I had very good schooling in English since I went to a private boarding School, where I had to write an essay every week and had a good introduction to English grammar and literature. I was at the school to learn ancient Greek, because of my interest in archaeology.
It was this interest in archaeology and the fact that as a young man, accompanying my parents, who were English teachers in Jordan, that I got my first job, as a volunteer, teaching English and French at a private school in Jordan in 1975. I got the job in Jordan by writing to a neighboring school for girls which my sister had attended when we were in Jordan. The enjoyment of the job teaching English in Jordan was partly that I was near my archaeological interests, but I soon got involved in trying to improve my teaching methods.
The French cultural center in Jordan arranged for me to attend a summer workshop in teaching foreign languages by the audio visual method. What I learned at this workship made a lasting impression on me and I have used what I learned there recently in my current job in Saudi Arabia, teaching English at Jeddah Teachers’ College.
From my base in Jeddah, I have also improved by language teaching skills by doing the CELTA(Cambridge Certificate of English Language Teaching to Adults) one summer. This training helped me learn techniques to avoid lecturing in English class and work on having the students work in pairs or groups so that they, and not so much the teacher, talk and practice talking.
Although I have come to realize that my best asset is the fact that I am a well educated native speaker, the audio visual training and the CELTA have added good techniques to my foreign language teaching.
2/07/2008
Shati' Tea and Falafel Shop, Gaza
Idea for an English and Arabic text book: realia from the classics of Arabic Literature: Kalila wa Dimna, Alf Laila wa Laila, Avicenna, Ibn Khaldun
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