Working with faculty from the Arab Open University / الجامعة العربية المفتوحة/

The Lebanon is one of a handful of countries that takes the definite article in English. The Congo, the US (although we don't usually write it). I was reminded of this by the teachers who I was working with there. We were discussing common Arab English 'mistakes' and over use of 'the' is one of them. The Britain, the Syria and the Lebanon. It is also the case for days of the week in Arabic, which are the Monday, the Tuesday etc...Anyway, I was reminded of this song by the human league. And, the accusatory / generalizing tone when people use the definite article before the nationality the English are...., the Lebanese are.... though I sometime fall into this trap I am consciously trying to avoid it!

On the plane from Riga I sat with two returning members of the vast Lebanese diaspora who told me that (the) Lebanon was the best country in the world. I have heard this kind of talk from a few Lebanese students too, Lebanese food is the best, Lebanese women the most beautiful (for more on Lebanese women by a Lebanese woman, see here). I retorted that no 'regular' English / British person would make such bold claims. That said, I am quite far removed from the UK and given the links between the English Defense League and that Norwegian Terrorist you never know. Just then I fell into a classic liberal trap which is associating patriotism and nationalism. Admittedly, it is difficult for me to disassociate the two, and I wish I could be a patriot. I probably am one secretly. The flight, via Riga, was fine, and I was fresh and ready on Monday to start the course.

I was well prepared but the teachers I worked with for the week were highly experience and well qualified teachers were more experienced and better qualified than me. They had MAs and PHDs coming out of their ears! However, they needed to learn about the IELTS exam as they are planning to introduce it to their university context as a minimum exit criteria, and it is something I have experience of from a variety of perspectives, mwah the power!!!

In many ways it was great to be back in the Levant. The weather was riotously good, the food good, the people still generally amenable (though Manchester folk seem very nice, more on this soon). I still have my reservations about the prevalent culture of 'maiding', amongst the wealthy. One guy I spoke to compared life in the states to life in Beirut: " here I can have two cars and two maids. In the States life is hard". Beirut Bill also wrote briefly on this here.

Having four participants in a workshop perhaps adds demands, and though I did set up some pair work we usually worked en-masse around a big board room style table. Each day was devoted to a skill with the Friday planned to be used for more general Academic English and professional development content. However, I must have eaten something bad during the week so had to bail out halfway through the last day which was really embarrassing, but i was very unwell...The participants were kind enough to drive me back to the hotel which was sweet, but god I was rough!

We had a few jokes through the week, mostly to do with my poor Arabic (Syrian Fus-ha) pronunciation. The 5 hours on teaching writing was a bit tough going, it could have been this or the fact that it was midweek, the volume of experience, it's unclear. Anyway, the participants did well considering some of them were working and attending the training, and others attending in their holidays. Thanks for all the effort.

For me I learnt, among other things:

• not everyone with a role in language teaching speaks 'TEFL', some speak pedagogy or applied linguistics. The meaning of key terms to describe teaching and learning needs to be established and shared in order to make accurate distinctions between terms and actions.
  
• the need to develop as a facilitator of discussions. I struggled at times to deal with the enthusiasm of the participants. Open prompts do this, I perhaps should record a session to analyse what went on and where I lost control. Did I need control at all?
  
• giving academic articles to academics is a good idea that was well received. IELTS themselves commission alot of research and there are also many critical voices too.

Overall it was a positive week (until I got sick), I hope it was for the participants too. Drop me a line of feedback if you read this, it would be great to have your input into my development. I would also love to know how the IELTS project went a the AOU. Thanks for reading. More on my 'new' role in Manchester soon.

Association of Teachers of English Lebanon ATEL 2011 14th Conference

The holiday was overshadowed a bit by being interviewed for summer work teacher training in Manchester, which I got (hurray!), and preparation for the Association of Lebanese Teachers of English conference. I didn't manage to prepare before leaving for Beirut, to my shame, and it took a while to re-jig it into a 30min workshop. I wasn't really switched on.

30mins it turned out was no where near long enough. I got things a bit wrong and my workshop turned into a fairly unstructured talk, apologies if you were there. Some teachers left. It was embarrassing. However, I think I know where I went wrong. I planned to do this:

1. Warmer GTKY – you in cultural terms

2.Introduction to context and problem

3. DMIS outline

4. Teachers apply DMIS to my problem and feedback

I did this:

1. GTKY as above

2. Talked for 15 mins about intro and problem

3. Introduced DMIS

4. Panicked as I was running out of time

I should have done this I did

1. DMIS – what does it stand for? Or Inter-cultural aspects, your approach

2. Given hand out with DMIS and mini-descrptions

3. Given sample tasks (my tasks) for teachers to rate on scale (check understanding of DMIS)

4. Asked them to respond to my problem/issue

That said I am not 100% sure that 30mins would be enough, at least with the third version, above, teachers had hands on DMIS early and were engaged in using it. Another problem was my lack of context knowledge about the attendee teachers and Lebanon, particularly culturally.

This sensation of flopping was a strange experience as just a month ago I did a very similar workshop for ISTEK that went really quite well. I was confident I would soar like an eagle. The ISTEK one was longer, 45mins instead of 30mins, my spot was better, rather than at the end of a long morning's professional development, and these may have been one of many contributing factors. Anyway, it didn't go according to plan. The plan was ill-conceived, though well intentioned.

Another noteworthy point is that, the rationale for my workshop was produced for a 60min slot, do I slavishly stick to the advertised contents (what I tried to do). Or do I, adapt adapt adapt, yet perhaps disappoint some who thought they would get something different.

My most recent MA assignment has been about the need to re-imagine conferences and workshops, perhaps this had an influence too. Either way, the process of trying to work out and improve for next time (?) has been useful, as always. What I don't have this time is any participants to keep in touch with. Last time I collated emails to continue the conversation after the event.

There were a number of positives to the trip. I got to meet some of the Levantine teacher trainers from BC and IH. I also had some nice words from someone at UNWRA. The lady also said that as a Palestinian in Lebanon she frequently suffered discrimination and racism. I also got to meet Bill from AUB, whose blog I have linked to below. He talked about an Intercultural Exchange facilitated by CMC (computer mediated communication).

I am still proud of my work on this and I'd like to do a full day training teachers in how to use the DMIS to approach intercultural aspects of their teaching, but who has a full day for something like that? Where can I do that kind of thing?

A you know what in Lebanon

My focus has drifted well away from learning Arabic, all my pals from my course have left, or are about to, apart from E, the North Korean, who intends on staying. I have regressed massively, I make little effort, and can't remember the word for goodbye (not M'salama, the other, just remembered that it's illeleka...still the word doesn't pop into my head and I say Istiraha, meaning break instead).

My focus has been on the MA stuff on teacher education, which was great, and a happy distraction from what may or may not have been happening here. Today I was introduced to this song on youtube, which sums things up quite nicely:

the lyrics are:

WHATEVER YOU SAY, SAY NOTHING

CHO: Whatever you say, say nothing when you talk about you-know-what.
For if you-know-who should hear ya, you know what you’d get
They take you all to you-know-where for you-wouldn’t-know-how-long,
So for you-know-whose sake don’t let anyone hear you singing this song.

You all know what I’m speaking of when I mention you-know-what,
And I fear it’s very dangerous to even mention that.
For the other ones are always near, although you may not see,
And if anyone asks who told you that, please don’t mention me. CHO.

You all know who I’m speaking of, when I mention you-know-who,
For if you-know-who should hear you, you know what he’d do.
So if you don’t see me again, you’ll know why I’m away,
And if anyone asks you where I’ve gone, here’s what you must say: CHO.

Wel,l that’s enough about so-and-so, not to mention such-and-such,
And I better end my song now. I’ve already said too much.
Well, the less you say, the less you hear, and the less you’ll go astray,
And the less you think, the less you do, and the more you’ll hear them say: CHO.

Video here

Needing a break from the you know what, we headed to Lebanon which was great. It was painless to do the shared taxi ride, though the drivers nearly came to blows for our custom. It was 2.5 hours door to door both ways. We stayed at the famous but not great Mayflower and Le Comodore (prestigious yet smelly). Beirut was crazy, felt very young, seemed hugely affluent, was certainly showy, a bit racist, and highly image consicous. Was great to have Sushi and beers.

We also stopped at Anfeh for a few days which was a lovely Mediterranean fishing village. We stayed with a nice family b& b. I got to swim. See beautiful water above :O)