English as an Academic Language in UAE - Research Paper Example

English as an Academic Language in UAE 25-11 English as an Academic Language in UAE Abstract: The world has seen the expansion of English language ever since the British occupied North America. Throughout the British Empire, English became a language which symbolized power. (Wodak, R., & Corson, D.1997). The research paper concentrates on some of the major political, social and cultural issues surrounding the teaching of English at an undergraduate level. Introduction: The role of English language has been perpetuated in government, undergraduate and in postgraduate education by a number of post-colonial states. Language education in such states is largely governed by Anglo-American undergraduate academic structures and language books. The general term employed to refer to the teaching of English language as a foreign language is ELT or English Language Teaching. Since the 1950s, ELT has expanded exponentially in order to provide quality English language education not only in Europe but in Asian countries as well. Today, English is a ‘world language’ and therefore the primary concern of ELT professionalism is to not only concentrate on the provision of world class linguistic skills but also to promote other pedagogical aspects of English language. Unfortunately, ELT has a number of political, cultural and social ramifications, some of which pose serious obstacles in the continuation of English language education in some of the prominent Asian countries such as the United Arab Emirates. (Wodak, R., & Corson, D.1997). The research paper concentrates on some of the major political, social and cultural issues surrounding the teaching of English at undergraduate level. Development of ELT: ELT professionalism evolved on the basis of diverse sources. One such source was the development of educational programs focusing on adult foreign language learning throughout the European countries and UAE. Another valuable source in the development of ELT was the exponential growth of anthropological and structural linguistics in the United States of America. Moreover, the influence of anthropological and structural linguistics development has not only been limited to the territorial boundaries of the United States but has also permeated and influenced the educational system of United Arab Emirates. The third most important source in the development of ELT professionalism was the education in British colonial states. An important aspect of ELT development in colonial states was: first, the development was a perfect reflection of the events that happened in the metropolis, and second, it simply failed to address the cultural, political and social educational needs of the inhabitants of the vast British Empire. Thus, the colonized people were more or less treated as puppets loyal to the British officials. However, certain factors posed obstacles in the development of ELT professionalism. One such factor was the development of other European languages such as French. (Wodak, R., & Corson, D.1997). During the time the cold war broke out, Americans used English as an efficient and non-armed way to spread their influence. The federal government allocated a substantial amount of funds to be utilized in the development of English education around the world. The extent of American involvement in the development of English education can be analyzed by the fact that by 1949, more than 40 American agencies were dedicated to spread English education worldwide. Furthermore, US Information Agency together with many foundations such as Ford and Rockefeller played a decisive role in the establishment of TESOL worldwide and also to include diverse resources in the profession of ELT. By the mid 1960’s, Ford and Rockefeller were involved in more than 38 countries to incorporate TESOL as an academic discipline. ELT professionalism basically involves traditional classroom activities including curriculum development, testing methods and teacher training programs.(Wodak, R., & Corson, D.1997). English Education in United Arab Emirates: Since the early 1970s, UAE has continued to progress economically as well as socially and in order to support the exponential development educational system has also been expanded. The expansion has been widespread and throughout UAE a large number of new world class schools were established, by the end of 2004 there were total of 600 schools in UAE providing high class education. Over the last three decades, the literacy rates have accelerated from a previous low level of 20% in 1971 to a high level of 75% in the year 2001. Despite the success of UAE government in establishing an efficient educational system, lately it has been the target of severe criticisms due to some major internal defects. Some of the major problems plaguing the educational system are associated with defective methods of teaching, confused goals and missions, rigid and inflexible curricula and most importantly high dropout rates. Certain external critics believe that the educational system has some major problems some of which are threatening the integrity of the entire educational setup. Some of these problems are: inappropriate alignment between various educational goals, improper implementation and evaluation of educational programs, lack of proper teacher training facilities and the growing rate of unemployed graduate individuals. Over the past few years, UAE has been promoting itself as a society whose first priority is the provision of world class education but statistical figure convey a completely different story. Taking a look at the Emirate’s annual expenditure, we can clearly evaluate that the public expenditure on education is surprisingly low. The public expenditure on education is only 1.7% of the national gross product which is even lower than the public education expenditure in low income Asian countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh. Furthermore, only 1% of the entire educational expenditure is actually utilized for the propagation of research. Therefore, the entire educational mission needs to be modified in order to develop an appropriate alignment between the goals to be achieved and the subsequent policies to be implemented in an effort to achieve the goals. Furthermore, the educational system is in dire need of good teachers capable of delivering high quality English education and therefore it is a prerequisite that special professional programs need to be drawn up to appropriately train the teachers. On the other hand, the high number of dropout rates signifies the need to revise the entire curriculum in an effort to make it more flexible. A Flexible curriculum will not only decrease the number of drop outs but will also ensure an increase in the number of new enrollments each year. (Clarke, M. 2008). Cultural Issues: In United Arab Emirates, English educational system is influenced by a number of cultural ramifications. One of the most prominent issues faced by ELT professionalism is the lack of appropriate teacher training culture. Therefore, inexperienced and improperly trained teachers are unable to supervise their students appropriately. The present situation of English education in UAE is also affected by the Bureaucratic discourses. Therefore UAE educational culture is based on a system which believes in only delivering the literature content and then assumes that the goal of education has been accomplished. (Clarke, M. 2008). Many critics believe that there is an urgent need to deeply investigate the cultural issues which affect English education at an undergraduate level. Once the cultural issues are identified only then an effective system to eliminate can be formulated. At present most of the teachers involved in English education are Egyptians, Jordanians and Palestinians. Such teachers were preferred because they have a similar culture to the UAE and therefore were able to adapt to the new environment much more quickly than European teachers would have been able to. The standards of English teacher have always been poor in UAE due to the lack of an appropriate teacher training and evaluation program. The general deterioration of English teaching and learning standards has lately been the foci of attention of most governmental agencies. English learning at an academic level has suffered mainly because of the lack of reading and writing practices at home. Therefore, UAE students have not only suffered at the hands to improperly trained teachers but have also suffered because of cultural issues. On the other hand, UAE students show little learners interest which also proves to be a major issue preventing the acquisition of fluent English linguistic skills. In UAE undergraduate educational system is affected by the phenomenon of “disglossia”. The ingrained phenomenon has a number of ramifications. In UAE, colloquial Arabic is considered as the mother tongue and standard Arabic is the second language, therefore English becomes a third language. The majority of UAE undergraduate students have to background knowledge of English which is the primary reason why they face difficulties during the English language education. The lack of background knowledge coupled with the lack of global advantage of English acquisition appears to be the most deeply rooted cultural issue affecting the provision of language education. Moreover, a large number of school going students claim that they have been unable to develop a positive English learning desire of due to the outmoded methodology employed by their teachers in classrooms. The major cultural issues affecting English education are the scarcity of highly qualified teachers and low learning interest exhibited by students. In addition, English is a third language in UAE which leads to an array of implications. On the other hand, the outmoded methodology exercised by teachers in schools proves to be another cultural issue that hinders proper acquisition of English speaking and writing skills at an academic level. Linguistic diversity, when viewed as a resource by policy makers and language planners, leads to the adoption of policy statements in status planning activities in an attempt to ensure the development and preservation of multiple languages. This ensures that more languages are given function and importance within the national setup. Therefore, English will be preferred to use in elections, media and other social domains of a society. Moreover, corpus planners would then make sure that written forms are developed in diverse languages and acquisition planning process would involve facilitated learning of English. Social Issues: In UAE British English education is mandatory at primary and secondary school levels. UAE students are introduced with English at first grade and they continue their English education till graduation. ELT professionalism states that English language is better taught monolingually therefore, this is one of the primary social reasons that have proved to an obstacle in the provision of education. It is a well-known fact that a native would indisputably be an ideal teacher. However, the situation in UAE is opposite because most of the teachers are either Jordanians or Palestinians which do not have English as their mother language. Therefore, English education has tremendously suffered at the hands of teachers because they have no English background. Another social issue plaguing the roots of English education is that the language is not introduced at an early. It has been seen that the earlier a language is introduced the better the learning outcomes are. Therefore, in order to develop good reading and writing skills it is mandatory that parents should start speaking English with their children way before they are introduced with the language at school. This not only ensures that high linguistic skills are developed but it also paves the way towards the establishment of positive learning attitudes towards English. In UAE, Arabic is the language which is used in social gatherings therefore, this proves to be another obstacle in the acquisition of fluent English because the more a language is practiced the better the results are observed. (Wodak, R., & Corson, D.1997). In addition, the tension between nationalism and globalization has also affected linguistic dualism in UAE. The use of English is mainly associated with business and internationalism. On the other hand, the use of Arabic in UAE is widely associated with religion, tradition and localism. This dual linguistic approach is the reason why students fail to develop positive learning attitudes towards English because they are not simply acquainted with the international benefits associated with the acquisition of fluent written and spoken English. In UAE, the society-state linkages are relatively very weak and the government is not keen enough to promote English education at primary and secondary level and due to which English education has failed to acquire a high standard. (Clarke, M. 2008). The environment inside a classroom transacts extensively with the environment outside the classroom and each is influenced and molded by the other. Therefore, an ideal teacher is one who realizes that socioeconomic circumstances, social identity, family language and religion affect the student’s views and abilities in learning a foreign language. Unfortunately, majority of the teachers currently involved in ELT professionalism have failed to bridge the social and cultural gap faced by students in UAE. The repressive classroom environment together with rigorous testing methods creates a dreadful situation. A Majority of the undergraduate students experience alienation, over pressure and inequity due to which students become unable to develop positive learning attitudes. Therefore, when students are discouraged at an initial level, it becomes impossible for them to develop the desire to learn English at a professional level. Political Issues: In United Arab Emirates, English is used to mediate wider communication. In majority of primary and secondary schools, humanities and social sciences is taught in Arabic while other subjects such as mathematics and sciences are offered in English. In UAE, bilingual education was only previously offered only by elite private and international schools. However, recently English education has been mandated in all schools which have improved the standard of language acquisition. The importance of English in economic and technical domains is immense therefore, its acquisition is absolutely necessary in today’s world of globalization. Therefore, English should be the medium of higher education in UAE. ELT professionalism in United Arab Emirates has been affected by a number of political issues. The government’s over involvement in State developmental programs has sidelined the development of ELT professionalism. The government is simply not interested in the development of English language and this fact is reflected by low funds allocated for its establishment at an undergraduate level. This has several implications and the most dreadful of which is: students fail to develop positive attitude towards learning English. On the other hand, the political leaders have failed to recognize the defects of UAE’s educational system which is the reason why it continues to deteriorate at a steady rate. Another important political issue surrounding the teaching English at an undergraduate level is the failure of political authorities to recognize the fact that English education needs teachers whose mother language is English. The political agencies are required to devise ways and programs which would attract international teachers to pursue their teaching careers in United Arab Emirates. In addition, the government has been so deeply engrossed in State developmental programs and in establishing foreign relations that it has completely ignored the rising dropout rates at undergraduate level. The government has failed to recognize the rigidity of the curriculum which has been the reason for the increase in the number of drop out over the past few years. (García, O., & Baetens, B. H.2009). In today’s fast paced world, where time and distance are compressed, the importance of English learning has become vital for survival. Today’s business society requires sophisticated, well developed cross cultural dexterity for which educated students are a pre requisite. (Hamze et al 2011). Countries like Australia and United States are symbols of new economy and consider that English plays an essential role in today’s era of globalization. Therefore, today the need for English education to be facilitated in multiple ways has become greater than ever before. Conclusion: In UAE, teachers are trained improperly because of the lack of the availability of high class teacher training facilities. In accordance with a recent UNESCO research, millions of Arabs are receiving low quality education and the standard of English education is deteriorating rapidly. In addition the research reveals that the primary and secondary education system is so defective that graduate students are simply not able to cope with modern international economic and technical challenges. The fact that at an early level, UAE students fail to develop learning attitudes towards English which is the primary reason why these students are unable to cope with challenges posed by the international market. (Brandt, C.2009). The need of educated labor force has led the political authorities to develop more rigid curriculums which have been the source of high dropout rates. The primary and secondary English education system only focuses on the provision of English writing skills however, the development of fluent verbal abilities are equally important. In UAE, the rate of enrollments in primary schools is high but the number of individuals enrolling for secondary and post graduate studies is very low, which is the primary concern of UNESCO officials. (Santa Monica 2008). There is an urgent need to modernize English educational system in United Arab Emirates. Due to the lack of educated Arab individuals, a huge gap exists between the amount of educated labor force required and the amount which is actually supplied. The cultural, political and social issues surrounding the teaching of English at undergraduate levels need to be eliminated or else the entire educational system would ultimately collapse. The government needs to allocate substantial amounts of funds for the development of special English medium schools which would ensure that the language is taught monolingually. On the other hand, the government also needs to strictly evaluate the training of English teachers because ultimately the learning outcomes are influenced by the quality of content delivered by teachers. Globalization has lowered international boundaries and has resulted in greater exchange of labor than ever before. At international lever where competition is governed mainly by educational qualifications, the need for the modification of English educational system is greater than it ever was. If the educational system is not modified then international labor would greatly outpace the number of local labor force which would inevitably have disastrous implications on the integrity on United Arab Emirates. (Karoly et al 2008). References: Wodak, R., & Corson, D. (1997). 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García, O., & Baetens, B. H. (2009). Bilingual education in the 21st century: A global perspective. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell Pub. Read More