmitted
1. Appearance & punctuality.
2. Body lanaguage , gestures, facial expressions, dress code.
3. Linguistic and communicative competence



5. Course Syllabus
Number of lectures The number of hours Course Topics Number
1 2 Vocabulary 1.
4 8 Pronunciation 2.
1 2 Grammar 3.
1 2 Syntax 4.
5 10 Listening to passages 5.
3 6 Organization 6.
2 4 Content 7.
3 6 Practice 8.
5 10 Presentation 9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

6. Learning methods
Audio-visual method.
Practice method.

7. Methods of assessment
Number Methods of assessment
Assessment
Date Percentage Notes
1. Mid-term test 1 20%
2. Mid-term test 2 20%
3. Final exam 60%
4.


8. References
Number Reference Authors Publisher Country Publishing
1. Let’s Talk 3 second edition Leo Jones Cambridge UP USA
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

9. Potential required
Number The potential availability of the required Notes
1. CD copies for teachers and students
2. Enough copies of texts in libraries.
3. Internet in all classrooms
4. Computer in all classrooms
5. Digital projector in all classrooms
6. Teacher cubicle, laptop, CD player and desk top computer plus locker


Instructor…………………………………………………………….
Course Coordinator……A.V.Koshy………………………………………..
Head of Department……Abdul Salam Bel Hajj……………………………….………
Date………………………………………………………………………

Reading comprehension curriculum

Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya
University of AL- Margib
College of Education
Department \English
A Model Descriptions of Curriculum
Course Name
1. General Information
Reading Comprehension I (4 credits), B.A. Course Name
English Section
English Support posts
EL 110 Course code
Academic year.(2009 -2010) Academic year/ semester
50 x 3 The number of hours
English The language used
Dr Koshy A.V. Course Coordinator / Professor of Article
History and the adoption of the decision

2. Number of weekly hours
Lectures Laboratories Training Total
3 lectures, 2 hours each, for 3 sections (Year 1, A,C, & D groups) 6



3. Course Objectives
1. Develop vocabulary.
2. Develop and improve fluency in reading. (skimming and scanning)
3. Acquisition of basic spelling rules
4. Develop semantic understanding – grasping meaning, the interaction of ideas etc., in surface and deep reading.
5. Develop knowledge and use of grammar and syntax
6. Develop reading strategies to deal with any kind of text.


4. Learning outcomes targeted
A. Knowledge and understanding
1. Identifying the meaning of words from the context.
2. Finding main ideas in paragraphs
3. Predicting the topic
4. Recognizing the point of view
5. Recognizing reference words
6. Recognizing signal words

B. Mental skills
1. Reading faster and more fluently, effectively
2. Scanning for information
3. Skimming for gist
4. Practicing intensive and extensive reading.

C. Practical skills and professional
1. Make students skilled, strategic readers.
2. Learn strategies necessary for academic work.
3. Make students fluent, confident readers.
4. Increase motivation.
5. Increase vocabulary knowledge
6. Empower for working environment by instilling work ethic.

D. General skills and transmitted
1. Punctuality.
2. Completing work- in class and at home.
3. Interpersonal development in group projects.



5. Course Syllabus for a Year
Number of lectures The number of hours Course Topics Number
1 2 Vocabulary building 1.
1 2 Grammar development 2.
1 2 Syntax development 3.
2 4 Pronunciation improvement. 4.
3 6 Listening. 5.
3 6 Timed reading. 6.
4 8 Comprehension of intensive reading passages 7.
3 6 Comprehension of extensive passages 8.
4 8 Developing skills like reading for surface and deep meaning. 9.
3 6 Developing fluency using strategies like scanning and skimming 10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

6. Learning methods
Reading and discussion for comprehension. Grammar development exercises. Vocabulary building exercises. Listening exercises for pronunciation and comprehension. Critical thinking
Exercises.
Timed reading exercises for fluency. For developing speed. For skimming For scanning Reading aloud for improving pronunciation.

7. Methods of assessment
Number Methods of assessment
Assessment
Date Percentage Notes
1. Mid-term test 1 20%
2. Mid-term test 2 20%
3. Final exam. 60%
4.


8. References
Number Reference Authors Publisher Country Publishing
1. Cover to Cover 1: Reading comprehension & fluency. R. R. Day & J. Yamanaka Oxford UP USA
2. Intermediate Comprehension Passages Donn Byrne Longman UK
3.
4.
5.
6.

9. Potential required
Number The potential availability of the required Notes
1. Digital projector in every classroom
2. Computer in every classroom
3. Laptop for the teacher
4. Internet connection –wireless in the building.
5. CD player for every teacher
6. Staffroom cubicle with desktop, locker etc for teacher.


Instructor…………………………………………………………….
Course Coordinator…A.V.Koshy…………………………………………..
Head of Department…Abdul Salam Bel Hajj………………………………….………
Date………………………………………………………………………

Anton Corbijn –Control.

This is his first directorial venture. The movie is now in black and white.
The story goes like this. A young boy called Curtis who likes poetry impresses his friend’s girl by quoting Wordsworth. He does drugs in the form of pill popping and likes David Bowie and Sex Pistols. He marries said girlfriend. He writes powerful poetry and goes on to become the singer and lyricist for a “tight” post-punk band called Joy Division. Picked up by a new label and a good manager they seem set for success, when Ian, the lead singer, whose wife is pregnant by now, finds life suddenly putting him on a slide. He holds a job at an employment agency. One day he finds a job for a differently-abled kid. Another day he suddenly comes face to face with epilepsy in the form of a girl who collapses in his office. His love for his wife notwithstanding, he soon begins to cool off in his ardor to her, realizing that they are different; she being solidly middle class and he the aesthetic bohemian. He spends sleepless nights, writing dark lyrics or out on gigs with the band. One day he collapses while going to a show, and is diagnosed with epilepsy. There is no cure. Meds, and sleepiness that comes as a result, ensure that soon he has to choose between his daily job and rock. He opts for his first love. One day while Joy Division begins to gather a cult following because of songs like Warsaw and She’s Lost Control -inspired by his wife’s inability to coax him into bed in the film - a journalist called Annik lands up from Belgium to interview them. Her looks and exotic name attract Ian and they fall in love with each other. She is drawn to his magnetic and charismatic Morrison-like voice and brooding presence on stage as well as the inscrutable personality that she thinks he is. The darkness of his depression lightens slightly when she is there. Soon his conscience and heart begin a fight with each other, in which he gets no help from anybody around him, at the end of which he commits suicide. His lyrics get progressively darker and more brilliant meanwhile, as he writes of his life, and his performances become more intense but they break him to the point where, along with his increasingly frequent episodes of epilepsy and first failed attempt at suicide, even going on stage becomes torture. He dies at the young age of 23.
I had heard of Joy Division before but not heard them. I feel this movie is the perfect introduction to the work of this young ‘genius’ and band because it is a restrained work. Anton Corbijn seems to know his Bergman and fine performances by the main actor and actress, sensitive editing and good camerawork all help to make this movie a classic in the rock music films genre. While not surprised at the awards it got and the fact that it is based on the memoirs of Ian’s wife and first hand experiences of the director as a photographer with the band, what really struck me was the maturity with which Corbijn handles the life in question – by not connecting it with rock’s common myths of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll , for one thing, except subtly and in passing, but instead showing the inspiration for Ian’s poetry and getting us to empathize with him and his wife equally, something rarely tried in my experience before. In fact, it is Annik who comes out weaker, maybe because of where the script comes from. It is the ordinariness of Ian, the working man, who is caught in the sudden tragedy of epilepsy that takes him out of himself into being someone other than who he is and lures him to his doom that haunts us ultimately. That and the brilliantly shadowy live halls and bedroom scenes, not to mention the photomontage of portraiture of the characters that recurs constantly through the movie and the brief live band vignettes , the quotes and the shots in the recording studio.
In 2007 the movie was made. It got awards. If Corbijn makes another movie I, for one, will watch. Not to talk of my having begun to read Joy Division’s (Ian Curtis’s) lyrics and listen to their music.

An Introduction to Othello

Shakespeare has long been considered the greatest dramatist the world has ever seen. This is despite the constant and continuous attempt by other great playwrights and critics alike to dethrone his claim to such a title. If we look at his plays we can see why. His life in England as a Catholic among Protestants, as a middle- class townsman among city-bred riff raff and nobility, as a gentleman who became rich to buy his rank, and as an actor who became a playwright and director who was successful to the point of becoming part owner of a theatre called the Globe, as well as becoming the powerful Queen Elizabeth’s and her successor King James’s favorite writer, equipped him for such a task. The personal ups and downs of his life, such as not having a classical education, marriage when young to a woman seven years older than him called Anne Hathaway, the death of a son Hamnet, a second love affair etc., also made him sensitive to many nuances that ably and ideally fit the dramatic. He was England’s Dante, doubtless, aiding and abetting his country’s swift rise by being the genius of its language and moving it towards a rich and plural form of democracy. His claim to greatness shines through every play of his but never more than in his famous tragedies. Of these, for long Othello has been a favorite in the Arab nations, partly because of the choice of a Moor for hero. Both in Merchant of Venice and in Othello we find a theme Shakespeare dwells on powerfully, perhaps due to his experiences as the member of a Catholic minority in England, the theme of the virtuous outsider. He constantly subverts British parochialism that was against the French, the Catholics, the Jews, the Arabs and the blacks in his many plays, often even overtly, as in Othello, by setting the scene elsewhere and openly laughing at the English by calling them all mad as in Hamlet. In this sense he was definitely a child of the Renaissance and aware that internationalism was the future path that should be taken. No playwright handles examining what virtue is and what being human means as deftly or in such glorious detail as Shakespeare does. While artists are often looked down upon for their morals by a sensation mongering public that tries to find out every detail of their lives to criticize unjustly, this does not mean that all other men are perfect or that artists are not moral in their art. The same holds true for Shakespeare. The play’s greatness lies in Shakespeare’s wizardry in weaving together a plot that goes far deeper than meets the eye in bringing into play the question of ancient, hidden antipathies regarding religion, race and class. Underlying this, even deeper , is the moral fabric that makes Othello succeed beyond all doubt, whereby Shakespeare warns men of their tendency to easily overlook their own faults yet to never forgive them in their partners of the fair sex. In a time when psychology and psychiatry were not yet born he studies Othello as an example of virtue that has in it a tragic flaw, the flaw of an inferiority complex which breeds suspicion that leads on to a murderous jealousy, to the point where he kills his own wife because he suspects her , though she is the one whom he loves more dearly than any man ever loved a woman. Shakespeare’s consummate study of Othello’s fall, while a masterpiece, has many a side to it seldom looked at. For instance, Iago, that perfect representation of evil in his “motiveless malignity, is able to bring about a tragedy of such colossal proportions only because of the swarthy Othello’s perception that in Desdemona’s society, because of his place of origin and the color of his skin , he is viewed as an outsider. The tragedy’s inception, thus, is not from Iago but from Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, who states at the outset of the play, when Desdemona elopes with Othello and the state stands by Othello’s and her wishes against his, that having fooled him though he was her father she would one day fool Othello too. The scene then shifts to the five main characters involved in the macabre drama that unfolds, namely Cassio ( the supposed suitor of Desdemona, according to Iago), Iago (the devil incarnate), Desdemona, Emilia (Iago’s wife and Desdemona’s maid in waiting) and Othello himself. Using a handkerchief his wife Emilia steals for him from Desdemona because she is her servant, Iago makes Othello believe that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him and is now in love with Cassio. The juxtapositions of place, race and color are once again subtly suggested. Desdemona is not only fair but she has golden hair and Cassio is quite handsome. Slowly convinced, Othello decides to take the helm of fate into his own hand, throwing all caution to the winds regarding the good sense of his actions, being tormented by anguish at the thought that Desdemona has been unfaithful, and he enters their bedroom one night in the tragic effort to bring things to a final head. Watch the final scene we understand both what happened on that fateful night and Shakespeare’s unquestionable greatness in the English language and the dramatic art, not to mention his great humanism

I'm on Vimeo

Another channel I figure in on youtube.

This is the channel of my friend with whom I did the video that got so many hits. I used my niece's photographs - ones that she took - for it mainly.

His name is Solomon Raju Kama.

http://www.youtube.com/user/unosolomono

My youtube channel

http://www.youtube.com/user/marshwiggle23
Please watch, subscribe ,comment ,befriend.

This was the poem I submitted that got shortlisted in Angelic Dynamo. - Meditations on Death

meditations on death.

for keith douglas

1

suicide is simple
takes one
no second

death
takes all
a whole fucking
lifetime

death and i

are won

2

when death
a mosquito
approaches
a stone,
a shadow
i
fall/s on it

is there a hand
behind the wings
can squash it?
or under the stone
can remove it?

a slight weight
it shifts about
uneasy, flutters
till it settles
abrupt or slow
perceptible
on its shadow
weightless
ly

ergonomics:
if you or i die
death "becomes" us

a dream
dissipates
smoke
nothing left
except, maybe
a cross become crown?


3.

The mosquito drinks my blood. i do not like it. i kill the mosquito. i am death.
Death kills me later. it does not like it that i took its place. i drank its blood.
Who kills death? does god? god drinks death's blood.
Mosquito, i, mankind and breath
Return to the no thing we all came from.

All things return to god behind death.


4
when you or i die
death becomes "us".

are we its shadows?
is death then, the Real?

i do not believe

we who believe
in words of power
the power of words
in the word love
the desire of ages
dayspring from high
bright morning star
will not die
but sing on
come back to life
e'en if we die
because of the heat
the word- fire of
the fiery image
of love that dost
conquer us all

& fortune
favouring
bestowing
its virtue
on the bold & the brave

and the ones lovelorn

on the cold and the grave

and the ones lovelorn

singing this poem
loud and clear
the poem of love
the one, eternal poem.


--
A.V.Koshy

For the record.

My poem Meditations on Death - for Keith Douglas was shortlisted by Angelic Dynamo.
Alexander Freer: This week:
The Swallows Before Dawn by George Freek

The second coming by Bobby Larson

Meditations on Death by A.V. Koshy
14 December 2009 at 00:12 · Comment ·LikeUnlike · Report
It lost.
It was on the net but now I'm unable to find it, so I can't put it here seemingly as a net snapshot to show it in the form in which it was shortlisted.

Hits

What do the number of hits one gets signify? Does it mean you are good at what you are doing?
My video on my autistic son has got more than 5000 hits.I put it in three places.
The hits keep mounting in youtube, in academici for a poem I wrote and I did get a lot of hits on educatorslogin.com, writing as learnertransmitter, while the place was alive and kicking.
However I also have places where I get no hits or zero.
Strange things happen on the net. An article I wrote on Declan Galbraith's song has surfaced elsewhere.

http://ego_you.totallyexplained.com/

My videos proliferate endlessly. The tagging does it.
My Facebook notes are read if I tag people.
Well , it all makes life a litle more interesting if nothing else.
Still have a long way to go.
I got votes for my poem by canvassing.
However things on the net are also fluid , you appear and disapear, I don't know if anything on the net has long life.
I remember writing a paper on Paradjanov that appeared in various places, as did two of my other papers but now those links have all been wiped out.

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.