The Portal Is Down

It's the 21 mile stage of the 26.2 mile marathon.  Although this is nowhere near as physically gruelling, the analogy is due to the 'wall' - that point where the human brain and body, suffering from fatigue, feels like it cannot be pushed further or continue.  

I took my foot of the pedal this week, after an interview for Saudi national TV, in which I couldn't hide some of my feelings towards the students' attitude to study.  What was supposed to an interview about my experience of Saudi Arabian culture and specifics of the IEP (Intensive English Programme), was instead a propaganda report from one of the institutions funded by the custodian of the two holy mosques.

My loss of enthusiasm now matches some of the other disillusioned teachers, who gave up hope some time ago.  The system here is unlikely to change.  The corruption which exists in society is manifest in the way the students conduct themselves.  Underencouraged by family but motivated by visions of a less restrictive life, the students do whatever they have within their power to achieve the grades they want.  They are simply not used to getting low marks and being treated sympathetically.  

I refused to budge on some honest, average marks which I dished out this week.  I suffered from accusations of unfair treatment and "not doing what the other teachers do".  OK, it was a speaking test and they don't get much actual practice, and the test conditions were not conducive.  So I may have to do it again to appease them, but I feel bitter about it.   It's only worth one percent, but every percent matters to them, it seems.  The margins are fine between getting a place on a full-time course at KSU, or not.

Recently the students completed both their self-learning projects and ESP projects, which has nicely kept them occupied.  However, with those finishing it left a hole in what to teach.  Post IELTS exams, I am left with around 10 students in total with something to aim for in the final exams, worth 50%.  The rest have already achieve an IELTS score of 5.0 or more and subsequently have full marks for the finals. 

I also took the opportunity this week to round up all the marks and put them on the system.  I felt I did a good thing by sitting my students down and explaining what marks they had got and why, but it only served to make a rod for my own back.. The more information I gave, the worse it became.  It doesn't help when all the teachers have to re-input their marks because they find a few anomalies.   It also doesn't help when deadlines are enforced and then the system, or portal, goes down.

Meanwhile, the teacher's resource room has had a makeover and become the ALZ (Active Learning Zone, I believe, although the 'A' word seems to change... arbitrary, anonymous etc).  It looks rather splendid and I think other teachers are churlish to complain about students using it too.  However, I was a little worried when they started assembling what looked like an interactive guillotine.  It turned out to be a smartboard.  As explained in a recent email, "This idea is quite revolutionary for Saudi Arabia and it is unheard of in English Language Teaching. The aim is to help us explore new teaching and learning techniques through professional development and to move slowly from “teacher centered learning” to a more “student centered” model. This should also assist us in developing our students into “autonomous learners”, ready to take on the challenges of undergraduate life in the University Colleges."  

 (Ilyas Foy, Education Technology Manager)

I signed the 'End of Contract' form this week, which means that I agree to the terms of dismissal.  My contract will terminate on 27 June and there are clearly laid-out steps for signing off the IEP.  I will get a bonus for contract completion, amounting to half a months salary + untaken holiday leave.  Some of this money may be used in the near future to pay for a post-graduate and professional qualification such as a DELTA or maybe even a MA in ELT (English Language Teaching) at Warwick University.  I have tentatively begun an application for the latter, inspired by attending a workshop of ICT (Information Communication Technology) during the week and my general interests in use of video and multi media in TEFL.  Although the DELTA seems the more logical step should I wish to become a director of studies in the future, the MA seems more interesting and more of a specialism that would do my career wonders.  It would mean taking a whole year out, although there may still be the option to do the odd short young learner course with Bell, or other.

I continue to go swimming when I can.. it's good just to get wet and stay cool in the increasing temperatures (it is regularly 41-42 degrees during the day).  There are many occasions that I crave an alcoholic drink, but I hardly go to compound parties now and I don't make my own.  I hope to have a proper whiskey, however, next week at the American Embassy (250 SAR entrance fee). Tomorrow I will go on my 6th and final HASH into the desert with some of the Baron boys. 

Talking of boys, we have been going to Arena (from where I am writing this missive), the local sports 'bar', a lot recently, to watch European games and the final Premiership games of the season.  So we have seen Man Utd win the Premier League title and, of course, West Ham being relegated.  Although I didn't see the match live, I was listening to BBC Radio 5 commentary.  I was alone in my own little world of desolation.. but maybe it will ultimately be a good thing for the club.  My relationship with the club remains slightly distant, especially when I am in Saudi, but I still let people know I am a 'hammer' if they ask.

Getting There

originally posted on 12 May 2011.

A quick one this week.

It is beginning to feel like the end of term.  Yesterday, my students were legitimately playing computer games during class and it just needs an 'end of course' show or graduation ceremony, to make it feel like the end.  If this was CAFA, we would have had it by now.  Anyway, there are still 15 whole days of classroom time left.  I don't know how I am going to fill them.  Of course, the final exams are looming.  These fall at the beginning of June and I expect there will be some exam preparation to go through.  I can't see how the assessment team will come up with anything particularly different from the mid-terms, however.  So, it will be more of the same. Preparation, followed by invigilation and marking.  And then it truly is all over.  Except I have most of June in which to kill time.


Fortunately, I will have more than enough to get mentally and physically prepared for the summer school.  6 weeks will seem like nothing, by comparison to this.  I already know what my first two projects will be.  I would quite like to see a few familiar faces, but it wouldn't matter if there was a whole new bunch of teachers this time around.  They can't keep paying staff the same money year on year and expect people to return.  As far as KSU PY is concerned, I have just completed my staff appraisal form and opened up with some of my thoughts and feelings, ahead of my planned appraisal on 24 May.  I have neglected to answer questions relating to how I will approach the next semester (at KSU PY, in the autumn) and just stated that 'there would need to big a discussion about how I could be persuaded to come back'.  It is unlikely.  What is more likely is that I will stay in the UK and do a full-time DELTA, subject to options and costs.


In the meantime, I have agreed to be filmed for Saudi national TV - channel 2 - about the KSU PY programme.  I am the only non-muslim, non arabic speaker who has come forward.  I suspect this is because not many people want to be filmed saying anything remotely positive about the programme.  I, on the other hand, am able to lie through gritted teeth, make out this is all for good of King Abdullah and the blessed mercy of Allah, and rack up another media experience which will fit nicely on my CV.    Anyway, filming is within the next 2 weeks with a broadcast due at the end of May. Inshallah!



note: This is a re-post after Blogger's service went down for 2 days.

Osama's Bin Missing

     

This photo is a fake.

"Justice was done. After so many people, trying so hard for so long, following a number of false leads. After so many sad days of loss, finally we can celebrate again. Today was a truly historic day and we should never forget what was achieved by a small skilled team acting on the best intelligence available. The Canaries are back in the premiership."

I have begun my latest entry with one of many reactions to the news of Osama bin Laden's demise.  This one came from Garry, my old Korean buddy.  It was the first I had heard of Norwich's promotion, probably at the expense of West Ham, who look like they will falling out of the top flight and into the Championship. 

With regards to the killing of OBL, and I restrained myself from writing the adjective 'alleged' in that last clause, it has predictably lead to some heated conversations in the office.  It has, however, not been mentioned by any of my students and I have stoically avoided the topic since the story broke with Obama's Whitehouse statement, 8 years to the day that George W Bush announced 'mission accomplished' in Iraq.   Despite justifications and explanations so far for the burial at sea, I am not convinced that (a) they showed due respect to Obama's muslim faith and that (b) why would they need to respect him, anyway?  Well, whatever, the body has been dumped like a mobster in the Sopranos ... I wonder if they split the body up first with a meat slicer.  Or was the despatch more akin to Dexter disposing of a body in what he would have justified by his father's code.  By the way, 'Lob Da Man In Sea' is a handy anagram of Osama Bin Laden!

I have been more concerned with the whereabouts of my student, Osama Abdulrahman bin Al-Manna, who had been missing from my class since last Wednesday.  But he turned up today (4 May), with a plaster cast on his foot, in order to take the final self-learning project lesson.  There was a lot of positive energy in the air today, and my full attendance belied the general apathy around with a Maths exam for the engineering students tomorrow.  I think we've nailed the project together.  After this.. just four more weeks, 20 days of teaching time... then final exams.  In the meantime, 6 of my first class take an IELTS exam; they have already had the speaking element.  

Mid-term exams have 'bin' and gone.  My class did fairly well, with four students getting full marks and a couple of others missing out by one solitary wrong answer. I am pleased that they generally scored high on writing, which I have been focusing on with them since the start of the semester.  They was a lot of marking to do, extra cover duty and 'teamwork'.. although I seemed to get away lightly compared to others.  I am not busting a gut anymore.  A couple of bits of supplementary material to hand in and I am as good as done on my PDMS. 

Many of the British guys are itching to go now.  They plod along, with little enthusiasm.  I have taken my foot off the pedal as well.  Luckily, the ESP project involves a lot of computer-based work and internet research... so I can email my second class there

Meanwhile, a couple of my ex students from CAFA, Beijing, have been in contact and I have befriended them on Facebook now.  They are either in Glasgow, London or on the south coast, studying on an arts course.. and I like to feel I helped get them there, in my own small way.  I feel I have enough experience in TEFL and in preparing students for IELTS exams, to be able to apply to the British Council as an examiner.  There are countless places around the world where I could get supplementary and well-paid employment as an examiner.  But number one has to be the People's Republic of China.  It has recently gone up in my reckoning as my next destination to work.  I was asked this week by the Academics Manager if I was coming back and whether I had much cultural induction stuff.  I replied, through gritted teeth, that it was unlikely that I would return... because of my desire to try a new work situation and/or country, not because of the hundreds of things wrong with KSUPY. 

No decisions about my next destination are going to be taken before the summer school, for which I have been reminded about Bell's Social Networking Policy.  This is related to my ongoing gripe about having to complete a Criminal Records Bureau check every single time I am re-employed by Bell.  The company now declares official policy that you can no longer befriend current or former students who attend one of the young learner courses in the UK:  

"You must NOT accept current or former students as ‘Contacts’ or ‘Friends’ on social networks or photo-sharing sites, including offering ‘limited profiles’ access. If a student requests access, this should be politely but firmly declined. You must NOT attempt to make contact with current or former students via their own social network websites. You must NOT create specific Bell networking sites for any course or students."

Last year there was a general dictum given, and in my first year there was no policy at all... although a sensible approach was required.  I have commented since that all this does is serve to protect the employer, not the employee, nor the 'mythical child' as someone else commented.

I don't disagree with this and believe it is right that my employer should do this.  It relates only to young learner courses because only on these are the clients under the age of 18.  It says nothing, however, about what is allowed when that sexy Italian girl, who you explained the difference between the second and third conditional clause to, turns 18 a couple of months after the course.  It's simply a legality.  Perfectly understandable, perfectly reasonable. But it does bug me.  Maybe I shouldn't even air my thoughts and lead people to think that I am interested in newly turned 18 year olds.

Of course, I am not stupid.  I know the kinds of things that would get me sacked... and the most obvious example is getting a student in the sack.  And rest assured, I have no intention of doing anything remotely on that declining gradient.  

An innocent arm around a shoulder can be misconstrued. Last year I was asked to remove a perfectly innocent photo of a female manager and a male student, which was taken after the end of course show.  I willingly obliged and did this immediately, because whatever I think, other people think differently and I can't justify the irrational fears that some people might have. 

I would never add a current Saudi student as my friend, even if they are male and over 18.  This is because it is FAR more likely to lead to unprofessional conduct.. such as the corruption of grades and allegations of bribery.  This never happens on a young learner course because grades are less important and the duration of the course for most kids is 2-4 weeks only.

Anyway, there have been some moments recently when I have forgotten where I am.  A whole week goes by at work, including the journey to and from the university, and I forget where I am.  My tongue has loosened and I more casual about topic of conversations.  Every day I am party to conversations about all kinds of things, especially political and religious issues.. so I am keeping myself sane by offloading some of my own thoughts, whilst still trying to avoid insensitive, random comments.  Then, I see a 'Nazgul', a fairly derogatory term used by some of my UK, non-muslim colleagues for the way women are required to dressed up, and I am reminded about where I am.