Rejected

After my first class, I was taken to meet with a man I had never meant before, by a woman I thought I had never met before.  It wasn't until about half-way through the meeting that it dawned on me that this was the same woman who had told me about the students complaints the other day.  When I met her, we were in the women's section so she had been uncovered.  But since this meeting was with a man, I only had her eyes to recognize her by, since the rest of her face was covered with a niqab. Ever try to recognize someone you only met one time without the benefit of hair, facial features, clothing.... it's pretty nearly impossible to tell from eyes alone.

Anyway, they had called me in to tell me that the complaints from the students had gotten worse.  Basically, the students were very used to getting their way, so when they complained, and I didn't instantly become a teacher who let them get away with everything and only teach for 1 hour, they now felt insulted on top of the initial injustices.  Also, the complaints mattered more now, because they were getting phone calls from their fathers and husbands as well as students, mainly over the whatsapp goup.  Now, remember, this whatsapp group was completely optional, with other ways of earning bonus points / doing the speaking and listening task for homework if they chose not to participate.  It is also worth noting that probably only about 1/4 to 1/3 of the messages sent in the group had anything to do with the English class, let alone were in English, and that most of what went on there was just the girls chatting with each other in Arabic.  He told me that one husband had threatened to destroy his wife's phone because she spent so much time on the Whatsapp group that she was neglecting her children.

I was flabbergasted. Saudi is like this:  you sort of go along, getting used to the small superficial differences like wearing the "ninja uniform" and you get caught up in getting to know your students and co-workers as people instead of stereotypes, and you don't exactly forget that you are living in one of the most oppressive societies for women in the world, but you do kind of get accustomed to it in the same way you get used to it when you sit for a long time in a place with flies constantly buzzing around you.  Then all of the sudden, you get stung by something like this.  A man, who is ostensibly liberal enough to let his wife attend medical school is angry that when she comes home she has the audacity to actually study, and that she spends too much time on her phone, and declares that the problem is clearly this English teacher who is forcing her (through an optional activity) to neglect her children.  Something this ridiculous and absurd, and unfair and just plain crazy happens and you think to yourself,  Where am I? When am I?

I was in 2014, in the office of a Saudi man, who was apparently in charge of something important, though I had no idea what his position was, with a woman who was covered and never said a single word.  He was saying, in stilted English, that while they value their teachers, and especially admire me as a teacher, they also value their students (or at least the money they earn from the students.)  Some of the fathers and husbands had threatened to pull their girls out of the school unless their girls were given another teacher. He showed me a paper which about 20 girls had signed, and which he said was a list of students who wanted to change classes to another teacher who was less strict.  This list bothered me more than anything else, because we had just finished a unit on writing complaint letters, and the girls hadn't even bothered to use this new knowledge to write a legitimate complaint letter, instead, they took the lazy way out again and just wrote their names.  There wasn't even any title or anything at the top of the page of signatures.  It might have all been worth it if only they had written a complaint letter.  At least then I would have known that I had managed to teach them something.

He told me they can't afford to loose any tuition payments, so for now, they would prefer it if I didn't teach any classes until further notice.  There was only a week before revision for exams, and then there would be two weeks for study with no formal classes and only presentations anyway, so they wouldn't be missing much.  I asked him if they had someone to cover the class or if the girls would just not have class, he told me not to worry about it, and I suspected that there wouldn't be any substitute.  What a world, when students who are paying for the privilege of learning, would rather not have a teacher at all than be forced to follow the rules and work hard.  I've never seen any group of people work so hard at not having to work in my life.  I was hurt and felt betrayed by my students, who regularly told me they loved having me as a teacher, that they loved that we played games in class, and how they wish all their teachers were like me.  Apparently the didn't love it enough to give up the luxury of shorter classes and someone who would look the other way when they came late.  I also suspected that there was peer pressure at work here, that one or two girls were more upset than the others (probably the ones who were habitually late) and that they had made the complaints and urged the other girls to follow suit.

I suppose I should have taken the first meeting with the woman who was in charge of the English Department more seriously.  I should have picked up on the cues from her, that if the school didn't care, I shouldn't care.  I should have given up then, and not even bothered to take attendance, and taught only for an hour.  I shouldn't have bothered to spend hours everyday working on lesson plans that were dynamic and engaging since the students didn't care about learning English, only about checking the boxes to get a mark and ultimately a Diploma.  I should have taken it as a sign when I asked them why they wanted to be a doctor and the most common response was "So I can be rich, and not have to work very much." that no one was here to actually learn anything, and that I shouldn't waste my time or energy to try to actually teach them.  I should have let go of my expectations that I could change the system from within and that the girls would rise to the challenge if they were presented with one.  I should have understood from the beginning that reasonable expectations everywhere else in the world are unreasonable here.  I should have, by now, after 8 months of living and teaching here, known enough to let go.

But here is the thing.  Even though I know our expectations are different, even though I know our cultures are different, even though I know that we often value different things, and that I have to respect these differences; I have some fundamental beliefs and values as a teacher, as a person, that I just can't let go of.    If I accept the premise that students are only there to get a diploma, If I accept that the grades are padded, that the rules are only half-halfheartedly applied, and that the goal is not to educate, challenge, and inspire these women, but rather to keep them happy and quiet, then it means that I'm not doing anything at all.  It means that my profession, what a work so hard at every day, doesn't mean anything.  Giving up on trying to reach these girls, using any thing that might inspire them, just a little, to practice more, to work harder, to think smarter, would mean giving up on the whole idea that education can be more than just spoon feeding knowledge to empty receptacles.

I'm not ready to give up.

Crazy Drunk Man with a Gun

So, tonight I was the last to leave the school after my evening class.  Usually there are a few girls still waiting for their drivers, but tonight, they had all left before me.  I was trying to remember how to say "I'm the last one" in Arabic to the guard to let him no it was safe for him to go in the women's section and lock up, so I was deep in concentration and didn't notice the crowds at first.  Then, one of my students who was already outside grabbed me and pulled me over into the crowd.  I saw a bunch of men gathered around one car, it looked like they were trying to calm someone down, but it was mostly just chaos so it is hard to tell.  I could see there was a broken back seat window and glass everywhere, and I thought, oh, big surprise it must have been an accident.

I asked one of my students (I think she was one of mine, it's hard to tell when they are wearing the niqab) if it was a car accident, and she said, no teacher - a gun!  I was so surprised.  For one thing, guns - apart from the ak-47s the guards have in front of compounds - are pretty much unheard of here.  For another, if someone has a gun, why on earth are we all crowded around trying to get closer?!  I didn't get the chance to follow up on that because I was being pulled further into the crowd by what I hoped was another one of my students.  I was close enough now to see that there were no bodies on the ground, so that was a good sign.  Just broken glass and some men shouting.  A woman turned around and asked me what was up in Arabic, and I half panicked.  I thought for a minute they were looking to me as the teacher and supposed authority figure here to do or say something.  I was completely unprepared to react, especially since I really didn't have any idea what was going on.  So I just stood there like an idiot, speechless.

As it turned out, it was just the mother of one of my students.   I can only assume she was in the car with the driver waiting to pick up her daughter when everything happened, and like everyone else, she had gotten out to take a look.  My student must have wanted her to meet me, so when she saw me, she just pulled me in.  It was an odd time to be meeting the parent of one of my students.   On the one hand, I felt I should be professional and friendly, on the other hand, there may or may not be someone with a gun less than ten feet away from me.  It's hard to make small talk in these circumstances.  We shook hands and I said it was a pleasure to meet her, which she didn't hear over the shouting going on around us.  I said it again a little louder and she nodded this time and gave my hand a little extra squeeze.  She may have been about to ask me something or say something else, but I will never know because we were being herded by some men in suits back into the building.  I had to wonder why our security guard, who from what I could tell wasn't doing anything but grandiosely narrating events like a sports caster, hadn't thought it smart to move all the women inside before now.

Inside again I asked the girls what had happened.  From the broken English and confusion, I was able to piece together the following scenario.  There was a small accident.  One of the drivers or a passenger of one of the drivers was drunk (this detail, even more than the gun, was the piece of information my students seemed to relish most in the retelling).  So there was an argument about whose fault the accident was, and suddenly the drunk man had a gun and was waving it around.  So some people who were watching called the police, and when the man heard the police were coming, he locked himself in the car, but oddly enough didn't drive away, he just sat in the back seat with his gun.  When the police came, he refused to get out, so they broke the glass on the window in the back seat and pulled him out and took him away.  This is where I came in.  I saw the broken window, and what I now assume were the other guys in the car with him yelling, and people all around trying to calm them down.  Eventually they all drove off, but I have no idea where they took the man or anything. I thought it was strange that I hadn't seen any police outside, so I asked the students about this.  They said that they weren't real police, just kind of like security guards.  This might help explain why on earth they would break a window and physically grab a guy who had a gun and could have easily shot anyone of them at any time.  I was trying to imagine a scenario where someone would say;
"Hey, that drunk man locked in the car has a gun!"
"Really?  Let's see if we can get the gun from him in the most violent and dangerous way possible!"   "Ok, hmmm.... I know, let's break a window and yank him out!"
"Yeah! He definitely won't try to shoot us if we do that!"
The only thing crazier than this would have to be the inner monologue of the guy with the gun:
"Wow, I really screwed up, I'm drunk, and I have a gun, and it's Saudi Arabia.  I guess I'll just lock myself in this car.  Yup, I'll curl up in the back seat of this car here, and have a good cry.  No point in trying to leave.  I'll just stay here.  In this car.  In the middle of the street.  While tons of people gather to watch these men break in my window... hey..."
I don't know, it doesn't make a ton of sense to me.  And maybe I haven't got all the details quite right, in fact, I'm sure I don't have all the details right.  Still it was an eventful night, and not just because of all the excitement about this man.  It was eventful for me because I could see how far the girls had come in just one month of classes. While we were all gathered in the front entrance of the school, waiting for our drivers to finally make their way to us from this chaos, the girls were all speaking English.  In their rush to be the first one to tell me what happened, they were throwing words around they never even knew they had learned.  They were spouting out irregular past tense verbs like champs.  The same group of women who four weeks ago couldn't even tell me that they had forgotten their book at home without a translator were suddenly giving me a blow by blow breakdown of what happened, and asking me what I thought of the whole thing.  It was amazing.  Sure, they weren't perfect, and sure, I didn't understand all of what they said, but tonight, these girls made the giant leap forward from learning English, to using English.  I couldn't be more proud.
So thank you crazy drunk man with a gun! You made my day.

Dental Health Celebration

Now that I had three less classes to teach, I was in the office more often.  This morning I happened to be around when the other teachers were all headed to a special presentation on dentistry, so they invited me along.

I was expecting a group of girls to present a 5 minute speech on the importance of flossing or something, but I should have known better. If there is anything Saudis do well, it's event planning.  We went to the same hall where we gave exams and the place had been transformed.  There were balloons everywhere, and even a balloon sculpture of a little girl.  There were tables at each end with gift bags for the elementary school students who were seated in rows to listen to the presentation. I wondered if they would be giving out candy in the bags, since there were two big cakes on the table as well.  What kind of message does that send?  Sweets are bad for your teeth!  Want some cake? There were screens projecting a video of a girl singing about wishing someone a happy birthday while backing a cake.  It was on a non-stop loop, and played for about 15 minutes, so I had plenty of time to wonder about how many haram things were in this video, singing, dancing, girls and boys mixing, the celebration of birthdays.... but maybe kids get a free pass on all of this.  Maybe things don't become haram until you hit puberty.

Since we were VIPs,  us teachers were seated in the front row, with little tables with big floral arrangements in front of every third chair or so.  I felt honored to be a VIP, but this meant we blocked the view of the kids, so I found myself sinking down in my chair to try to give them a better view.  After all, the presentation was really for them, and I think we were only there to be able to offer our congratulations and praise of a job well done to the organizers.

The presentation opened with a doctor explaining that we were at a college for medicine and having the students guess how long you had to be in school to become a dentist.  I wondered if she was purposely trying to put them off of this career path.  At the mention of 8 extra years of school, they all groaned.  Then she had some of the kids come to the front and recite something from the Quran.  After that, they showed a little video about how to take care of your teeth, and handed out prizes for correct answers.  Then another woman got up to talk about how to take care of your teeth, but the microphone wasn't really working, so the kids were getting restless.  Someone decided that this would be a good time to hand out hats with the Al Farabi logo on it to all the kids.  I didn't get one. Sigh.

Meanwhile, a teacher from the children's school got up to ask comprehension check questions, but didn't always have the right answers herself.  She was in the middle of demonstrating how to brush your teeth, up then down, not down to up, up to down, when one of the dental students thankfully took over and demonstrated the circular motion mentioned in the video instead. I was embarrassed for her.

It was clear they were stalling for time when they began playing a makeshift quiz game for which they seemed to be making rules as they went.  I soon found out why.  Two of the dental students came in dressed as Minnie Mouse and Spongebob Squarepants.  The little kids loved it and lined up to take turns shaking the characters hands.  The costumes were just off enough to seem sad, and they girls were clearly shy about wearing them and nervous and hot.  By this point, I was board and uncomfortable (it was very cold), and feeling pretty much as miserable as if I was one of the people wearing the character costumes.

I was relieved when someone came in to get me and asked me to go see someone who I had never heard of before, but at least it got me out of the road.  Who knew how much longer this might go on....

Someone's in Charge?!

Nearly a month and a half after starting work at the college, I finally met the head of the English Department.  To be fair, this person didn't actually have the title of Head of the English Department until a few days before I met her, but the fact remains that up until we met, I was under the impression that Dr. Doha, who didn't speak much English was in charge, and that I had already met all of the English teachers.  Turns out, there is a whole other staff room with about 5 more English teachers that I had been blissfully unaware of, stuck as I was in the reject staff room, with the part timers and teachers who taught other subjects in  Arabic.

From the beginning, our meeting was a rocky one.  One of the security guards knocked on my door during class and told me that so-and-so wanted to see me.  I had no idea who so-and-so was, and couldn't imagine anything so serious as it would be necessary to leave my class for, so I told her thank you and that I would see her after class in about 45 minutes.  About 10 minutes later there was another knock on my door.  This time it was so and so herself.  I need to see you she said.  I told her to please wait 5 minutes while I gave the girls something to do in my absence and then stepped out into the hallway with her.  She was incensed.  "Do you know who I am?" she said.  "No." I said.  She seemed shocked.  This seems to be a common reaction.  As the only American on staff, absolutely everyone seems to know who I am, and for some reason, in return, they seem to think that I should know who they are. I do not.  Furthermore, even the ones I have been introduced to, I don't remember their names, and barely recognize their faces.

She explained that she was the Head of the English Department and demanded to know why I didn't come to her as soon as she had asked.  I pointed out that I was in the middle of a lecture, and that I would be happy to meet with her as soon as the class was over.  She seemed surprised to hear that I as teaching, which is a strange thing to not know when you come looking for someone in a classroom.   She asked if she could come in and watch.  I said sure.  She came in and stood in the front for about a minute and a half.  I was getting their attention back after the group activity I had given before I went into the hallway to speak with her, When she interrupted to yell in Arabic at a girl in the back. I wasn't quit sure what the girl had done, but from the voracity of the yelling, it seemed like she must have murdered someone's child or something.  She turned to me to ask If I knew the girls name.  Since I had about 80 names to learn and this was only the second week of classes, I did not.

She made the girls say her name, and then told her to leave, and told me to mark her absent for the day.  Then she stormed out behind the girl and left me to it, telling me to find her when class was over.  The girls and I looked at each other sort of bewildered, and I was glad to see I wasn't the only one caught off guard by what had just happened.

After class, I made inquiries of the other staff, and eventually found her office.  She told me to sit and she gave me a new schedule, which meant that instead of teaching 10 classes a week I was now only going to be teaching 7 because they had hired some new teachers.  This was good news for me.  Then she told me that the girls had been complaining that the classes were too long.  I told her that the classes were supposed to be 2 hours, but that I had already cut off 15 minutes to make them 1 hour and 45 minutes.  She suggested that I give them a break in the middle, and I explained how I had given the students this choice and that they chose not to have a break.  She told me that the students were complaining that I was marking them late.  She told me I should give them 10 minutes leeway at the beginning of class.  I told here I was already doing that.  She told me the students were complaining that they had too much homework and that I shouldn't give them more than three workbook pages per class.  I told her that I usually only gave a page and half.  She told me that I should only use the workbook and not give homework over Whatsapp, and I explained that the whatsapp was optional, for extra points, except for the weekly listening and speaking question, which they could do in person anytime before or after class.  She shrugged and said, well, I'm just telling you what the girls are complaining about.

She called me her sister and assured me that she was very happy with my teaching and she knew I was doing a lot of activities and things with the girls and that they liked this, but they just wanted me to change those few things.  I stuck to my guns.  These girls are going to be doctors.  They need to learn now the importance of being on time, not when they are 30 minutes late for a surgery and the anesthesia is wearing off.  I explained that most of the girls were very behind in terms of language skills, and catering to their weakness by having shorter classes or not giving them homework would only make the problem worse not better.  I stood by my addition of listening and speaking homework to the reading and writing workbook homework by pointing out they would need English to communicate with the mostly foreign nurses and doctors they would someday be working with.  She listened and nodded along with everything I was saying.  "You are right," she said, "but, you know, the girls are paying to attend, so we have to do what they want, which reminds me.  The mid-term scores were all too low.  So we need you to give them a very easy 4 -point quiz, and we will add that score to their mid-term."  She and I looked at each other, and we both silently recognized the absurdity and immorality of arbitrarily adding 4 points to everyone's scores, but neither of us said anything about it. I thanked her for her suggestions, and for finally letting me know that someone was in charge, since I had no idea before.  She told me that she had just been given the role that week or the week before, and to come see her if I ever needed anything and she wished me great success.

Sadly, I'm feeling more and more that success is less and less possible in this environment.

Excuses, Excuses

Well, the first week of classes are behind me, and I have to say, these girls work hard at finding ways not to work hard.  I've dedicated this blog posting to all of the excuses I got in the first week alone.

On being late:

•  "Teacher, my driver was late!" (this excuse was used even during the final period of the day, when the students had already been at school since 8am).
• "Teacher, I had to go to the bathroom." (and didn't have time to do it during the 30 minute break)
• "Teacher, I was with another teacher." (later consultation with said teacher proved this to be false)
• "Teacher, I was eating." (I allow them to eat in the classroom provided they clean up after themselves - but after I made one girl throw away an empty bag of chips she had thrown on the floor, even after she insisted that that was what the maids were for, very few girls brought food in the class).
• "Teacher, I was doing my homework."
• "Teacher, I had to go to my locker."
• "Teacher, I had to get my wifi/phone/charger/book back from my friend."
• "Teacher, I didn't know what time it was."
• "Teacher, I'm only 5 minutes late." (and by this she means 5 minutes late after the 10 min. grace period)
• "Teacher, we were just talking in the hallway, we were just outside class, only 5 meters away! We were almost in the room!"

And by far the most common response when I told a girl she had arrived late:

• "Teacher? Why, teacher?"  followed by; "Please, teacher?" in a pouty voice.

The obsession with not being late (on paper, but not in practice) stems from the requirement that they have a 90% attendance rate or they automatically fail.  Lates = half an absence.  Most girls have this down to a science and are absent /late twice exactly 6 times in a semester (because 7 = automatic fail).  Now, don't be misled, they are actually absent much more frequently, but so long as they provide a doctors note, the absence doesn't count.  These doctors notes are probably only legit about 10 percent of the time, and since they are all in Arabic, and usually use Hijri dates, are basically impossible for me to decipher, so I usually just accept them all regardless.  Occasionally, I will get a doctor's note in English, and my all time favorite excused a girl from three days of classes for "Dizziness & Giddiness."  I wish I could have kept it.  I would have framed it.

On not doing homework:

• "Teacher, I left my book at school."
• "Teacher, I didn't know we had to."
• "Teacher, my book is different." (which is actually true, but only some pages have minor changes - like names, or not mentioning things like bacon or dating)
• "Teacher, the other class didn't have to do it."
• "Teacher, I was late yesterday." (nevermind the homework is written on the board all through class for those who finish classwork early, mentioned allowed at the end of class, and sent to the "whatsapp" group each day.)
• "Teacher, I forgot."
• "Teacher, it was too much." (usually about a workbook page and a half.)
• "Teacher, it was too hard." (completely legit for some of the weaker students, but those were not the ones who used this excuse, and I'm always available by whatsapp for help.
• "Teacher, it was too boring."
• "Teacher, I didn't have a pen."
• "Teacher, there was a good movie on TV last night."
• "Teacher, we had a big project for another class."

The funny thing about homework is, it only counts for 5 percent of their total grade.  Which means students could potentially never even do the homework and still have an A.    Even though the students know this, they are obsessed with points and will go through great lengths to try to hid the fact that they didn't do the homework, such as passing workbooks up or to the side, after I pass by a row, or covering the page with their hand or elbow so that only the one completed exercise shows.  Since some students only have photocopied versions of the book and workbook sometimes they will just photocopy another student's completed workbook page, thinking I won't notice that the answers aren't written in ink or pencil.  Once they got wise to the fact that I was looking that closely, some of them tried the same trick, but traced over the photocopied answers with pen.  This was obvious, but I let them go on thinking I didn't notice because at least then they were tracing English words, which means they were getting some kind of practice in anyway.

On not doing classwork:

• "Teacher, we know it already." (then when given a pop quiz, everyone fails).
• "Teacher, why?"
• "Teacher, we don't want to move." (a favorite excuse for group work)
• "Teacher, let me work with her  / I can't work with her." (usually this is just a very flagrant version of mean girls, but sometimes it has deeper roots, with tribal rivalries or shia / suni conflicts.)
• "Teacher, I'm too tired."
• "Teacher, I don't have a pen / paper / book."
• "Teacher, can I go to the bathroom / cafe / hallway?"
• "Teacher, can I call my mother/father/driver?"
• "Teacher, I'm on my period, I can't."
• "Teacher, I have a headache/backache/toothache."
• "Teacher, I didn't sleep last night."
• "Teacher, It's not in the book."
• "Teacher, class is almost over." (usually when we still have 30 minutes left.)
• "Teacher, I hate this."
• "Teacher, can you do it for me?"
• "Teacher, can we play a game instead? (and then when we play a game - usually if they are on the loosing team...) "Teacher, can we do exercises from the book instead?"

Funny that in all these excuses, I never heard the one that was probably most often true, which was that they didn't understand.  Saudis are very reluctant to admit that they don't know everything, and are not fond of making mistakes, particularly in public.  Since learning a language in a classroom setting pretty much means making mistakes a lot in front of your friends, very few girls enjoy the process, and most say they hate English class. 

I'm doing what I can to make it more fun, and I hope that they will eventually come around and start liking English just a little more...  it's certainly been entertaining for me listening to all their excuses.

WhatsApp

A hilarious, but sadly accurate sample of a Whatsapp conversation.

The most common app in the Kingdom is WhatsApp, a phone app that lets you send free text messages to anyone else with the app.  You can send private messages, or you can establish group chats.  Since my students were more or less constantly using this app in class anyway, I decided to harness the power of this social media for language learning.

I sent around a paper and told the girls I would create a Whatsapp group, and if they wanted to join, they could put their numbers down on the paper.  I told them it was optional, but that I would post the homework assignment each day, so if they were absent or forgot to write it down, they could find it, and that there would be an optional discussion question related to the topics we were discussing in class.  I explained that if they did the optional discussion question, they would get bonus points.  There was only one student who didn't add her whatsapp number to the list.

The group was pretty popular.  I nearly regretted starting when the first night there were over 50 messages.  The first 10 or so were legitimate answers to the discussion question, which asked which area they felt the weakest in in English, speaking, listening, reading, or writing (most said speaking). However it quickly devolved into chatting in Arabic.  Everyday was a battle, I'd remind them that they could chat privately in Arabic, but that this was a place to practice English.  They would speak in English for a while, and then, especially if I wasn't online (the app is sort of creepy in that it shows you when people are online, and when they are reading your messages), they would revert back to Arabic.  I thought about threatening to kick those who used Arabic out of the group, but since I posted the homework there, I didn't want to them to loose access to that information, since it would be just another excuse for them not to do it.  And anyway, there were still some discussions in English happening, so that was good, and any English is better than no English.

A student's version of old and new

A studen't picturing of old and young

The nice thing about the app was that a lot of the students who didn't talk in class were very active and responsive on the app.  They were very curious and liked to ask me questions, some of which I answered, and others which I declined to answer because of the sensitive nature of the topic (remember; dating, politics, religion, music, movies, really anything of interest at all is still technically forbidden).  The most successful questions were those where I asked students to find pictures that illustrated new vocab words, or involved pictures in some way.  I asked them to find pictures of opposites, and some of them were very creative in their choices.  Another time I asked them to find mistakes in Grammar on printed English signs around town.  Most just did an internet search and pulled up mis-spelled road signs, but a few actually found some signs in town and took photos of them.  The daily discussion was going so well on a volunteer basis, that I decided I could make it an actual assignment.

Mistakes in English: Sometimes they seem too good to be true.

When I discovered that there was a voice recording feature on Whatsapp, I figured it was a perfect way to get in some speaking and listening practice.  I told the girls that every Thursday, the daily discussion would be an oral question that I would tell them in class, and also post as a recording to Whatsapp.  They would have until Sunday to respond with an audio recording of their own, which would count as a homework grade.  There was a colossal uproar.  It was haram to record their voices.  I knew it was haram to take pictures of them or video tape them (even though they constantly run around taking selfies), but I figured just audio would be ok.  I had intended for all of them to listen and respond to each others answers, but I could see that would never work.  So I offered two alternatives.  I would still post my audio question and tell them in class what the question was, and they could either send me a private whatsapp audio recording with there answer, which I wold listen to, mark in the grade book and then immediately delete, or they could simply come to me before or after class, or during my office hours, and tell me their answer in person.  This seem to calm everyone's fears.

I thought there would be a rush of girls at the end of class to give me their answers in person, but actually, about 60% of the girls did send me private whatsapp audio messages over the weekend - which was about on par with the general homework completion rate.  No girls ever found me to answer the question in person, and I wasn't about to chase them down, so they just didn't get points for the assignment.

In the group whatsapp, there continued to be some participation in the daily discussion, and the daily battle to stem the tide of constant Arabic chatter in the group.  I had asked one of the other teachers to translate the conversations for me, just because I was curious to know if perhaps they were helping each other understand grammar or something helpful like that.  She told me that most of it was typical teenage girls stuff.  They commented on each others hair, and told silly jokes, and in general said nothing at all of importance.  It was so annoying to be constantly getting notifications of posts in the app, only to find a long discussion in Arabic about nail polish colors (or about something to do with colors, I know the color words now...).  

I suggested they start their own separate group without me in it where they could talk together as a class, but no one volunteered to start the group, so the battle for English in the English class Whatsapp group continues.

 

Students (Finally)

After mid-terms were all over, I finally got a schedule.  It very clearly told me when I would teach, and which groups I would be teaching, but it neglected to say what books I would be teaching and where in the books the students were (or should have been) at this point in the semester.

I was taking over the classes of a woman who had a heart attack, and it was unclear when she would return, so I couldn't ask her.  I asked Dr. Doha, the woman who had given me the schedule and didn't speak much English, but she just told me to ask the other English teachers.  They couldn't tell me much, but I was able to narrow down the books I was using at least.  Finally, after asking three different people, someone finally told me what unit they were on, in the last 5 minutes of the day before the weekend when I was supposed to start teaching on Sunday.

So over the weekend, I carefully planed an opening lesson with ice-breakers and lots of activities for that unit.  I showed up ready to go with markers and an eraser. I had to buy my own since after asking around it became clear that the college did not provide those - but did somehow have it in their budgets to give everyone pleather bound desk calendars and notepads - never-mind that most of the teachers didn't even have desks. (Actually those calendars came in really handy since they included both Gregorian and Hijri dates).  I went to the classroom and wrote my name and some rules on the board, and I waited for students to show up.

I waited for 10 minutes past the start of class, and then thought perhaps they all went to the lab instead of the classroom.  So I went to the lab.  No students.  I wrote a note on the board for them to come to the classroom just in case, and went back to the classroom to wait some more.  After 30 minutes and not a single student.  I gave up and went back to the teachers lounge.

I told Dr. Doha that there were no students and she didn't seem surprised.  The students probably just assumed their teacher was still sick and so they didn't have class. She also told me I probably should have waited a little longer since it was the first class of the morning, and students often came that late to class, but usually not all of them.  I went back to the classroom and sat there for the whole 2 hour class period, just in case.  No students.

They must have gotten the word out to the students somehow that they had classes now because the next day my students did in fact, show up.  One small problem.  The attendance sheet was in Arabic.  Although I can read Arabic, I read it the way a kindergartner reads, sounding out each letter, and just taking a stab at the vowels, since they didn't use any vowel markers in this font.  The girls thought this was hilarious.  The worst was when there were girls with the same first name, because then I also had to sound out the father's name, the family name, and the tribe name.  I think it took about 20 minutes to take attendance that day, which as it turns out was fine with the girls, since many of them were still strolling casually into class at half past.

Anticipating a problem, I told them from the start that anyone coming more than 10 minutes late would be marked late, giving them a 10 minute grace period, and that anyone missing more than half of the class would be considered absent for that day. I also told the girls that class was scheduled for 2 hours, but that actual teaching time would only be 1 hour and 45 minutes. I gave them the choice to either end class 15 minutes before the next hour with no break, or 10 minutes before the next hour with a 5 minute break in the middle.  They unanimously chose to end class 15 minutes before the next hour with no breaks.  I was surprised, but grateful, since I was sure they would be late coming back from break too, which would ultimately make class time even shorter.

This all took much longer than anticipated, and since we had already lost a day, I decided to skip the ice-breakers and go straight on into the material.  This might have been a mistake.  It's always nice to develop a good rapport with your students right away, and ice-breakers or a fun little game in the beginning is a nice way to do that.  Instead, my students first impressions of me were bumbling through the roll, a list of rules, and then straight on into some grammar.  Granted, we did play a few games that class, but the students seemed more confused by it than anything else.  Teacher, you want us to move? We can move the chairs?  We should work in groups?  What do you want us to do teacher, you didn't tell us what page?

When I clarified that what I was asking them to do wasn't from the book, several students looked shocked.  These were the same students that I would realize later had old books from the previous semester's students already filled out.  So when we did exercises in class, mysteriously, many of the girls with the worst English would volunteer to give answers, and usually gave correct ones, since they were simply reading someone else's work.  No wonder they were terrified that first day when I was asking them to use English for communication rather than  copying.

Overall, the students seemed friendly and respectful, I didn't have to shout to get their attention, and they didn't talk over me.  I hope this isn't just first day nervousness and excitement putting them on their best behavior... but we will see.

Proctering Exams

After two weeks of doing basically nothing at work, it was nice to be assigned to proctor exams.  The trouble was the exam schedule was completely in Arabic, so I wasn't really clear where I was supposed to be or when.  I asked for help to find out where I needed to be, and when, which was good, since it turned out I was reading the schedule backwards.  Since it is all right to left, the morning shift is where I though the afternoon shift was.  I would have shown up in the right place at the wrong time, that is if I could have found the place.  None of the lecture halls are labeled, but since everyone else who works here seems to know where they all are, it didn't appear to be a problem for them.  I asked someone where the Al Farabi hall was, and they looked at me like I was crazy for not knowing.  Then they just vaguely mentioned downstairs and gestured off to the left.

Never one to pass up an adventure, I went off to find it.  Going downstairs is more of an ordeal then it sounds.  There is a staircase that leads directly down, but since a section of that floor is used by the men in the management offices, if you want to go downstairs without your Abaya on, you first have to go upstairs to the third floor to by-pass that section of the second floor with men on it, and then down on the other side all the way to the first floor.  So after all that, I ended up downstairs but still lost.  I followed the girls rushing around looking panicked, and sure enough, they led me to a large lecture hall, and sure enough, there was a familiar English teacher who welcomed me, so I figured I was in the right place.

There were over 100 chairs all in neat rows.  The girls were instructed to leave their bags and cell phones at the front of the room and take only a pen or pencil.  Most were good about following this rule, but some had to be asked more than once to put their phones or bags away.  The first exam was two hours long, and even though most of them finished in 30 minutes, they had to stay put until an hour and 15 minutes in.  I imagine it was as much torture for them as it was for me to be pacing up and down.  There were about 10 teachers assigned to watch the students and be sure there was no cheating, and make sure the ID's matched the number the students wrote on the exams.  Since there are no pictures on the ID's for modesty reasons, one assumes that the student is who she says she is.

The first day of proctoring, was sort of exciting, but, after two weeks of it, including Saturdays, I was pretty much over it. I think I only survived the boredom because I got smart after the fist day, and started wearing my hijab so that I could have in earphones and no one would notice.  I was able to finish the whole audiobook of "Stranger in a Strange Land" and got about half-way through Peter Pan.

Which isn't to say there weren't some exciting moments.  During one session, someone forgot to turn the ringer off on their phone, but it kept ringing and ringing and ringing, so we teachers had to search through the pile of bags to try to find the offending phone so it wouldn't keep distracting everyone.  Another time, a girl got ill, and we had to rush her off to the bathroom.  Even though she had nearly finished, because she left the room early, her test was disqualified and she had to take the whole thing again later.  Interestingly, there is nothing to stop you from arriving to the test late.  Many girls didn't bother showing up until 30 or even 45 minutes into the testing period.  Which is all well and good if they don't need the whole time to finish the test.  But at the end of one test (in fact, 5 min. after the end of one test) I literally got into a tug of war with a girl who had arrived late, and didn't finish, and was now in tears, trying to tear her paper out of my hands when I tried to collect it.  I might have had more sympathy for her if I hadn't seen her chatting in the hallway before the test, so I knew she wasn't late because of her driver or anything truly unavoidable.

The most frustrating part about the whole deal for me though was the contradictions inherent in the whole system.  They seem to go out of their way to make the exams appear to be fair and make it impossible to cheat, but in the end, they find ways to cheat themselves.  Here is an example.  The students did extremely poorly on the English Exams, and by extremely important, I mean, less than half of the students received a passing mark.  Since the mid-term exam is 20% of the final grade, and the final exam is 60%, that didn't leave much hope that many of them would pass.  The solution?  Well, we certainly can't offer extra tutoring or more classes, or anything as sensible and educationally sound as all that.  No, instead, we had to give them all another "very very easy" test, to boost their scores.  Yup, lower the standards.  That's definitely how we should be training the women who will someday be doing root canals and open heart surgery.