{"id":1016,"date":"2010-10-10T16:51:10","date_gmt":"2010-10-10T16:51:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/edtechandtesol.info\/phd\/?p=1016"},"modified":"2010-10-10T16:51:10","modified_gmt":"2010-10-10T16:51:10","slug":"english-teaching-excellence-in-qatar-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/?p=1016","title":{"rendered":"English Teaching Excellence in Qatar Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

English Teaching Excellence in Qatar (ETE-Q) Conference,<\/strong><\/p>\n

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q)<\/strong><\/p>\n

9\/10\/2010, Education City, Doha, Qatar<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Saturday, the 9th<\/sup> of October 2010, I participated in the ETE-Q conference at CMU-Q in Doha with a poster presentation entitled \u201cAcademic Writing: Challenge, Inspiration, Engagement\u201d.<\/p>\n

The poster summarises my teaching approach to the challenges encountered in the academic writing course I teach at the Academic Bridge Program in Education City. The main challenges include student motivation and the quality of writing.<\/p>\n

Based on the writing projects I have designed for students in my course, I find that an effective way of enhancing their motivation is through developing background knowledge, making topics relevant to their experience and encouraging them to practise self-reflection to gain a deeper understanding of their own cognitive development as it takes place through writing in English. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The quality of writing can be improved through an active and open-minded exploration of various topics of interest, helping students to develop their own ideas and opinions and become more familiar with different types of essay and other forms of academic expression. Practising constructive and cooperative criticism via peer revision and open critique of each other\u2019s written work is an additional way of improving the standard of writing in terms of grammar, spelling and vocabulary.<\/p>\n

Students produce better, more convincing and powerful, written work if they are inspired by a topic and become engaged with it. This is made possible by exposing them to a variety of sources of information (texts, documentaries, field trips, etc.) and enabling them to make\/notice connections between their classroom learning and the \u2018real\u2019 world around them.<\/p>\n

In my poster-based presentation, I used samples of my own course materials: a response essay based on a field trip to the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha and selected written sources, including positive and negative reviews of the museum (from the NYT and the IHT); an argument essay preceded by viewing and discussion of a documentary \u201cA Class Divided\u201d; a comparison\/contrast essay exploring linguistic and culture-related similarities and differences between Arabic and English, and examining how patterns of expression in these two languages may affect cognition and vice versa.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

My presentation aroused a lot of interest and resulted in several lively exchanges with my Education City colleagues but also with local school teachers, mostly from newly established independent (\u2018charter\u2019) schools where low student motivation is a particularly difficult and persistent problem, explained by many in terms of underlying social and cultural issues. Several independent school teachers also expressed their concerns regarding the insufficient amount of professional training and development they are offered, inadequate and haphazard teaching materials, badly designed curricula, low standards of students\u2019 English, declining standards of Arabic as taught in their schools and other issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Following the poster session, I also took part in a workshop by Dr Katherine Gottschalk from Cornell University, on incorporating writing in content-based courses. After a brief introduction, we were asked to design a \u201clearning through English\u201d writing assignment for our own students. While discussing the results of the exercise, several points were made, including some cross-cultural issues, such as difficulties adapting western-designed curricula to Qatari conditions, building local<\/em> students\u2019 global<\/em> background knowledge necessary for academic success in English language universities in Education City and abroad, and the growing pressure to use English as medium of instruction in Qatari schools.<\/p>\n

I found the conference relevant to my research and interests, particularly that I was able to make new contacts with local school teachers whose views on current educational developments are essential for understanding the social and cultural background of my students\u2019 perceptions of their learning experiences in the Academic Bridge Program.<\/p>\n

The conference organisers are in the process of posting participants\u2019 posters on the ETE-Q website. The website should be made available to the public shortly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Magda<\/p>\n

ETE-Q Conference Oct 2010 poster<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

English Teaching Excellence in Qatar (ETE-Q) Conference, Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar (CMU-Q) and Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar (WCMC-Q) 9\/10\/2010, Education City, Doha, Qatar \u00a0 On Saturday, the 9th of October 2010, I participated in the ETE-Q conference at CMU-Q in Doha with a poster presentation entitled \u201cAcademic Writing: Challenge, Inspiration, Engagement\u201d. The poster summarises my teaching approach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p865eh-go","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lantern.humanities.manchester.ac.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}