Recent articles published in Arab News on the issue of teaching and learning English in Saudi Arabia depict a pretty dismal picture. Its citizenry are visibly divided on this important aspect, and an article published on Oct. 24 highlights such a lack of unified approach to this issue. Titled “Foreign Languages: To Learn or Not to Learn,” this article sums up how the general public, teachers and religious scholars look at this issue from different perspectives.
While the official stand is encouraging, the negative concerns as to learning English stem mainly from either a xenophobic fear or an assumption of a foreign language’s corruptible influence. Such apprehensions are unsupported by empirical evidence, and countries like India, Malaysia have embraced English without peril to their own culture and language.
Japan, until recently an insular society with regard to foreign culture and languages, enthusiastically embraced English; teaching as well as learning English has emerged as a multibillion-dollar business. China, equally protective of its culture, has shed its isolationist stance to welcome English.
While the issue of learning and teaching English remains a moot question, recent media attention focuses on anther vital aspect — shortage of qualified teachers. Lack of qualified teachers among the local output of graduates could be one of them — the ministry concerned is trying to recruit foreign teachers. To recruit English teachers from foreign countries for all levels of students is too ambitious a scheme.
Shortage of qualified English teachers is a global phenomenon, and many countries — Japan, China, Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong — are vying against one another to lure English teachers to their countries. Even many English-speaking countries are not immune. While Australia predicts a shortage of English teachers for its schools, hundreds of its teachers are being lured away by Britain and Ireland and even the United States, on lucrative terms.
In the light of above realities, the current shortage of English teachers will have to be replenished with our own graduates. In the long-term, more and more teachers need to be trained in the local colleges and universities. In the short-term, foreign trainers and instructors may be hired to fill in positions in colleges and universities to train local teachers when such positions cannot be filled with local candidates.
As far as possible the shortage of teachers at primary and secondary levels needs to be solved with local teachers. In the event foreign teachers are to be hired, alternative sources — India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia — may be explored.
To have all Saudi children taught English by native speakers is not a viable option at all. Rather Saudization of English is the better option. As we all know, English is no more one language; it has many variants, each one with distinctive accent and a literary oeuvre. With proper attention and nurture, a new variant of English, a Middle-Eastern variant, may evolve.
Given its linguistic peculiarity that is sure to influence the English learning process as well as speaking habit, this region should strive to evolve an English that will suit local culture and language. Teachers nurtured by and immersed in local culture can ultimately accomplish this goal.
The development of a world-class education system in a country is contingent upon its readiness to accept change and innovation. If the findings of a recent article (“Arabs and the World’s Top 500 Universities”) published in this newspaper on Nov. 3 is an indication, this region is far behind. As Eissa Al-Halyan, who wrote the article observes: “Educational institutions in our region still follow old methods and techniques which were first used several hundred years ago. We continue to use them even though the world beyond our borders is living in — and reacting to — the era of discovery and the age of electronic information. According to him, while the worth of universities is “rated” along with academic performance by “internationally significant research and published articles... our universities busy themselves with elementary academic matters, spending time discussing admissions, ceremonies.” Impervious to change and innovation, these “banner-bearing” universities, “have become little more than large buildings”; and under the pressure of sheer numbers of students and other considerations, they seem to have no time to look at the “genuine concerns and problems of their societies.”
The case of teaching and learning English in this country requires a fresh and innovative approach based on the sociocultural realities of this region. Poor standards and the shortage of qualified teachers are genuine concerns, and a localized approach may help us find a solution. The responsibility to devise ways and means to solve these problems falls largely on universities and institutions of higher education. Innovative and action-oriented research carried on in these institutions on the causes of such problems, and local teachers trained in and equipped with appropriate English language skills and modern teaching methodology could help us overcome the current shortage of teachers in the Kingdom.
(Mijanur Rahman, a PhD student at Australia’s Monash University, teaches English at Taif Teachers’ College.)
