JEDDAH, 22 August — The back-to-school campaign is gaining momentum. As the long summer vacation nears its end, bookstores, stationery shops and supermarkets are getting ready to meet the rush that always accompanies the new school year.
While bookstores are showcasing their array of bags, notebooks and writing materials as though they were gifts, supermarkets have gone one better: they’re actually giving away school bags as gifts free to those who patronize their establishments.
Most specialist stores have also created new areas to showcase their back-to-school items.
“We’ve been eagerly awaiting the upcoming season. We’re already being flooded with inquiries from parents and students about the availability of certain textbooks and the prices of notebooks and writing material,” an attendant at Jarir Bookstores told Arab News.
Of course, school’s opening inevitably means summer vacation programs are coming to an end. And this year, they were more successful than ever as they have been run for both teachers and students.
“We’ve not only found the training enlightening. Most of us hope to return to school with better skills,” a male Saudi secondary school teacher attending the summer English language program at Dar Al-Fikr said.
Programs lasting from a few days to a few weeks were held right throughout the Kingdom, but most extensively in its three premier cities of Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The programs conducted for students were mostly in the medical and technical areas and the education departments of various consulates and agencies joined the Ministry of Education in organizing and conducting them.
The public affairs office at the US Embassy and the British Council played a dominant role in conducting summer English courses for Saudi male and female teachers of English.
“The goal of the program was to help foster the modernization of the MoE’s English teaching, based on our view that English is very important to the political, economic and social development of the Kingdom,” the organizers said.
Thirty Saudi teachers attended a three-day training session in Hail, conducted by John D. Battenburg of the English department at the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, which ended on Monday. Another session was simultaneously held in Al-Jouf, in which 10 Saudi and 30 other teachers participated. Al-Jouf was perhaps among the few interior places where the Saudi strength was small, according to Donald R.H. Byrd of New York University, who has published more than two-dozen English language textbooks.
Battenburg and Byrd, who have handled a number of assignments in Middle Eastern and Far Eastern countries as Fullbright professors and academic consultants, told Arab News at the US Consulate yesterday that methods of teaching vocabulary, reading and speaking were among the topics covered. “Interaction among the Saudi English language teachers on the one hand and their discussions with us on the other were limited due to their lack of vocabulary and speaking practice,” Byrd said. The scholars found that the teachers solely taught from the examination point of view and teaching skills were not much in evidence.
Battenburg said he was here to run summer English programs in Riyadh, Taif, Jeddah and Dammam last year.
“A glaring difference I find this time is that many more Saudi teachers have shown a keen interest in the summer program and hands-on ideas. In fact, they are becoming more professionally aware as a group,” said Byrd, who published a research study on behalf of the Arab Bureau of Education for the Gulf States seven years ago.
“Another such study is overdue,” he claimed. “The missing ingredient is good materials. What’s needed is the introduction of new technology as it develops from time to time to make the learning process a joy for both teachers and students,” he remarked.
From here, Battenburg and Byrd leave for Dammam and Hofuf to conduct the last three-day sessions of the summer program.
