Issue One: Spring 2011

The AUC TESOL Journal (AUCTJ) is a peer-reviewed online journal published by

the American University in Cairo. The mission of AUCTJ is to publish and disseminate research conducted and best practices applied in teaching English and in teaching content in English in Egypt and the region to the academic and practitioner audiences in the rest of the world. AUCTJ is dedicated to bridge theory and classroom practices and to promote carrying out high quality research in the region. It publishes research and scholarly articles, descriptions of classroom practices that include lesson plans, teaching materials, assessments, as well as book reviews and reviews of teaching materials that describe actual experiences using these materials. The journal also publishes opinions or statements about topics that are of interest to the profession.

The Editorial Board Phyllis Wachob, Chief Editor The American University in Cairo Deena Boraie The American University in Cairo Ola Hafez The American University in Cairo Yasmine Salah El-Din The American University in Cairo Lori Fredricks The American University in Cairo Mona Fouad Attia Helwan University Ex-officio Members Atta Gebril, Research Section Editor The American University in Cairo Carol Clark, Classroom Practice Section Editor The American University in Cairo Tom Farkas, Book Review and Forum Editor The American University in Cairo Mariah Fairley English Language Fellow of the US State Department, Al Azhar University, Cairo Special Issue for Nile TESOL Skills Conference Proceedings 2011 Mariam Osman, Editor The American University in Cairo Jonah Moos The American University in Cairo Rania Jabr The American University in Cairo Webmaster Rachel Ramey The American University in Cairo

Additional Reviewers Arman Abednia Allameh Tabatabai University, Iran Mahsa Izadinia Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand Rania Jabr The American University in Cairo Heba Fathelbab Canadian International College, Cairo

Table of Contents

From the Editor Phyllis Wachob From teacher training to teacher education in second language education Arman Abednia Gendered participation: Addressing inequity in the Middle Eastern language classroom Mariah J. Fairley Sustainability as a Vehicle for Language Learning: A Sample Lesson in Persuasive Writing Kerima Nashat Reading and writing communicatively: Six challenges addressed Mariah J. Fairley and Heba Fathelbab "Good, Better, Best" Anthony Leone Teaching speaking and pronunciation: Where do I start? Robert McMullin Some from Here, Some from There: Global Culture in an English Textbook Alexander Lewko Reflections on the Egyptian landscape of linguistics Bonny Norton NESTs (Native English Speaking Teachers) & NNESTs (Non-Native English Speaking Teachers): Competence or Nativeness? Heba Fathelbab Tahrir Square as learning space and the role of English Phyllis Wachob

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From the Editor It is with great anticipation and joy that we present our first issue of the AUC TESOL Journal. It has been in the works for over a year and has been delayed by the usual start-up delays of busy personnel as well as a revolution in Egypt. However, we are now able to present a first issue with interesting and, we hope, useful articles for and about teachers and learners in the region. Our first section, on professional practice and research, contains two articles, one describing and analyzing an important concept for teachers and the other a research article. Arman Abednia, from Iran, has given us much food for thought about the differences between teacher training and teacher education. It is not merely a set of words, but a set of the mind, an approach to the profession. He has called on all of us to rethink our education of teachers to include visions of critical pedagogy as well as a focus on our learners and their needs. The second article addresses the issue of gender participation. Although the overwhelming research shows male dominance in speaking, Mariah Fairley has given our young women learners hope that they can take their linguistic space in classrooms. In her research, she describes the methods she used to invite participation by both genders, mostly by introducing controversial social topics in the form of debates and discussion with preparation. Although she was successful with some of her students, issues remain, especially with the concept of extreme silence or absenteeism. For future researchers out there, more work needs to be done. The next section of the journal is dedicated to classroom practices. Two articles describe activities that take place in classrooms, how they work, and what the consequences can be. The first article, by Kerima Nishat, from Cairo American College, tackles the issue of sustainability and how students can be engaged to solve social problems. This article describes a class project documenting a campaign against throw-away water bottles, a growing problem all over the world, not just in Egypt. The teenage factor of cool meant that refillable bottles were derisive ly rejected by many older students, even though they themselves might be in favor of recycling. Younger students tried to overcome this attitude, and the battle still goes on. The second article, by Fairley and Fathelbab, describes six challenges in our battle to get our students to read and write communicatively. Cooperative learning and its studentcentered philosophy weigh in quite extensively in these conversations. Not forgetting the downsides or the difficulties, Fairley and Fathelbab are upbeat and positive in their suggestions. The third section is for book reviews. We have three, or rather three sets, of book reviews. Anthony Leone is a lawyer turned English teacher and brings his expertise in both areas by reviewing two books that teach English for lawyers. In a balanced and nuanced review, he extols the virtues and unflinchingly points out the faults of the two volumes. His conclusion: use both. Robert McMullin, a specialist in Business English, has reviewed two volumes on speaking and pronunciation. Although the books are not new, Robert emphasizes the usefulness of the content and layout of each volume. Alexander Lewko, an MA student reviews a new book that purports to

2 be culturally neutral and/or culturally inclusive. In the world of globalized English, favoring one variety of English over another has become increasingly problematic, and indeed, teaching the culture of the English-speaking countries is increasingly being called into question. Thus, it is important that the topic of culture - many cultures be addressed in our textbooks. Teachers can provide examples and ideas from their own culture, but may not be familiar with others and thus can rely on sources such as well-written textbooks. The last section in the journal is our Forum where opinions or statements about the issues affecting our profession are presented. In October 2010, AUCs English Language Institute hosted Bonny Norton from the University of British Columbia as a Distinguished Visiting Professor. After that visit, I invited Bonny to give us some of her thoughts on the state of English Language teaching in Egypt. She did, but when the journal finally was ready for publication, she asked that we note that she had written her essay before the January 25 Revolution. Perhaps Bonny can come back to Egypt to see what has changed and perhaps re-envision some of her ideas. Heba Fathelbab has researched the topic of bicultural teachers and now gives us some thoughts on the perennial issue of Non-Native Speaking English Teachers (NNEST) and their disempowered position vis--vis their Native Speaking English Teacher (NEST) colleagues. Although this has been addressed by TESOL International and other TESOL organizations, there still remains discrimination in hiring, promotion, and pay. We cannot ignore this issue and hope that it will go away, but by writing and publishing about unfair practices, we hope that the future will be different. Finally we have an essay, written by our editor, about the role of English in a new Egypt. Although the revolution is not over, the conclusion is that the world has noticed us, not only because of the bravery and endurance of the youth in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt, but because, in many cases, it was carried out in English, the global language. It is the language of the youth of the future, through the new media, and it now belongs to a new group. This group comprises not just native English speakers, but also the new speakers of English who will make and change the language to suit their purposes. May they live long and prosper. We wish to thank those teachers and researchers from Egypt and the region who have contributed to this issue. We hope that this space can be a place where research is presented, teaching practices are explained and described, books and materials are reviewed, and a lively forum takes root. Although hosted by the English Language Institute at the American University in Cairo and co-sponsored by NileTESOL, we welcome articles and reviews from elsewhere in the region. No endeavor of this magnitude can be done alone. I have received enormous help from the Section Editors: Atta Gebril, the Research Editor; Carol Clark, the Teaching Practices Editor; and Tom Farkas, the Forum and Book Review Editor. Also, thanks go to Tom Farkas who acted as the copy editor, and the web master, Rachel Ramey. Reviewers for this issue gave much time and energy to reviewing articles, but also reviewing newly created rubrics. The authors, as well, have endured innumerable emails from an inexperienced chief editor. This work has led to a steep learning curve for all of us and I sincerely hope that lessons learned will benefit the journal long into the future.

3 I hope you enjoy this issue and pass on the website URL to colleagues and friends. We plan to have a printable pdf of the entire issue soon. It will be found on the same page as the web-only issue link. Phyllis Wachob Chief Editor

From Teacher Training to Teacher Education in Second Language Education Arman Abednia English Language and Literature Department, Allameh Tabatabai University

Abstract
In this article, a brief introduction to second language teacher training will be presented, and it will be argued that it does not do the complex nature of teaching justice, tends to look at teachers as implementers of others ideas, and is mainly focused on short -term and immediate goals of ELT. As an appropriate alternative, I will argue for teacher education since it tries to contribute to a continuous process of intellectual and experiential growth of teachers who are believed to have the potential to think critically and act creatively. Following the comparison of these approaches in terms of their philosophical principles, I will make some suggestions as to how to run teacher education courses in line with its underlying principles.

Key words: teacher education, teacher training . Teacher Training Many teacher education programs that are currently conducted around the world are believed to be training-oriented, meaning that they focus on teachers' responsibilities which are of immediate concern, such as how to manage cooperative activities or how to teach grammar inductively (Richards, 1989, 2008; Wallace, 1995). Therefore, they mainly build on short-term and immediate goals, which, regarding the above examples, can be preparing teachers to conduct cooperative activities effectively or developing necessary skills to teach grammar inductively. These goals, which form the basis of training programs, are mainly determined by a number of experts who are believed to possess the essential technical knowledge and skills of teaching and, therefore, can transfer such knowledge and skills to trainees through some prescriptions externally defined and delineated in methodology books (Freeman, 2001; Richards & Farrell, 2005). Some other examples of training-oriented goals are learning how to use effective strategies to open a lesson, using effective questioning techniques, and techniques for giving learners feedback on performance (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 3). Teacher training is mainly aimed at training teachers to develop and display teaching behaviors which match those of effective teachers. That is, there are certain behaviors that have been empirically shown to characterize effective teaching, and, thus, teachers need to develop them if they want to be considered effective in their profession (Cochran-Smith, 2004). Such behaviors form the basis of the content of the program. That is, the content of teacher training programs consists of skills and techniques that are generally determined a priori by teacher trainers based on a clear theoretical rationale;, address those aspects of teaching which are observable, teachable, and measureable;, and are related to specific situations. The effectiveness of the program can then be evaluated based on measurement of the differences made in teachers' expertise between the pre-training and the post-training stages (Richards, 1989). Teacher training is underpinned by a number of major philosophical principles, some of which are discussed below.

Teacher Training is Positivist Positivism treats knowledge as factual, residing outside of human interactions and conceptualizations, and to be discovered rather than constructed and made sense of in personal and social ways. Thus, passing and transferring rather than questioning and reconsidering information are the main goals of education, as perceived by positivists (Hanley, 1994). In the context of teacher preparation, it seems that the same ideology has colored the nature of teacher training, the procedures used in such programs, the interactions that happen between teacher trainers and student teachers, and the ways in which teachers are evaluated. More precisely, teachers are not necessarily expected to act creatively and to incorporate innovative and alternative strategies based on the particulars of the local context in which they teach. Instead, they are mainly required to follow a more or less prescriptive curriculum/method which, at times, "actually dictates every teacherspoken word during instruction" (Imig & Imig, 2006, p. 289). In other words, they are mostly expected to play the role of passive technicians who, through modeling, practice others' orders and norms presented in the training program content (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, 2006). This prescriptivist approach has its origins in the establishment of policies which are in line with dominant market values such as raising students' scores on high-stakes tests (Cochran-Smith, 2004) and, therefore, discourage reform initiatives (Bartell, 2001). This resultant market orientation is called instrumentalism, another principle of teacher training explained in the following. Teacher Training is Instrumentalist Teacher training programs are basically designed and implemented so as to help meet the demands of the market, such as certification standards (Bartell, 2001; Carson, 2005; McKibbin, 2001). This concern leads to teachers' exclusive focus on technical issues such as class management or implementation of instructional strategies which can help students obtain a high score on, say, an IELTS test. Instrumentalism, which is based on a "what works" mentality (Mockler, 2005), supports policies which are meant to fully align educational programs with the priorities of the labor market (Helsby, 1999) and changes educational programs, teacher education included, into agents of economic prosperity (Ben-Peretz, 2001). To make this happen, teacher education programs cannot and should not prioritize teachers' autonomy in developing their own theories of action since they may decide to focus on goals other than economic and functionalist ones. Therefore, the only room for maneuver provided for teachers is within a technical scope. That is, they are just allowed to decide on techniques to meet pre-defined and unchangeable ends (Cochran-Smith, 2004; Goodlad, 1998). This approach is generally referred to as technocratic rationality, the focus of the next section. Teacher Training is Technical-rational Due to its positivist and instrumentalist nature, teacher training mainly concerns itself with practical and technical aspects of teaching (Bartolome, 2004), and, in keeping with delivery models of teacher education, it aims at producing larger numbers of teachers and training them in "requisite" and "relevant" skills (Bartell,

6 2001). This technical-rational discourse builds on classical and practical views of professionalism which reflect adherence to an existing body of technical skills and knowledge already developed in an empirical and evidence-based manner. In keeping with this technical view, student teachers in TESOL training programs are mainly exposed to some very practical techniques of teaching different language skills and components;, there is not much serious dialog about the rationale behind them and whether teachers think of them as the most appropriate techniques to use in their own local setting, and teachers are not encouraged to gain theoretical insights into them. This view ignores the artistry and unpredictable nature of teaching (Mockler, 2005). With regard to the practical usefulness of the technical-rational discourse of teacher training, Singh and Richards (2006) lament that this approach is bound to be defective as it more or less fails to affect language teachers' classroom practices since it ignores "how human learning is emergent through social interactions, and where context and identity play crucial mediating roles" (p. 150). In this regard, Dewey, back in 1904, also warned all educationalists against exclusive focus on short-term interim instructional objectives which essentially lead to a myopic treatment of longterm educational goals in teacher education (Beyer, 2001). In light of the above, Id like to conclude that teacher training cannot do the complex and dynamic task of ELT justice due to its tunnel vision, which leads to a narrow look at the technical side of the story and neglect of its intellectual and creative essence. In the following section, I will discuss a more transformative, critically-oriented, and reflection-based approach to the professional development of teachers, i.e. teacher education. Teacher Education Due to the shortcomings of a training approach, teacher preparation has been expanded to encompass the reflective and critical dimensions of teaching as well (Richards, 2008). This expanded framework, which is usually called teacher education, is based on principles of sociocultural theory (Vygotsky, 1978) and critical theories of education such as critical pedagogy and transformative education (Freire, 1972). The main aim of teacher education is to prepare teachers who have the ability to critically reflect upon different aspects of the teaching profession, propose their own theories-in-action, and bring about positive changes (Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Williams & Burden, 1997). Quite opposite to teacher training, which focuses on short-term objectives, ELT teacher education programs aim at a continuous process of intellectual and experiential growth and prioritize long-term goals such as understanding how the process of second language development occurs and developing an understanding of different styles of teaching (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 4). Moreover, unlike teacher training, which requires teachers to follow experts views, in teacher education, the theoretical basis is just a starting point rather than a prescription since teaching is considered to be a personal and intuitive response to what goes on in the classroom. In the following section, some of the main principles of teacher education are explained. Teacher Education is Constructivist Mere focus on teaching behaviors and techniques which have been handed down to practitioners by some theoreticians has given rise to many professional organizations developing a common system of values and norms, conveying the

7 imperative that teachers are expected to "either get better at teaching or get out of the business" (Cochran-Smith, 2001, p. 263). Due to widespread dissatisfaction of many teachers and teacher educators with this positivistic attitude to effective teaching, teacher education has been expanded to take into account how teachers make sense of their teaching profession and develop their own theories of pedagogy (Freeman, 1995; Singh & Richards, 2006). This constructivist approach encourages the belief that there are alternate ways and styles of teaching (Cochran-Smith, 2001) and, therefore, that teachers should come up with their own theories of practice based on their background, knowledge, and experience rather than wait for some experts to do so for them (McMorrow, 2007). In other words, it is assumed that, while the methods and techniques presented in methodology books have been put there because the authors have found them useful and appropriate in their own contexts, they will not necessarily prove to be as useful and situationally appropriate in the settings where trainees are going to teach since they are going to teach a particular group of students who have particular needs and objectives within a particular culture (Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Of course, this doesnt mean that in teacher education student teachers are not presented with useful technical information as to what to do in different situations. Rather, different ways of teaching a certain language aspect or skill or conducting a certain task are discussed, and student teachers are encouraged to deeply reflect on different techniques and how useful they might be in a given situation and for a given group of learners. Teacher Education is Critical and Transformative Mockler (2005) clearly asserts that, in the face of the competing demands imposed on teachers such as efficiency, measurability, and accountability to a set of established standards, the best type of teaching and, by the same token, teacher education, is the one which contributes to the formation of critical human beings who can act creatively and change society for the better. If a teacher education program really strives to develop teachers who qualify as transformative intellectuals (Giroux, 1983), teachers' criticality must be given a high priority since action without critical reflection results in mindless activism (Freire, 1972). Teachers need to develop a critical consciousness of themselves and their environment and, accordingly, transform them (Kincheloe, 2008). Therefore, in teacher education teachers are motivated to develop self-questioning habits so as to appreciate their strengths and recognize and transform their personal biases (Baldwin, Buchanan & Rudisill, 2007). They also need to develop critical thinking skills which can help them problematize what they observe and experience around themselves. In teacher education programs, these habits are usually developed through tasks such as writing critical reflective journals, sharing ideas and experiences with each other in dialogical activities such as group discussion and dialog journal writing, and reading texts critically (Singh & Richards, 2006). When teachers develop a critical attitude to themselves and their environment, they can act transformatively since they are able to recognize problems and limitations and, thus, can come up with appropriate solutions which contribute to the development of individuals and society. Teacher Education is Theoretically Oriented

8 In teacher training, the highly complex process of teacher development is reduced to the development of certain necessary skills for meeting predetermined objectives at the cost of developing teachers' theoretical knowledge of and insight into teaching. That is, teachers are not presented with theoretical issues to think about and make sense of based on their own local experiences, nor are they encouraged to develop their own personal theories. To bridge this gap, which some refer to as deskilling teachers (Kincheloe, 2008), advocates of teacher education have attached a lot of importance to involving teachers in theoretical discussions as well as providing them with the a space for developing their own theories of action in a reflective, critical, and situated manner (Hedgcock, 2002; Leistyna, 2007). If teachers are just given techniques to implement in their classes, they are highly likely to get confused and fail to act appropriately and innovatively when they are faced with different contexts and students since the set of techniques they have mastered in teacher training courses, no matter how exhaustive, does not necessarily guarantee their appropriateness and effectiveness in every context. However, when teachers develop in-depth insight into teaching and its subtleties, they are no longer limited to others' recipes since their knowledge of the different dimensions of teaching helps them make decisions in different situations in an autonomous, creative, and context-sensitive manner (Bax, 1997). Despite the above apparently dichotomous manner in which teacher training and teacher education have been compared, Id like to emphasize that there is almost no program of teacher preparation which fully represents either teacher training or teacher education, and it is more realistic to consider these two approaches as two extreme poles of a continuum which can be depicted as follows: Teacher Training Positivist Instrumentalist Technicalrational

Teacher Education Constructivist Critical and transformative Theoreticallyoriented

Concluding Remarks In light of the above comparison of ELT teacher training and teacher education in terms of their underlying principles, the position that this paper tends to adopt is that, while we should consciously avoid ignoring the advantages of teacher training and incorporate them into programs of teacher preparation, teacher education generally seems to provide a more appropriate framework because of its more reflective and transformative orientation. Although marvelous writings have discussed at length how to conduct second language teacher education programs (e.g. Farrell, 2007; Richards & Farrell, 2005), Id like to conclude this paper with some suggestions as to how to put the above principles of teacher education into action. First of all, if teacher education aims at helping teachers develop their own understanding of second language teaching rather than passively consuming others ideas and understandings, the construction of student teachers professional identity, i.e. their definition of their teacher selves and professional responsibilities, must be a priority in the process of learning to teach (Smagorinsky, Cook, Moore, Jackson, &

9 Fry, 2004). If trainees are merely given information and hands-on activities about techniques of teaching grammar, managing collaborative tasks, etc., they leave the training without having made deliberate attempts to develop their professional identities (Richards, 1989). Although they may be very good at implementing certain techniques of teaching L2, they may not have thought about why they are teaching and what other ways of looking at teaching exist. However, focusing on teachers professional identity construction in teacher education helps teachers take the initiative to question their unexamined beliefs, gain insights into new ways of looking at and practicing teaching, and, thus, act reflectively and creatively. To this end, they must be provided with ample opportunity to reflect on their own ideas as well as exchange ideas with each other, challenge each others beliefs, receive feedback from their peers and the educator, and, therefore, revisit their understandings. Writing reflective journals can encourage teachers critical reflection on proposed theories and techniques as well as their own understanding of issues. Dialog among teachers through pair, group, and class discussions as well as peer assessment (such as peer observation) can provide another opportunity for teachers to share their personal ideas and question each others teaching beliefs and behaviors. An immediate result of these tasks will be teachers becoming better prepared to teach reflectively and creatively and to contribute to such challenging tasks as preparing materials rather than merely teach what they are told the way they are told. To prepare teachers who can act reflectively and autonomously in their classes, they should also be encouraged to contribute to content and tasks provided in teacher education programs which then have a negotiated syllabus. In many teacher training programs, syllabi are designed a priori and in line with institutionally defined objectives and standards. What is practically ignored is that teachers are different and, thus, have different needs, interests, styles of development, and even purposes of teaching, and that they are going to teach people who are different in unpredictable ways. In addition, even during a teacher education program, needs and priorities may change. Thus, especially in in-service programs where teachers are already familiar with the basics of TESOL, only a general framework should remain in place, and, therefore, course details cannot be decided on a priori. Rather, different aspects of the course, such as content and instructional and assessment procedures, should be negotiated with student teachers and even renegotiated throughout the program. In this way, the program becomes dynamic, student teachers feel like co-owners of the course, and their motivation for learning and development is improved. However, to avoid undue confusion, instead of throwing them in at the deep end, teacher educators should show student teachers how to contribute to the process of course development and materials production and selection. Generally, a tangible outcome of this approach is that student teachers will be able to contribute to decisions that go beyond the typical responsibilities of an implementer of others ideas. Finally, improving student teachers theoretical know ledge of ELT must be a priority. As mentioned above, in many training programs, teachers are mainly expected to practice others theories through certain techniques and strategies. This approach fails to prepare teachers to think creatively and develop innovative strategies in new situations. Since teachers are expected to become informed, critical, and creative practitioners, they need to gain adequate theoretical knowledge and insight in order to act appropriately in different settings. To go beyond spoon-feeding teachers with some practical techniques to solve predictable learning problems, a teacher education program should incorporate critical reading and analysis of theories. In this way, student teachers can develop insight into many different aspects of teaching and,

11 accordingly, can introduce innovative strategies when they face new situations. At the same time, since teachers are often too busy to read, teacher educators need to think of and incorporate appropriate solutions. For example, in an in-service teacher education course, I assigned some of the short papers published in the Key Concepts in ELT section of The ELT Journal as course readings. This section publishes very short and simple definitions of key issues and concepts in English language teaching such as focus on form, feedback, and noticing. The student teachers found the readings interesting since they were about a wide range of important topics related to teaching a second language and were short and written in clear and accessible language. Also, they found them practically useful since the pieces generated in-depth reflection and discussion about the situations and challenges they faced in their own classes and how they could deal with them. Preparing second language teachers who can think critically and act creatively appears to be an extremely daunting task as we are experiencing an era where teacher professionalism is under assault (Kincheloe, 2004, p. 50). However, much better than a fatalist mindset which makes us sit and desperately wait for a miracle is a utopian attitude which encourages us to step up, take action, and make small but meaningful changes in the status quo. Fingers crossed and sleeves rolled up!

References Baldwin, S.C., Buchanan, A. M. and Rudisill, M. E. (2007). What teacher candidates learned about diversity, social justice, and themselves from service-learning experiences. Journal of Teacher Education, 58, 4, 315-327. Bartell, C. A. (2001). Bridging the Disconnect between Policy and Practice in Teacher Education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28, 1, 189-198. Bartolome, L. (2004). Critical pedagogy and teacher education: radicalizing prospective teachers. Teacher Education Quarterly, 31, 1, 97-122. Bax, S. (1997). Roles for teacher educator in context-sensitive teacher education. ELT Journal, 51, 232-241. Ben-Peretz, M. (2001). The impossible role of teacher educators in a changing world. Journal of Teacher Education, 52, 1, 48-56. Beyer, L. (2001). The value of critical perspectives in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 52, 2, 151-163. Carson, T. (2005). Beyond instrumentalism: The significance of teacher identity in educational change. Journal of the Canadian Association for Curriculum Studies, 3, 1, 1-7.

Cochran-Smith, M. (2001). Reforming teacher education. Competing agendas. Journal of Teacher Education, 52, 4, 263-265. Cochran-Smith, M. (2004).The problem of teacher education. Journal of teacher

11 education, 55, 4, 294-299. Farrell, T. (2007). Reflective language teaching. From theory to practice. London and New York: Continuum. Freeman, D. (1995). Asking Good Questions: Perspectives From Qualitative Research on Practice, Knowledge, and Understanding in Teacher Education. TESOL Quarterly, 29, 3, 581-585. Freeman, D. (2001). Second language teacher education. In The Cambridge guide to teaching English to speakers of other languages. eds. R. Carter and D. Nunan, 72-79. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Freire, P. (1972). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Penguin Books. Giroux, H. A. (1983). Theory and resistance in education. South Hadley, Mass: Bergin and Garvey. Goodlad, J. I. (1998). Teacher education: For what? Teacher Education Quarterly, 25, 4, 16-23. Hanley, S. 1994 On constructivism. Retrieved November, 5, 2009, from http://www.towson.edu/csme/mctp/Essays/Constructivism.txt, Maryland Collaborative for Teacher Preparation. Hedgcock, J. S. (2002). Towards a socioliterate approach to second language teacher education. The Modern Language Journal, 86, 2, 299-317. Helsby, G. (1999). Changing teachers work, Buckingham. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Imig, D.G. and Imig, S. R. (2006).What do beginning teachers need to know? An essay. Journal of Teacher Education, 57, 3, 286291. Kincheloe, J. L. (2008). Critical pedagogy primer. New York: Peter Lang. Kincheloe, J. L. (2004). The Knowledges of Teacher Education: Developing a Critical Complex Epistemology. Teacher Education Quarterly, 31, 1, 49-66. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2003). Beyond methods: Macrostrategies for language teaching. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Kumaravadivelu, B. (2006). Understanding language teaching: From method to post method. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Leistyna, E. (2007). Neoliberal non-sense. In McLaren and Kincheloe (Eds.), Critical pedagogy. Where are we now? (pp. 97-123). New York: Peter Lang.

McKibbin, M. D. (2001). One Size Does Not Fit All: Reflections on Alternative Routes to Teacher Preparation in California. Teacher Education Quarterly, 28, 1, 133-149.

12 McMorrow, M. (2007). Teacher education in the postmethod era. ELT Journal, 61, 4, 375-377. Mockler, N. (2005). Transforming Teachers: new professional learning and transformative teacher professionalism. Journal of In-service Education, 31, 4, 733-746. Richards, J. C. (1989). Beyond training: approaches to teacher education in language teaching. A keynote address given at a workshop on Second Language Teaching Education, Macquarie University, Sydney. Richards, J. C. (2008). Second language teacher education today. RELC Journal, 39, 2, 158-177. Richards J. C. and Farrell, T. S. C. (2005). Professional development for language teachers. Strategies for teacher learning. New York: Cambridge University Press. Singh, G., and Richards, J. C. (2006). Teaching and learning in the language teacher education course room: a critical sociocultural perspective. RELC, 37, 2, 149175. Smagorinsky, P., Cook, L. S., Moore, C., Jackson, A. Y. and Fry, P. G. (2004). Tensions in learning to teach. Accommodation and development of a teaching identity. Journal of Teacher Education, 55, 1, 8-24. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Wallace, M. (1995). Training foreign language teachers: a reflective approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Williams, M., and Burden, R. L. (1997). Psychology for language teachers: A social constructivist approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

About the author: Arman Abednia is a sessional lecturer at Allameh Tabataba'I University, English Language and Literature Department. He is interested in critical pedagogy, teacher education and needs analysis. He can be reached at arman.abednia@gmail.com.

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Gendered participation: Addressing inequity in the Egyptian language classroom Mariah J. Fairley English Language Resource Center, Al-Azhar University, Cairo

Abstract
Research has found that about one third of the students in a given classroom are silent, and that female students participate less than their male counterparts. While non-participation does not necessarily equate with disengagement, it does pose a serious problem for EFL professionals since oral practice is arguably the most important factor affecting SLA. This article explores gendered participation in the Egyptian EFL college classroom, revisiting the issues of male conversational dominance and female silence. Based on the poststructuralist theory that individual differences such as willingness to communicate and introversion are not fixed psychological traits, but rather mediated by socially situated power relations, the use of pre-speaking interventions of input and group preparation to empower nonparticipating students to participate in whole class speaking contexts were investigated. A convenience sample of 51 students in five intact, mixed-gender sections of an Egyptian intensive English program was used. Results showed a preintervention gender imbalance in dominance and silence. Post-intervention findings suggest that the interventions investigated related not only to more equal participation, including that of silent female students, but also to longer turn taking. Student and teacher perceptions further suggest that participation may strongly relate to social and situational factors.

Key words: gender, participation, male conversational dominance, female silence, input, group preparation Introduction The problem of unequal participation in the classroom has long plagued teachers in the ELT field. Indeed, some research has indicated that an average of one third of the students in any given classroom are silent, defined as those taking less than half the average number of student speaking turns during a classroom session (Jones & Gerig, 1994). In the words of MacIntyre (2007), many students are language learners but not language speakers (p. 573). Conversely, a number of studies have shown that in an average classroom, one or two students usually dominate, as defined as those taking more than twice the average number of student speaking turns (Kelly, 1988; Sunderland, 1998). Further, it has been found that more silent students tend to be female and more dominant students tend to be male (Jones & Wheatley, 1990; Jule, 2001; Kelly, 1988), suggesting that participation is at least partly linked to gender. In the Egyptian context, since it has been found that many believe that speaking in public should remain the domain of men only (Mensch, Ibrahim, Lee & El-Gibaly, 2003), it is possible that gendered participation in public speaking activities in the Egyptian classroom may be even more unequal than that found in other countries. As collective research and accumulated experience have provided a push towards a more communicative language teaching approach in recent decades (Savignon, 2001), the problem of inequity in gendered participation has increased in importance, since oral practice has now become accepted as so crucial to the language

14 learning process (e.g., Schmidt, 2001; Swain, 2005). If some female students are participating less than other students in speaking activities, then they are placed at a strong disadvantage compared to their more vocal counterparts. Might there be a solution to this problem? In the past, unequal participation was often considered an unalterable, albeit undesirable, fact of classroom dynamics. Willingness to communicate in the classroom was linked to individual differences of introversion and extraversion, traits which for many years were generally viewed as primarily fixed (Dornyei, 2009; Ellis, 2008). It seemed logical to assume that an introvert would naturally participate less and an extravert more. A number of researchers (Dornyei, 2009; Ellis, 2008; Norton, 2010; Norton-Peirce, 1995 are increasingly viewing individual differences not as fixed psychological traits but rather as socially constructed and situation- dependent. Seen in this light, inequity in gendered participation might be strongly affected by manipulating situational factors in the classroom. Since inequity in participation has been identified as a serious problem in the EFL classroom, and very few interventions have been researched to date, identifying possible solutions to the problem is urgently required, and could provide an important contribution to EFL research. Since little research had been conducted on inequity in gendered participation in the Egyptian context, it was the purpose of the present study to first investigate gender and its relationship to unequal participation in the Egyptian EFL college classroom, drawing on both observable behavior and student and teacher perceptions about participation, and second to identify and explore possible interventions. Literature Review Some Characteristics of Gendered Participation In the early decades of the emergent field of language and gender, studies were primarily concerned with documenting the extent and describing the characteristics of inequity in gendered participation in the general, mixed-gender classroom. A large number of studies, mainly conducted in western countries in the 1980s, overwhelmingly showed that male students tended to dominate in the classroom, through more and longer turn taking, interruption, topic control, and even resource and physical space hogging (e.g., Kelly, 1988; Sadker & Sadker, 1985; Whyte, 1984). A similar phenomenon was subsequently documented in countries outside the Western world (e.g. Rahimpour & Yaghoubi-Notash, 2007; She, 2000; Tsouroufli, 2002) and also specifically in the language learning classroom (e.g. Alcon, 1994; Jule, 2001). Further, a number of these studies also found that more nonparticipating or silent students tended to be female (e.g., Jones & Wheatley, 1990; Jule, 2001). When looking at the two extremes of male dominance and female silence together, a clear pattern of gendered participation emerged. A number of theories were proposed in the early years to explain male conversational dominance and female silence, as summarized by Coates (2004). While these models partially explained aspects of the inequity, they tended to view gender as binary and behavior as fixed, and as such failed to satisfactorily explain numerous findings that did not fit with these theories, such as those found in the following examples. Sunderland (1998) found that dominance could often be attributed to only a small number of male students, not all male students, which suggested that gender was not the only factor in determining a stude nts participation

15 level. Aukrust (2008) found that male dominance increased significantly with age, which suggested that inequity in gendered participation was a product of socialization. In Townsends (1998) qualitative study of three students, she found that silent students were not silent all the time, and that several factors affected their participation levels, including fear of peer judgment, which suggested that social factors, not psychological factors, were influencing their decision to participate. Because of such findings, gendered participation could no longer be viewed as purely binary or psychologically fixed. A new framework was needed, and the sociologically grounded poststructuralist framework began to rapidly fill this gap. Distinct from the psychological models described and rejected by Coates (2004), she went on to propose a dynamic model, which sees participation as strongly linked to identity. According to Norton (2010), identity is primarily socially constructed through conversation, and by nature is constantly changing, depending on social and situational variables. This model provides a better explanation as to why in one case a student might speak more, or dominate, and in another, speak not at all, or very little. In this model, socially constructed identity, real or perceived, becomes the primary variable influencing participation levels, rather than gender alone. From this theory emerged a clear need to investigate some of the social and situational factors affecting gendered participation in the classroom. Findings viewed through the eyes of the dynamic model In revisiting older studies, evidence to support the dynamic model clearly emerged in looking at the behavior of parents, teachers and male students, and also at traditional views of the acceptability of female talk. Esposito (1979) found that parents tend to interrupt their daughters twice as often as they interrupt their sons. A number of other studies found that most teachers also tend to favor male students with more attention, including with more calls, more gaze, and even more praise (e.g. Allan & Madden, 2006; Jones & Dindia, 2004; Kelly, 1988), and that some teachers discourage unsolicited call-outs from female students but not from male students (e.g., French & French, 1984; Kelly, 1988; Townsend, 1998). Several studies looking at Hall and Sandlers concept of a chilly classroom climate (1982, as cited in Allan & Madden, 2006) found that male students tend to interrupt female students more than they do other male students, by as much as 90% more (Brooks, 1982); even more disturbing are the documented incidences of female students being heckled, ridiculed, or insulted at their attempts to participate, by male students in the classroom (e.g., Baxter, 2002; Hirst, 2007; Madhok, 1992). This documented behavior of parents, teachers, and male students all suggests that female students may be discouraged by society from speaking. In order to better understand this negative behavior towards female students, it is necessary to look at societal beliefs. Traditionally, women have long been discouraged from speaking (Chambers, 1992; Coates, 2004; Romaine, 1999). While this view may no longer be consciously held by many in the present day, it may still be manifested in their unconscious behavior, such as in some of the aforementioned examples. Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that this behavior is largely unconscious, since several studies have found that teachers do not perceive unequal participation by gender in their classrooms, nor their own male differential bias (e.g., Sunderland, 2000; Whyte, 1984). However, in Middle Eastern culture, some of these views are still consciously adhered to, as documented by Al-Mahadin (2004), and Joseph and Slymovics (2001), among others. In the Egyptian context, Mensch et al.,

16 (2003) found that of a randomly selected group of 660 Egyptian adolescents aged 16 to 19, taken from a larger group of 9128 adolescents from a cross-section of Egyptian society participating in a larger study on gender roles, the majority still believe that women are less important than men, that they should adopt the role of dependence, submission, and deference to men, and that the public domain should be reserved for men. It is perhaps these findings which have prompted Hijab (2001) to state that the invisibility of women in the Arab world appears to be more serious than that of women in the rest of the world (p. 41). This research suggests that the silencing of Egyptian female students is possibly more pronounced than in western countries, or at least indicates that further research on this subject is warranted. All of these evidences of male preferential treatment and encouragement of female silence suggest that the identity of female students as silent is being influenced by the forces of socialization. In other words, individual differences are not purely natural, but may rather be at least partly a product of identity construction. Indeed, it has been shown that willingness to communicate in the classroom is strongly predicted by anxiety (Peng, 2007; Woodrow, 2006), which has been found to be at higher levels in female students than male (Holmes, 1995; Mills, 2006), including in the Middle Eastern context (Alansari, 2006). This anxiety can be caused by prior negative experiences with peer or teacher judgment, which have been documented to be more prevalent for female students than male (e.g., Baxter, 2002; Madhok, 1992). This anxiety may in turn lead to reduced participation (Cao & Philps, 2006). The need for social and situation- based solutions Poststructuralist researchers look at the conditions under which people speak. Borrowing Bourdieus (1991) concept of cultural capital, which views participation as dependent on how much right a person has to sp eak in a given context, and on how much power that person has to impose reception (p. 76) in that given context, Norton (2010) focuses on the need to increase the cultural capital of a nonparticipating student in order to empower this person to speak. Since every individual has multiple identities, some stronger and some weaker, it should be the goal of the teacher to help students find and assume those stronger identities that will allow them to speak. By manipulating social and situational factors, a teacher should in theory be able to create conditions under which female students and other marginalized identities can speak (Pennycook, 1999). Norton Peirce (1995) asserts that these social and situational factors can best be identified through classroom-based research. It was within this poststructuralist framework and classroom-based research context that the methodology for the present study was developed. Interventions Several techniques have been suggested in the literature to create conditions under which silent students might choose to speak. The first relates to topic choice. A good topic is one that is interesting and relevant to students (Brown, 2001; Dornyei, 2005). It may be that controversial topics generate more participation, because they can incite enough emotion to make students forget to be silent (Fairley, 2009; Chi, 2008; Johnson & Johnson, 1985). In other words, the identity of defender of a particular stand might take ascendancy over that of gender. Topics of a human, social, or cultural nature have been shown to generate most interest from females

17 (Bjerrum Nielsen & Davies, 1997; Shehadeh, 1999). Based on this research, controversial topics relating to marriage were chosen for the study. Pre-speaking activities have been shown to generate more participation. Video clips and reading texts used input have been shown to help learners access their prior knowledge and provide new information about a topic, thus generating ideas for them to speak about (Cao & Philps, 2006; Tomitch, 1990). When a student focuses on new information in English, the gender identity might possibly be overshadowed enough for that student to speak out. The provision of planning and preparation time before speaking has been shown to generate more participation, because it allows students to organize their thoughts and prepare themselves to speak, in addition to possibly reducing their speaking anxiety (Baxter, 1999; Ellis, 2005; Ortega, 2005; Townsend, 1998). Additionally, it appears that guided and structured planning time is more effective than unguided time (Foster & Skehan, 1999). The use of worksheets may be an effective means to achieve this organization and preparation of thoughts (Sangarun, 2005; Townsend, 1998). Finally, a number of researchers have found that cooperative group pre-speaking activities can help to encourage participation in the main speaking activities, because they can promote security and reduce anxiety (Dornyei, 2001; Johnson & Johnson, 1985; Kagan, 1994; Slavin, 1996). Additionally, they might strengthen a speakers right to speak and power to impose reception (Bourdieu, 1991, p. 76), since the speaker speaks on behalf of the group, not the individual. Therefore, assuming the more powerful identity of spokesperson for the group may take ascendancy over the weaker identity of gender. Since little research had been conducted on the identification of social and situational factors that might be manipulated to help silent students take their linguistic space, especially in the Middle Eastern context, it was the aim of the present study to begin to fill this research gap. It was hoped that by documenting the extent of observable inequity in gendered participation, and comparing it to participation levels during class sessions where social and situational factors were manipulated, possible solutions might be identified to reduce the inequity. An investigation into nonobservable data in the form of teacher and student perceptions about participation aimed to explore some of the dynamics of gendered participation in the Egyptian EFL classroom, which in turn might provide possible directions for future research.

Research Questions In the Egyptian EFL college classroom: 1. What are the rates of silence and dominance by gender in whole class discussion (WCD)? 2. How do the rates of silence and dominance by gender in WCD compare to those found in WCD and Team Debate (TD) that use the pre-speaking techniques of input and preparation? 3. What are some student self-perceptions about factors relating to their participation? 4. What are some teacher perceptions about factors relating to student participation?

18 Methodology Participants Since little research had been conducted on addressing inequity in gendered participation in the Egyptian EFL classroom, the study took an exploratory approach, using a convenience sample of five intact, mixed-gender EFL study skills classes from the Intensive English Program at an English-medium university in Egypt during the Spring of 2010. The program encourages its instructors to use a communicative language teaching approach, and follows no prescribed textbook. All Egyptian in nationality, except one Kenyan female, the 51 students participating in the study, 28 female and 23 male, ranged in age from 16 to 22 years. The five classes consisted of three at the advanced level, of 12 students each, and two at the intermediate level, of 7 and 8 students each. Each class was divided almost equally by gender (see Table 1). The classes were taught by five different instructors; three American females, one Egyptian female, and one American male. The four female teachers were MA teachers in training, while the male teacher was a recent graduate of the same program. Table 1 Class make-up by gender Class Section # Female Sts 1 (advanced) 6 2 (advanced) 6 3 (advanced) 7 4 (intermediate) 4 5 (intermediate) 5 # = number; sts = students. Instruments and Materials Data were collected through 25 video recordings taken over a period of about three weeks of classroom sessions; and student and teacher questionnaires (Appendix A). Materials included: a video clip about womens right to choose a marriage partner, shown to students as input (The Qatar Foundation, n.d.); two group worksheets for planning and preparation to speak (Appendix B); and two teacher lesson plans (Appendix C). Procedures Informed written consent was first obtained from all of the participants. Prior to implementation of the interventions, two video recordings of 15 minutes each were made of separate whole class discussion sessions in each class, to determine the extent, if any, of inequity in gendered participation. Teachers were then individually trained in the implementation of two lesson plans that would introduce the interventions of input and group preparation into the two whole class speaking contexts of whole class discussion and team debate. The first lesson consisted of watching a video clip of a team debate on womens right to choose a marriage partner (The Qatar Foundation, n.d.). This helped learners access their prior knowledge and provided new information about a topic, as noted by Cao & Philps (2006) and

# Male Sts 6 6 5 3 3

Total # Sts 12 12 12 7 8

19 Tomitch (1990). This was followed by small group planning sessions using a worksheet to help students prepare to speak during a whole class discussion on the topic of the video clip. The second lesson again consisted of small group planning sessions to prepare students, which was meant to encourage participation by promoting security and reducing anxiety. The students then participated in team debates on the topics of Couples should date before marriage, and Early marriage is a good idea, both topics that related to the general marriage topic of the video clip they had viewed in the previous lesson. Students followed the structured style of a team debate, in which each speaker was allowed to speak for one minute, followed by answering one question each, and then a general free rebuttal session. Video recordings were made of the two intervention lessons taught in each of the five classes, in order to determine the extent, if any, to which participation prior to the interventions contrasted with a change in participation levels following the interventions. Finally, a student questionnaire and a teacher questionnaire were administered to investigate participant and instructor perceptions of factors that might affect participation. Data Analysis The video recorded data were analyzed using a simple tally chart to count the number and length, whether long (six words or more) or short (five words or less), of contributions by each individual student (Appendix D). The choice of five words or less as a short turn was based on the finding that the average sentence of an English language learner is five words (English online: Why intonation matters, 2010), and that an average turn for a typical English speaker is nine words (Yuan, Liberman & Cieri,2006). Half of this average, or five words, was therefore labeled a short turn. A second rater repeated the process for one recording of each class, which determined an inter-rater reliability of 0.93. Counts of participation prior to interventions were then compared to counts of participation for each session that used interventions, and analyzed by gender. The questionnaire data were analyzed. Closed-ended questions from the student questionnaires were tallied, including by gender, and open-ended questions were organized by theme and analyzed by gender. The data from the teacher questionnaires were compared to actual behavior recorded from the videos. Questionnaire analyses aimed to provide insight and a possible explanation for the results of the video recorded data analysis. Results and Discussion Based on the analysis of the video recorded data collected prior to interventions, it was determined that participation was not equal in any of the five classes. Overall, 16% of the students were dominant, and 35% were silent (See Figure 1). In other words, roughly half of the students were not participating equally. In addition, 22% of the students were classified as severely silent, as defined as those taking less than a quarter of the average number of student turns.

21
Dominant Sts. 16%

Average Sts. 49% Silent Sts. 35%

Figure 1. Identification of dominant and silent students (Sts.) across all 5 classes. Note. Silent = taking fewer than half the average number of turns; dominant = taking more than twice the average number of turns. Gendered Participation Rates Pre-Intervention In looking more closely at silence, it was found that 30% of the male students were silent as compared to 39% of the female students, which, although only marginally more, is consistent with past research that has found that more silent students tend to be female than male (Jones & Wheatley, 1990; Jule, 2001; Sunderland, 1998). In terms of turn length, however, it was found that 61% of the female students took less than half the average number of long student turns, as defined as contributions consisting of six or more words each. In contrast, only 35% of the male students took less than half the average number of long turns. This constitutes a much wider gap, and is perhaps of more significance to the issue of participation in the language learning context, since research suggests that it is the longer turns that more strongly affect SLA (e.g., Schmidt, 2001; Swain, 2005). While the implications of this finding should not be underestimated, it is also important to note that not all the female students were silent, and in fact, there was one female student who dominated in one of the advanced classes. Further, while it was determined that male students took more turns in all but one of the ten recorded sessions taken prior to interventions, in one session the female students took more turns. Interestingly, in this one session, the class consisted of 5 female students and due to absence, only 1 male student, which was the only session with such a gender imbalance. In addition, in this particular session, more turns were taken overall by the students than in any of the other pre-intervention sessions, by an average ratio of about two to one. These findings support the theory that gender is a complex construct, in that gender alone cannot predict an individual students silence, and that the situation, in this case the gender ratio, might affect participation levels of silent female students. In other words, silent female students are not necessarily silent all the time (Townsend, 1998). A startling, and even disturbing finding was that silent female students were almost three times more likely to be absent than any other students during the recorded lessons, including silent male students. Since it was unanticipated, no data were specifically gathered that might provide an explanation, although some theorists have described absence as an extreme form of silence (Morita, 2004; Opuda, 2009;

21 Pellegrini, 2007). There is some evidence to suggest that absence can be predicted by fear of peer judgment, or a negative classroom environment (Ashton-Hay, 1996; Wilkins, 2008). Although the finding on silent female absence could be explained by coincidence, the theory of absence as an extreme form of silence, combined with the findings on the lack of long female turn-taking, could imply that female silence is not only more prevalent than male silence, but also that it is more pronounced. Another unanticipated finding related to female silence and dress. It was found that 7 of the silent female students were wearing headscarves, a result that seemed noteworthy since only 9 of the total 28 female participants wore headscarves. In other words, 78% of the female students wearing headscarves were categorized as silent. Again, no data were collected that might provide an explanation as to why these students were so much more likely to be silent than other female students. It could relate to a number of other factors, such as socioeconomic background, or societal or religious belief systems, such as those found by Mensch et. al. (2003). Comparison with Participation in the Intervention Lessons In comparing the data collected prior to interventions to those collected during the intervention lessons, overall it was determined that in both intervention lessons equal participation increased (see Figure 2). That is to say, incidences of both silence and dominance decreased. In one class, however, the opposite occurred. This instructor was found to rely more heavily on the technique of calling on students directly by name in the sessions prior to interventions, a technique that was not allowed during the interventions. Perhaps students in this class had been conditioned to speak only when called upon, suggesting that the social or situational factor of teacher behavior may greatly affect the conditions under which students speak, a conclusion supported by Norton (2010).
100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% WCD WCD + TD + Dom. Sts. Sil. Sts. Avg. Sts.

Figure 2. Changes in participation with interventions. WCD - = WCD without techniques; WCD+ = WCD with techniques; TD + = TD with techniques (structure & preparation) used to equalize participation; Sts. = students; Dom. = dominant; Sil. = silent; Avg. = average.

22

In comparing the two sessions that used interventions, it was found that participation was more equal in the team debate context than in that of whole class discussion. This could relate to the difference in level of structure in the two speaking contexts, since structure has been shown to generate more equal participation (Foster & Skehan, 1999; Howe, 1997; Ur, 1981). The team debate context is more structured than that of whole class discussion because it follows a strict order of timed turns. This might only provide a partial explanation, however, since a breakdown by gender revealed that silent female students increased their participation to almost the same degree for both speaking contexts, to close to 70% of the average number of turns. In contrast, silent male students increased their participation to almost the average number of turns during the team debate, while during the whole class discussion, they increased their participation to only just one half the average number of student turns (see Figure 3). It would appear, therefore, that structure alone cannot fully explain the difference in participation levels in the two speaking contexts.

100 90 80 70

60
50 40 30 20 10 0 WCD WCD + TD + Male Sts. Female Sts.

Figure 3. Silent student (Sts.) participation by gender, as a percentage of the average number of turns taken by all students. WCD- =WCD without techniques; WCD+ = WCD with techniques; TD+ = TD with techniques to equalize participation; 100% = average number of total student turns taken. Almost all of the individual silent students increased their participation in both speaking contexts. However, due to absence, data was unavailable for several silent students. Only two silent students showed no marked change. In reviewing the video recordings to focus on these two silent students, it was discovered that one of them faced several incidences of negative reactions from her peers at her attempts to contribute, including laughter and snickering, at which point she abandoned her turns. This suggests that a negative classroom climate may indeed relate to decreased participation levels, as found by a number of past studies (Allan & Madden, 2006; Baxter, 2002; Fassinger, 1995; Madhok, 1992).

23 Another important finding from the study relates to turn length. It was found that in the sessions prior to interventions, about two thirds of the contributions were short. In clear contrast, during the intervention sessions, there were more long contributions, especially during the team debate, where about two thirds of the contributions were long (see Figure 4). These findings suggest that not only might the pre-speaking interventions of input and group preparation relate to more equal participation levels, but that they may have the added benefit of resulting in more longer speaking turns.
100%

90% 80% 70% 60%

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% WCD WCD + TD + Long Turns Short Turns

Figure 4. Ratio of long to short turns for all classes prior to and during interventions. Note. Long turn is defined as 6 words or more; short turn is defined as 5 words or fewer. WCD - = WCD without techniques; WCD + = WCD with techniques; TD + = TD with techniques to equalize participation. Student Perceptions of Participation Of the 51 students that participated in the study, 42 responded to the student questionnaire (see Appendix A); 19 males and 23 females. Findings from the student questionnaire analysis revealed that more male students reported that they felt very comfortable speaking to the whole class in English than did female students, findings consistent with studies on anxiety referred to in the literature review (see Figure 5). Most male students stated a preference for the team debate context over that of whole class discussion, a preference which was less pronounced for female students (see Figure 6).

24
10 9 8

7
6 5 4 3 2 1 0 5 4 3 2 1 Male Sts. Female Sts.

Figure 5. Comfort level by gender in speaking to the whole class in English. Sts. = students; 5 = very comfortable; 1 = very uncomfortable
18 16 14 12 10 8 6 4 2 0 WCD TD Males Females

Figure 6. Preference by gender for type of whole class speaking activity. WCD = Whole Class Discussion; TD = Team Debate. Responses to what caused students not to participate varied widely, but could be categorized under several themes (see Table 2). Common themes included those related to the topic being boring or irrelevant; the students physical condition, such as being tired; or not having enough information or language to express themselves on the speaking topic. However, the most common theme related to social and emotional factors, such as shyness or fear of peer laughter. More female students mentioned these factors than did male students, which supports the theory that the classroom climate is chillier for female students. If female students are more worried about peer judgment than male students, then perhaps it is because they are more likely to encounter negative peer judgment than their male counterparts, which is consistent

25 with past research (e.g. Allen & Madden, 2006; Baxter, 2002; Madhok, 1992). Finally, female students provided 30 responses to this question while male students provided only 18, suggesting that non-participation may be more of a concern for female students than male, since they had more to say about the topic. Table 2 Reported factors for not participating in whole class speaking activities
Factor Emotional/Scoial Embarrassed, fear mistakes, etc. Due to others behavior e.g. interruption, lack of respect etc. Subtotal Physical Condition e.g. tired, unwell, bad mood, etc. Male 4 1 5 Female 5 4 9 Total 9 5 14

11

Topic/Activities Boring, unimportant etc.

Lack Knowledge/Skills English not good enough Lacks information, unprepared etc. Subtotal Miscellaneous Convinced of own opinion Likes to listen to others Wants to give others a chance Total

1 4 5

2 4 6

3 8 11

1 1 1 18 30 48

Teacher Perceptions about Participation When asked about their perceptions in regard to participation and gender in their classrooms, the American male instructor and two American female instructors felt that there was no difference, and the Egyptian female instructor felt that her female students participated more. This perception clearly contrasts with the findings of the video recorded data, which found that male students participated more in almost all of the sessions. In the class of the instructor who felt that her female students dominated over her male students, the video recorded data showed that in fact only one of her female students dominated, that three participated equally and that three were silent. These findings suggest that a lack of teacher awareness may exist in regard to male conversational dominance and female silence, and confirms findings from previous studies that have looked at this issue (Stroud & Wee, 2006; Sunderland, 2000; Whyte, 1984). Another interesting finding emerged in the analysis of teacher behavior during the study. It was found that overall, instructors called on silent students almost three times less often than they called on other students (see Figure 7). Additionally, three of the instructors called on male students more often than on female students, suggesting that a teacher bias may exist, as documented by a number of studies on classroom conversational dominance (e.g. Kelly, 1988). Only one instructor called on female students more. Interestingly, this was the same instructor who felt that her

26 female students dominated, possibly suggesting that instructors tend to call more on those students they perceive as dominating.
4 3.5 3 2.5

2
1.5 1 0.5 0 Avg. Sts. Dom. Sts. Sil. Sts.

Figure 7. Average number of teacher calls and silent (Sil.) students (Sts.). Avg. = averagely participating; Dom. = dominant. Limitations and Recommendations for Further Research The dynamic of the two smaller classes might be likened more to that of a small group than that of a traditional large class size. This could explain why there was less unequal participation in these classes as compared to the larger classes. Further, these two classes were also of a lower English proficiency level, which could be a variable affecting the extent of inequity in participation. Instructor variables such as gender, nationality, experience, and classroom management style may well have affected participation. This could explain why one class showed a decrease in equal participation during the intervention sessions. A statistical analysis of the quantitative data might provide information on the significance of the inequity in gendered participation found. This is an area which could be the basis of further analysis and generalization to other Egyptian EFL contexts. Unfortunately, some demographic information which might have helped to explain the relationship between silent female students, absence, and dress, was not collected. There is a clear need for further investigation into these findings. Promising areas to begin this investigation may include looking at student demographic information and interviewing silent female students and their parents on their beliefs. Finally, an investigation into the quality of student contributions, and more qualitative analysis of discourse and student behavior during speaking activities, could provide more insight into the nature of student silence, especially in relation to a chilly classroom climate, which could in turn, contribute further to the identification of effective interventions to equalize participation in the EFL classroom.

27 Implications and Conclusion The findings of this study support those of past studies on inequity in gendered participation in the classroom. In addition, they show that female silence may be more pronounced in degree than that of males, as evidenced by the high number of female students who took very few or no long turns, and in the high rate of female absence, which may be viewed as an extreme form of silence. These findings imply that strong interventions may be required to help combat female silence, perhaps in the form of awareness-raising of both students and teachers, and in manipulation of social and situational factors that discourage female student participation. The pre-speaking interventions of input and group preparation appear to relate to an increase in equal participation as well as to longer turn taking, and, further, suggest that silent female students may differ from silent male students in the contexts that are most effective in increasing their participation. These findings imply that manipulation of social and situational factors in the classroom may strongly affect participation levels, and that further investigation into these factors could help identify those interventions that might best help to increase participation levels of silent female students. The findings of this study also provide support for the theory that willingness to communicate is not a fixed trait, and that it can instead relate to external factors such as social and situational conditions in the language learning classroom. These findings further imply that by addressing inequity in gendered participation in the EFL classroom through the manipulation of social and situational factors, teachers and researchers might identify effective solutions to a very important problem that continues to thwart many EFL professionals, a problem for which few interventions have hitherto been found.

References Alansari, B.M. (2006). Gender differences in anxiety among undergraduates in sixteen Islamic countries. Social Behavior and Personality, 34(6), 651-660. Alcon, E. (1994). The role of participation and gender in non-native speakers' classroom interaction. Working papers on language, gender and sexism, 4(1), 51-68. Allan, E.J., & Madden, M. (2006). Chilly classrooms for female undergraduate students: A question of method? The Journal of Higher Education, 77(4), 684711. Al-Mahadin, S. (2004). Jordanian women in education: Politics, pedagogy and gender discourses. Feminist Review, 78, 22-37. Ashton-Hay, S. (1996). A study of patterns of participation of Arnhem Land Aboriginal students in a non-Aboriginal urban secondary schools. TESOL in Context, 6(2), 26-32. Aukrust, V.G. (2008). Boys' and girls' conversational participation across four grade levels in Norwegian classrooms: Taking the floor or being given the floor? Gender and Education, 20(3), 237-252.

28

Baxter, J.A. (1999). Teaching girls to speak out: The female voice in public contexts. Language and Education, 13(2), 81-98. Baxter, J.A. (2002). A juggling act: A feminist post-structuralist analysis of girls' and boys' talk in a secondary classroom. Gender and Education, 14(1), 5-19. Bjerrum Nielsen, H., & Davies, B. (1997). The construction of gendered identity through classroom talk. In B. Davies & D. Corson (Eds.), Oral discourse and education (pp. 125-135). Boston: Kluwer. Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. G. Raymond & M. Adamson (Trans.). Cambridge: Polity Press (original work published in 1982). Brooks, V. (1982). Sex differences in student dominance behavior in female and male professors' classrooms. Sex Roles, 8(7), 683-690. Brown, H.D. (2001). Teaching by principles: An interaction approach to language pedagogy (2nd ed.). White Plains, NE: Longman. Cao, Y., & Philps, J. (2006). Interactional context and willingness to communicate: A comparison of behavior in whole class, group and dyadic interaction. System, 34, 480-493. Chambers, J.K. (1992). Linguistic correlates of gender and sex. English World-Wide, 13(2), 173-218. Chi, Q. (2008). Study of group discussion in EFL classroom teaching. Sino-US English Teaching, 5(2), 57-61. Coates, J. (2004). Women, men and language: A sociolinguistic account of gender differences in language. Harlow, UK: Pearson Longman. Dornyei, Z. (2001). Motivational strategies in the language classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Dornyei, Z. (2005). The psychology of the language learner: Individual differences in second language acquisition. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Dornyei, Z. (2009). The psychology of second language acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ellis, R. (2005). Planning and task based performance: Theory and research. In R. Ellis (Ed.), Planning and task performance in a second language (pp. 3-34). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Ellis, R. (2008). The study of second language acquisition (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. English online. (2010). Why intonation matters. Retrieved from

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31 University of Sydney Papers in TESOL, 2, 33-59. Pennycook, A. (1999). Introduction: Critical approaches to TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 33(3), 329-348.

Rahimpour, M., & Yaghoubi-Notash, M. (2007). Examining gender-based variability in task-prompted, monologic L2 oral performance. The Asian EFL Journal, 9(3), 156-179. Romaine, S. (1999). Communicating gender. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Sadker, M., & Sadker, D. (1985). Sexism in the schoolroom of the 80s. Psychology Today, 54-57. Sangarun, J. (2005). Effects of focus on meaning and form in strategic planning. In R. Ellis (Ed.), Planning and task performance in a second language (pp. 111142). Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Savignon, S. (2001). Communicative language teaching for the twenty-first century. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a second or foreign language (3rd ed.) (pp. 13-28). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Schmidt, R. (2001). Attention. In P. Robinson (Ed.), Cognition and second language instruction (pp. 3-32). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. She, H-C. (2000). The interplay of a biology teacher's beliefs, teaching practices and gender-based student-teacher classroom interaction. Educational Research, 42(1), 100-111. Shehadeh, A. (1999). Gender differences and equal opportunities in the ESL classroom. ELT Journal, 53(4), 256-261. Slavin, R.E. (1996). Research on cooperative learning and achievement: What we know, what we need to know. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 21, 4369. Stroud, C., & Wee, L. (2006). Anxiety and identity in the language classroom. Regional Language Centre Journal, 37(3), 299-307. Sunderland, J. (1998). Girls being quiet: A problem for foreign language classrooms? Language Teaching Research, 2(1), 48-82. Sunderland, J. (2000). New understandings of gender and language classroom research: texts, teacher talk and student talk. Language Teaching Research, 4(2), 149-173. Swain, M. (2005). The output hypothesis: Theory and research. In E. Hinkel (Ed.),

32 Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Earlbaum. The Qatar Foundation. (n.d.). The Doha Debates. Retrieved September 6, 2009, from http://www.thedohadebates.com Tomitch, L.B. (1990). Schema activation and text comprehension. Revista Fragmentos, 3, 29-43. Townsend, J.S. (1998). Silent voices: What happens to quiet students during classroom discussions? The English Journal, 87(2), 72-80. Tsouroufli, M. (2002). Gender and teachers' classroom practice in a secondary school in Greece. Gender and Education, 14(2), 135-147. Ur, P. (1981). Discussions that work: Task-centred fluency practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Whyte, J. (1984). Observing sex stereotypes and interactions in the school lab and workshop. Educational Review, 36(1), 75-86. Wilkins, J. (2008). School characteristics that influence student attendance: Experiences of students in a school avoidance program. The High School Journal, Feb.-Mar., Project MUSE Scholarly Journals Online. University of North Carolina Press. Yuan, J., Liberman, M., & Cieri, C. (2006). Towards and integrated understanding of speaking rate in conversation. Conversation Interspeech, (541-544). Woodrow, L. (2006). Anxiety and speaking English as a second language. Regional Language Centre Journal, 37(3), 308-328.

33 Appendix A : Student and Teacher Questionnaires Student Questionnaire f m Sex (Circle):

1. On a scale of 1 (least) to 5 (most) how confident do you feel about speaking in English to the whole class? (Circle) 1 2 3 4 5

2. a. Which type of videoed public speaking context did you enjoy most? (Circle) 1. Whole class discussion (Doha Debate lesson) 2. Team debate

b. Why?___________________________________________________________ 3. a. In which did you feel most comfortable speaking out? 1. Whole class discussion 2. Team debate

b. Why?___________________________________________________________ 4. If you do not participate in class at times, why do you choose not to do so? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ 5. What makes you most want to participate in class? __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ 6. Did any of the following help you to feel more comfortable to speak out in class? (Tick all that apply) a. Having time to plan and prepare b. Reading or watching something about the topic first c. Working in a group before having to speak d. Being told I had to speak (like giving debate speech) ____ ____ ____ ____

e. Other: ________________________________________________________ 7. Which, if any, helped most?___________________________________________ 8. Other comments about class participation: _______________________________ __________________________________________________________________

34 Teacher Questionnaire Name: _________________________ 1. Who are the least participating students in your class? List all: __________________________________________________________________ 2. Why do you think they do not participate? Comment on each less-participating student in detail if possible. (Use back if needed) __________________________________________________________________ 3. a. Did either of the two sessions help the less-participating students speak out? (Circle all that apply) 1. Whole class discussion (Lesson 1) 2. Team debate (Lesson 2) b. Did one of the two help more? Which? _______________________________ c. Was there a difference by gender in the participation of the less-participating students within the two lessons? Explain. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ 4. What do you think made the most difference, if any, in helping these students to speak out? (Tick up to 3) a. Providing more structure to activities b. Using worksheets to prepare c. Watching or reading something about the topic first d. Having a chance to discuss the topic in smaller groups first ____ ____ ____ ____

e. Requiring that everyone speak (e.g. one minute in debate speech) ____ f. The controversial nature of the topics g. The type of public speaking context (class discussion vs debate) h. Other:________________________________________________ 5. Other comments on the issue of class participation during the sessions? __________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____ ____

35 Appendix B: Group Worksheets Group worksheet 1 Together summarize the main arguments of the two speakers you listened to. Take turns to be the secretary so that every person has a chance to write. Arguments For Arguments Against

Group opinions about womens right to choose a marriage partner Discuss what you think about womens right to choose a marriage partner. Write your ideas in note form here. Arguments For Arguments Against

Groups Final Consensus?

36 Group Worksheet 2 Debate proposition: ____________________________________________________ For or Against: ________________________ Brainstorm your arguments for and against. Write all ideas without judging now, in note form. For Against

Now sort through your arguments, choosing what you will include, and organize them in logical sequence here. Add more as needed. Then divide up the points by speaker.1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Next, go through the possible arguments the opposing team might use, as listed in your chart above. What will you say to each argument? Now prepare your individual speeches.

37 Appendix C: Teacher Lesson Plans Instructions for Lesson 1 Listening and Whole Class Discussion What to do 1 a. Briefly explain students will watch a debate on womens right to choose a marriage partner. Allow them 2 min. to write down what they think the speakers might say have them try to think of 2 points for and 2 against. b. Make a 2-column chart on the board of For and Against and invite students to share their ideas of what the speakers might say. This will be video-recorded. Call only on students who raise their hands. Try to look at all the students and give pauses to wait for students to raise hands. Write their suggestions in note form under the 2 columns. a. Have students watch the video-clip of the first 2 speakers of the debate. Ask them to take notes in chart form of points for and against the motion, as you did on the board. a. Organize students into groups of 3 or 4, trying to ensure a mix by gender, and hand out the group worksheet. Have each student in the group use a different color pen or pencil. b. Explain that they are to work together to summarize the main points of the debate. Students take turns being the secretary, each student writing one point with help from their group and then giving the worksheet to the next student to write. This is a round table cooperative learning structure. c. Next, the group should discuss their own opinions about the motion, trying to reach a conclusion. a. This will be video recorded. Explain that each group is to present opinions of their group. Add their points to the board. Once all the points are written on the board, explain that they will now discuss the motion, based on the opinions each group had. Try to have each group contribute, but only call on hand raisers, and do not put any one individual on the spot. Time 10 min. Materials / Notes White board and board marker *Video Recording*

10 min.

Student note books / pieces of paper Group worksheet and copy of Doha debate video clip

15 min.

10 min.

White board and board marker *Video Recording*

38 Instructions for Lesson 2 Team Debate What to do 1 a. Explain that students are going to debate two motions. Divide students into 4 groups, trying to ensure a mix by gender. Two groups will debate one motion and two groups the other. Hand out group worksheets. Assign each group For or Against one of the motions. The motions are Couples should date before marriage and Early marriage is a good idea. Make sure they understand the motion and what they need to argue. Explain that each student will have to give a one-minute speech for their team, similar to the debate they watched. They will also have a chance for free rebuttal after the speeches are all completed. b. Have each group brainstorm their ideas for their argument, using the worksheet to record. Then have them organize the points they want to argue, and divide up the arguments among the team. c. They should also try to think of the counterarguments and what they might say to refute these, using the worksheet to record their ideas. d. Allow students 2-3 minutes to prepare for their speeches. a. Set up the desks to run the debates. You will play the moderator role. Assign someone from the audience to be time-keeper. Inform the audience that they should make notes on the arguments for and against. b. Begin the first debate. This will be video-recorded. Allow each student 1 min. for their speech. They may go over by a maximum of 10 seconds. After each speech, ask the speaker one clarifying question. c. Once all the speeches are completed, allow free rebuttal i.e. any speaker may ask any speaker from the opposing team a question, or voice a concern. The total debate should not go over 18 min. a. Repeat the process for the second debate. This will be video-recorded. a. Optionally, have students write up their opinion about the debate they watched, using their notes to help them. This is a homework assignment. Time 15 min. Materials / Notes Group worksheet

20 min.

*Video Recording*

3 4

20 min.

*Video Recording*

39 Appendix D: Tally Chart for Counting Student Participation

Student # of turns Short turns Long turns Speech time Comments

Mariah J. Fairley is an instructor at Al-Azhar University. She is interested in collaborative and constructivist learning, and research on social factors affecting learning in the EFL classroom. She can be reached at mariahjfairley@gmail.com.

41 Sustainability as a Vehicle for Language Learning: A Sample Lesson in Persuasive Writing Kerima Nashat Cairo American College

Abstract
The choice of relevant and meaningful content is necessary for the successful teaching and learning of language and concepts. Education for sustainability encompasses current economic, social, and environmental issues that have a direct effect on the lives of future generations. This subject is of extreme importance and can easily be used to teach language, while exploring pressing issues that directly affect all students lives and futures. This paper gives an example of how a simple authentic opportunity related to sustainability was used to teach persuasive writing and components of the six traits in an intermediate level Middle School ESL class at Cairo American College. It concludes with the benefits of this lesson, some suggestions for improvement, and some goals for future lessons.

Keywords: Sustainability- meaningful content- six traits of writing- persuasive writing-writing process

Sustainability means taking care of our needs today, while protecting the needs of future generations. It involves understanding the dynamics between the environment, society, and the economy as well as the urgent need to solve global issues such as conflict, overpopulation, and poverty. The teaching and learning of this subject to students of all ages is essential for our future, as it is the youth of today that will soon be making the decisions of tomorrow and are therefore the true vehicles of change on this planet. As an ESL teacher, teaching middle school students at Cairo American College, I view education for sustainability as the perfect medium for teaching both content and language concepts. Evidence (Krashen, 2009), shows that language should be taught through comprehensible and meaningful content, as the choice of relevant material maximizes learning. Introducing the subject of sustainability and global issues in the ESL class is meaningful and authentic and is therefore an excellent medium for language learning. Cairo American College has education for sustainability as one of its major goals. Apart from weaving this subject into the curriculum, there are the many activities such as Community Service, the Peace Program and Model United Nations, that are all part of education for sustainability. The Green Team, which is composed of a number of volunteer high school students and teachers, is another extracurricular activity working towards this goal through various endeavors on campus such as paper recycling, refilling printer cartridges, and the introduction of water osmosis fountains all over the campus. Since the production and distribution of bottled water wastes resources and since the bottles cause a recycling problem, the Green Team at CAC has also been promoting the use of reusable water bottles, which are on sale at the school store. Most of the elementary and middle school students are well aware of the negative effects of water bottles on the environment and have stopped buying bottled water and are drinking from the filtered water osmosis fountains. However, many of the high school students have returned to buying bottled water. The high school students on the

41 Green Team explained that this is probably due to a number of factors such as many students distrust in the quality of the water at the water osmosis fountains, the inconvenience of carrying a reusable bottle, and also because of peer pressure, as owning a reusable water bottle might not fit with the cool image many high school students wish to portray. The fact that most high school students still continue to buy bottled water, despite the efforts made to teach and model sustainable solutions for the environment, suggests that there is still a lack of awareness of the responsibility that each individual carries towards a sustainable future. Since explicit teaching of the detrimental effects of bottled water on the environment has not had a lasting effect on many of the students, the Green Team and the school administration were considering taxing the bottled water sold on campus with the aim of reducing sales, particularly in high school. When the issue of taxing bottled water was being discussed, my intermediate middle school ESL class had just finished reading a short biography of Nellie Bly, a female pioneer in journalism, and had learned the meaning of editorials. This was a serendipitous event, as I needed to teach the genre of persuasive writing, give the students more practice with the writing process, and introduce some writing traits (Six Traits of Writing; Northern Nevada Writing Project, 2001). It suddenly dawned on me that I could do all this and give the students an authentic writing task that would create an awareness of the detrimental environmental effects of the consumption of bottled water. So using the RAFT strategy (Santa & Havens, 1995) I assigned the following writing task to my students: Role : CAC student Audience: the Green Team and members of the administration Format: an editorial Topic: Do you agree with the idea of taxing bottled water on campus?

The first step was to work with the students on background knowledge. Using talk as a bridge to writing is a very effective way to brainstorm ideas and to prepare the students for writing (Gibbons, 2006, pp. 43-53). We did this through a discussion of the pros and cons of introducing the tax and by watching a short film entitled The story of Bottled Water by Annie Leonard. In order to scaffold learning through this fast- paced film, the students watched it twice. The first time it was played straight through in order to get the main idea. The students contributed their opinions enthusiastically when we watched the film for the second time and stopped for discussion and clarification. They also took notes throughout this process, using a plus/minus graphic organizer. On the plus side of the paper, students wrote down all the reasons why taxing bottled water would be good. On the minus side of the paper, they wrote down reasons why taxing bottled water would not be a good idea. Developing background knowledge through the discussion and film allowed them to make an unbiased decision about the efficacy of taxing bottled water at school. It also allowed for authentic listening and speaking practice. The next step required introducing the genre of persuasive writing, which was done through a variety of exercises taken from the SRA High Performance Writing (Dodds, T. 2005) to show the organization and register of this genre as well as the need to include logical reasons and support to back an opinion. Students also learned

42 to distinguish different types of support, such as expert opinion, numbers or statistics, experience, and the difference between true and false facts. The students were then ready for the pre-writing and first draft stages, which were both done with peer and teacher guidance, role modeling, and the use of graphic organizers. This process took more time than expected as some of the students showed they could immediately apply the strategies taught in their writing while others needed more guidance and practice before being able to do so. This meant additional time spent in peer review, and in rewriting outlines and revising first drafts. However, they never lost their enthusiasm and motivation throughout this process. At the beginning of this activity, the students were made to understand that they could write either for or against the tax and were being evaluated on their organization and the strength of their ideas. They were urged to write sincerely and were encouraged to speak their minds. One student wrote against the tax on bottled water, but he made it clear that his objection was based on what he considered to be the futility of this endeavor and the inconvenience it presented to the students rather than his own point of view, which was that bottled water was an unnecessary burden on the environment. The rest of the students were for the tax as they thought it would really stop students from buying bottled water and would help the environment as well as encouraging the students to save their money. After working on their ideas and organization, the students spent more time on two of the other conventions of writing: sentence fluency and word choice (Six Traits of Writing; Northern Nevada Writing Project, 2001). The students projected their work on a document camera and took turns giving and receiving advice and suggestions. For sentence fluency, they expanded their sentences, added transitions, and made sure that their sentences were not all similar in structure. For word choice, they searched for repetitions and replaced them with synonyms; they linked pronouns to antecedents, and replaced vague words with stronger more precise alternatives. This was done with peer and teacher support and guidance in an atmosphere of collegiality. When the papers were finished, the one student who had written against the tax did not want to present his writing to the administration for fear of giving the wrong impression. I tried to explain that his ideas were all valid and that they would help the administration in making an informed decision. I did not manage to change his mind, so we reached a compromise that we would present the papers as the work of the Intermediate ESL class without adding the individual names to each paper. While I thought this might detract from the value of their work, I felt that it was important to stick to our agreement in order to keep the trust of the student, as establishing trust is a necessary foundation for any learning environment (Given, 2002). I do not know if the Green Team and the administration will truly be swayed by these editorials, but I do know that writing them has made a big difference to the class. Apart from a feeling of true accomplishment, the students have shown that they mastered the required language goals for this unit and have discovered an interest in sustainability that will hopefully grow with time. I intend to continue teaching English through education for sustainability by using many more lessons and activities as well as a hands-on project based on materials from different resources. As I planned this teaching activity, I neglected to include structured group work and did not set clear expectations for cooperative learning. This would normally have been a drawback as before the beginning of this unit, the students had difficulty working together respectfully and cooperatively. However, by the end of the unit there appeared to be a strong bond and trust between the students. They listened and

43 respected each others ideas and worked towards helping rather than competing with each other. I do not know if this positive behavior will continue, or how this occurred, but can only assume that working together, on an authentic task and a topic that is directly related to their lives, has had this effect (Zemelman, Daniels, & Hyde, 2005). If I were to repeat this activity, there are certain changes that I would make. First, I would definitely include explicit instructions for group and pair work, instead of leaving it to chance (Using Small Group Work, 2006, pp. 54 -58). I would also have the ESL students expand their writing by including suggestions for other nonpunitive methods to encourage high school students to stop buying bottled water. This would best be done by having the ESL students conduct a survey of the high school students to find out why the majority would not drink from the water osmosis fountains. The results would have provided a good basis for suggesting alternatives as well as an authentic opportunity for the ESL students to practice speaking and listening. While this activity was, on the whole, successful, it had some limitations. The first limitation is that the peer editing and revising was time consuming and would have had to be adjusted for larger classes. Also, while the students showed a good understanding of the main teaching points, the activity did not include any form of summative evaluation. In order to make ensure true learning, the students still needed to show that they could apply the concepts taught in different contexts. Finally, while the topic of the detrimental effects of bottled water was a convenient introduction to the topic of education for sustainability, it is truly just the tip of the iceberg. It has worked, however, as an important first step before introducing other even more pressing environmental, social, and economic issues to capture students interest and to serve as meaningful content for language skills practice and development.

References Dodds, T. (2005). SRA High-performance writing a structured approach: persuasive writing. Columbus, OH: McGraw Hill. Given, B. K. (2002). Teaching to the brains natural learning systems. Alexandria,VA: ASCD. Krashen, S. (2009). Principles and practice in second language acquisition. The input hypothesis. Retrieved from http: http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_Practice/index.html Leonard, A. (2010). The story of bottled water, The story of stuff project. Film retrieved from http: http://storyofstuff.org/bottledwater/ Nothern Nevada Writing Project. (2001). Writingfix, Six traits materials. Retrieved from http: http://writingfix.com/traits.htm Santa, C., & Havens, L. (1995). Creating independence through student-owned Strategies: Project CRISS. Dubuque, IA: Kendall-Hunt.

44

The State of South Australia, Department of Education and Childrens Services. (2006). Teaching ESL students in mainstream classrooms: Language in learning across the Curriculum. Hindmarsh South Australia, Australia: Using small group work The State of South Australia, Department of Education and Childrens Services. (2006). Teaching ESL students in mainstream classrooms: Language in learning across the Curriculum. Hindmarsh South Australia, Australia: Gibbons. Zemelman, Z., Daniels, H., & Hyde, A. (2005) Best Practice: Todays standards for teaching &learning in Americas schools. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Kerima Nashat is an ESL instructor at Cairo American College. She is especially interested in education for sustainable development. She can be reached at knashat@cacegypt.org.

45 Reading and Writing Communicatively: Six Challenges Addressed Mariah J. Fairley English Language Resource Center Al-Azhar University, Cairo and Heba Fathelbab Canadian International College, Cairo

Abstract
Although Communicative Language Teaching, with its strong grounding in theory and research, has become the favored approach to second language teaching, belief in its efficacy is often not matched by practice. In CLT reading and writing classrooms, instructors are faced with a number of challenges in implementing the approach. This article discusses six of these most common challenges: lack of enthusiasm, slow finishers, unengaged audience, lack of materials, unequal student participation, and lack of student investment. As practice-based techniques to address these challenges are presented, several principles of CLT are also highlighted, to help teachers address other problems that may arise in their CLT reading and writing classrooms. The article aims to empower teachers to try the approach and succeed.

Key words: CLT, communicative language teaching, cooperative learning, group work, reading, writing Introduction CLT (Communicative Language Teaching) has come to be the favored approach to language teaching since its emergence in the late 1970s (Brown, 2001; Savignon, 2001). Brown (2001) defines CLT by several characteristics: communicative competence as the focus of classroom goals; teaching techniques designed to focus on pragmatic, authentic, and functional language uses; the greater importance of fluency than accuracy in order to allow students engagement in meaningful language use; student focus on the learning process; and teachers role as that of a facilitator. Informed by research accumulated over the past several decades on how learners learn language, CLT, with its emphasis on meaningful interaction, often in the form of group work, has emerged as the increasingly favored approach for a number of convincing reasons. First, it engenders a more meaningful learning process because it allows students to work with authentic texts, to negotiate meaning for a real purpose, and to construct their interlanguage together in simulated situations similar to real life (Brown, 2001; Long, 1991; Savignon, 1987; Schmidt, 1990; Swain, 1995). As students work together, pool knowledge, and share ideas, their communicative competence increases, along with their confidence (Bejarano, 1987; Hymes, 1971). Thus, the learning process becomes more motivating (Brown & Hudson, 1998), because students are able to measure their progress in terms of real English communication skills. Another important outcome of CLT is that students develop not only individual, but also social skills such as collaboration, active listening, and giving constructive criticism (Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 2007). Further, CLTs student -centered focus gives the instructor a chance to better monitor the students and tend to their needs, in the role of facilitator, guide, and mentor (Vygotsky, 1978). Finally, the approach provides flexibility in teaching different proficiency levels (Lou, Abrami & Spence, 2000).

46 These aforementioned reasons provide ample support for adopting the CLT approach. However, belief in and commitment to the principles of CLT are not always matched by practice (DelliCarpini, 2009). Sato & Kleinsasser (1999) noted an inconsistency between teachers perception of CLT and their classroom practice, an inconsistency which may be linked to a number of challenges that face the CLT teacher in implementing the approach in the reading and writing classroom (Anderson, 1993; Nunan, 1993). These inconsistencies if left unaddressed, can easily become the deciding factors in a teachers choosing to avoid CLT implementation altogether. This article aims to address six of these challenges. Challenge 1: Unenthused Group Readers and Writers Initially, many students may not be convinced of the benefits of CLT group reading or writing. This may be due to the fact that some students prefer working individually rather than in groups or pairs (Savignon, 2001), perhaps because they do not see the communicative benefits, which in turn may lead to a lack of enthusiasm for CLT reading and writing activities. Therefore, before launching students into a well-prepared CLT reading or writing lesson, it may be important to give them the opportunity to discuss how they feel about enhancing their communicative competence through group work, and what benefits they think can come from group activities (Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 2007). This can be done as a think-pair-share activity (Kagan, 1994). Students individually write down two or three ideas on the benefits of group work for reading and writing. Then, in pairs, they discuss similarities and differences to their answers. Finally, in a whole class discussion, the teacher can elicit and list on the board one idea from each pair. Pairs are not allowed to say the same idea as another pair, which encourages them to listen. Next, volunteer pairs can be invited to lead a class discussion on one challenge they face in working in groups to improve reading and writing. The teacher can conclude by discussing solutions to the challenges and how CLT activities might address these concerns. Later, when students are introduced to a group reading or writing activity, the purpose of the activity can be discussed. By taking the time to make the purpose clear, students are more likely to be engaged in the activity (Pavlenko & Norton, 2007). Challenge 2: One Group Finishes Before Another The class has been divided into groups, and the reading text has been divided into parts, or jigsawed, so that each group must summarize their own separate section (Slavin, 1996). However, two groups finish their summaries much more quickly than the others. This is a common occurrence, even when a time limit is given for completion. Every class has a range of abilities; some students may read more slowly, and others may read and comprehend more quickly. To circumvent this problem, one solution is to provide extra questions for the faster groups to answer. In this way, groups that finish quickly remain engaged, and are additionally challenged according to their abilities (Lou, Abrami & Spence, 2000; Roberts, 2007). Another solution is to group students into mixed ability teams, so that faster finishers can slow down to help the slower finishers in their group (Kagan, 1994).

47 Challenge 3: Unengaged Audience The first stage of the jigsaw reading activity has been completed, so that every group has summarized a section of the text and each member of the group is ready to teach the section to a new group. New groups are formed, so that each group is comprised of one or two experts on each section of the text. Each group member is then in charge of explaining one section of the text to the others. However, as students begin the activity, the teacher notices that nobody is paying much attention. There is a lack of engagement from the listeners, and the groups soon find themselves off-task. This is often because the students do not understand the purpose of listening to their peers. One way to solve this problem is to make sure that students have been provided with a reason for learning the information from the members of the other groups (Johnson, Johnson & Smith, 2007). For example, if students will have to complete a comprehension exercise based on all of the sections of the text, they will more likely feel a need to listen to each other and learn the material. Another reason for disengagement may be due to one speakers monopolizing the speaking time. To ensure that one student does not monopolize the speaking time and end up boring the other students in the group, a strict time limit can be set, with the teacher ringing a bell and calling out switch, every two minutes, for example. When students are provided with a time limit, and a purpose for learning the material, they are more likely to remain engaged and on-task. Challenge 4: Lack of Materials Although many teachers like the idea of having students read in groups, CLT materials for reading and writing are often lacking or underdeveloped in their textbooks. Since teachers are also often overworked, they may not find the time to prepare materials for a group reading or writing activity that will only take part of a lesson. As a result, some teachers may find themselves asking students to complete text-book reading exercises individually. It can be frustrating to spend so much time creating materials for an activity that will only take half an hour of class time. One way to avoid this frustration is to maximize the use of materials (Brown, 2001). For example, if a teacher has prepared a reading on the run activity, the steps involved have been quite time-consuming, so the teacher needs to maximize the time spent on the activity. First, an appropriate text has to be identified, cut up into about seven sections and stuck around the room, and questions have to be prepared, cut up and labeled by number, along with an answer key to the questions. The activity itself takes about half an hour: in teams, one member is the secretary, one is the question grabber, and the others are runners. Question grabbers take o ne question from a chair located in the center of the room and take it back to their groups. Runners then go around the room to find the answer to the grabbed question. Once the answer is located, runners dictate the answer to the secretary, who writes it down on an answer sheet. The question grabber returns the question and grabs another, and the process is repeated. The first group to complete all the questions correctly wins. This is usually a very lively and engaging activity to help students learn the sub-skill of scanning for specific information. Instead of putting these materials away at the end of this activity, however, the teacher can go on to exploit them further for any number of other purposes. For example, students could work to order the text pieces in the correct sequence to focus on organizational cues, which could lead into a language focus on transitions. The teacher could then provide the original full text and ask

48 students to identify the thesis statement, topic sentences, and supporting details, for a focus on text structure. This text could then be used as a model text for students to write a similar text, or as a springboard for a debate or discussion activity. In this way, one set of reading materials can be exploited for several different activities, which will allow students to work with the material for a much longer time, and additionally create a more cohesive, integrated set of lessons. Challenge 5: Workhorse and Freeloader Syndrome In groups, students have been asked to write a group paragraph on a topic chosen by students as interesting and relevant to them. However, when the activity begins, one student in each group ends up writing the whole paragraph, while other group members chat amongst themselves. Asking them to work together has yielded no response. One reason for lack of equal participation in the task is that some students do not have ideas. Another is that some students lack the skills or confidence to write. Therefore, the most able student ends up writing the paragraph. To solve this problem, the task could have universal participation as a built-in element, so that all students must participate in order to complete the task successfully (Gillies, 2003; Slavin, 1996). Class brainstorming in groups with universal participation is one illustration of this solution. For example, Student 1 in each group is directed to write a topic sentence. This topic sentence is based only on the contributions of others in the group, not on the contributions of student 1. Groups then pass their topic sentences to the next group. In the next stage, Student 2 in each group writes one piece of supporting evidence for the new topic sentence, after eliciting input from the group. Groups pass their papers to the next group. Student 3 then writes a second piece of supporting evidence, in the same way. The process continues until each group has contributed one idea to each topic sentence in the class and all students in each group have had a turn to write. This comprises the activity of class brainstorming. Having students brainstorm ideas for every paragraph in each group can help to familiarize students with several different topics, and additionally prepare them to evaluate each others paragraphs in a follow-up group editing activity. The second stage can now begin, of group writing of the paragraph. Each group works with the topic sentence and pieces of evidence on the paper they have, along with a set of evaluation criteria. Again, students take turns writing, so that each student writes a sentence in a different color pen while other group members instruct him/her what to write. This can be done on mini-white boards or flip-charts so that the whole class can see all of the completed paragraphs. In this way all of the students will have contributed ideas for each paragraph, and written part of a group paragraph. Challenge 6: Peer Editing is Useless I Need Teacher Feedback Peer-editing can be a very good way to get students to work together to improve their writing. Brown & Hudson (1998) provide a comprehensive discussion of its benefits, including: allowing students to become directly involved in the feedback process, encouraging a more independent learning experience; increasing motivation due to student involvement; and finally, provision of immediate feedback. As a result, students not only benefit from the ideas of their peers, but they also get more practice focusing on the features of good writing as they identify problems in the writing of their peers. In opting to implement a group editing activity, teachers ask groups to exchange their paragraphs and edit them. However, as they

49 begin the peer-editing activity, some students begin muttering about how useless the activity is, and most of the students do not appear to be taking the activity seriously. This may be because they do not believe that they as students are qualified to edit each others writing. Students therefore often write general, vague comments like good job or needs improvement. The activity is clearly not achieving the desired aims. One way to tackle this problem is to lead a brief discussion on the merits of peer-editing (Maifair, 1999). If they understand its global aims more clearly, students are more likely to complete the activity with real effort. Another important requirement when introducing peer-editing activities is to provide a structured set of criteria on which the peer-editors must focus (Hafernik, 1983). For example, students can be given a worksheet or checklist that lists several criteria they must address, such as the effectiveness of the thesis statement, or concluding sentences of body paragraphs. In doing this, it is a good idea to remind students that the purpose of the activity is to help improve the writing of their peers, so they must make at least two or three concrete suggestions to achieve this aim. After completing the worksheet, group editors can engage in conferencing with the group writers, whereby they have to discuss the group writing based on the completed worksheet. Discussing the merits of peer-editing and structuring the activity in this way can help to make the activity more beneficial for both writers and editors. Conclusion CLT has clearly been shown to have several advantages over traditional language teaching approaches or methods, but at the same time presents a number of challenges which may feel insurmountable. Rather than allowing these challenges to dissuade teachers from using the approach, this article has sought to encourage them, by demonstrating some practical solutions to these challenges. In the presentation of these solutions, emphasis was placed on the CLT principles that inspired them, such as communicative competence, fluency and accuracy, focus on real world contexts, strategic investment, and learner autonomy. Thus, the article has aimed to show not only that the six presented challenges to teaching reading and writing communicatively have solutions, but that other challenges may also be met through a better understanding and implementation of CLT principles.

References Anderson, J. (1993). Is a communicative approach practical for teaching English in China? Pros and cons. System 21(4), 471-480. Bejarano, Y. (1987). A cooperative small-group methodology in the language classroom, TESOL Quarterly, 21(3). Brown, H.D. (2007). Teaching by principles: An interactive approach to language pedagogy. San Francisco State University: Pearson Longman. Brown, J.D. & Hudson, Thom (1998). The alternatives in language assessment. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 653-675. DelliCarpini, M. (2009). Enhancing cooperative learning in TESOL teacher

51 education, ELT Journal, 63(1), 42-50. Gillies, R.M. (2003). Structuring cooperative group work in classrooms, International Journal of Educational Research, 39, 35-49. Hafernik, J.J. (1984). The how and why of peer editing in the ESL writing class, CATESOL Papers, 10, 48-58. Hymes, D. (1971). Sociolinguistics and the ethnography of speaking. In E. Ardener (Ed.), Social anthropology and language (pp 47-94). London: Routledge. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R.T., Smith, K. (2007). The state of cooperative learning in postsecondary and professional settings. Educational Psychology Review, 19, 15-29. Long, M. (1991). Focus on form: A design feature in language teaching methodology. In K. de Bot, R. Ginsberg, & C. Kramsch (Eds.), Foreign language research in cross-cultural perspectives (pp 39-52). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Lou, Y., Abrami, P.C., Spence, J.C. (2000). Effects of within-class grouping on student achievement: An exploratory model, Journal of Educational Research, 94(2), 101-112. Maifair, L.L. (1999). Painless peer editing, Instructor-Intermediate, 108(7). Nunan, D. (1993). From learning-centeredness to learner-centeredness. Applied Language Learning, 4(1), 1-18. Pavlenko, A., Norton, B. (2007). Imagined communities, identity and English language learning. In J. Cummins, C. Davison, A. Pavlenko & B. Norton (Eds.), International Handbook of English Language Teaching, Springer International Handbooks of Education 15(1), 589-600. Roberts, M. (2007). Teaching in the multilevel classroom. Retrieved December, 2010 from www.pearsonlongman.com/ae/download/adulted/multilevel_monograph.pdf Sato, K. & Kleinsasser, R.C. (1999). Communicative language teaching (CLT): Practical understandings. The Modern Language Journal 83(4), 494-517. Savignon, S. (1987). Communicative language teaching. In S. Savignon (Ed.), Theory into practice (pp 235-242). London: Routledge. Savignon, S. (2001). Communicative language teaching for the Twenty-first century. In M. Celce-Murcia (Ed.), Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language (pp 13-28). Boston: Heinle & Heinle. Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11, 129-158.

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Slavin, R.E. (1996). Research on cooperative learning and achievement: What we know, what we need to know, Contemporary Educational Psychology, 21, 4369. Swain, M. (1995). Three functions of output in second language learning. In G. Cook & B. Seidlhofer (Eds.), Principle and practice in applied linguistics: Studies in honour of H.G. Widdowson (pp 125-144). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Mariah J. Fairley is an instructor at Al-Azhar University. She is interested in collaborative and constructivist learning, and research on social factors affecting learning in the EFL classroom. She can be reached at mariahjfairley@gmail.com. Heba Fathelbab received her Masters degree in TEFL from AUC. She has been teaching EFL for almost 10 years in both Egypt and Canada. Her research interests include student perception of their EFL teachers.

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Good, Better, Best Anthony Leone The American University in Cairo English for Law in Higher Education Studies. By Jeremy Walenn. Reading, U.K.: Garnet Publishing Ltd., 2009. 136 pages.

As a result of my background and experience, I have been asked to review the textbook entitled English for Law in Higher Education Studies (EFL) published by Garnet Publishing. As a preface, some brief remarks about my background are in order. First, I have been teaching a course in Legal English for AUCs School of Continuing Education for the past year, after designing that six- course, thirty-six week curriculum. And earlier in my career I practiced law in the United States for a considerable period of time. Therefore, my review should be considered as a derivative of those experiences rather than of an English teaching background. Secondly, this review is actually a comparison with the book used in AUCs Legal English course, since that approach proved to be the most insightful (Kroise-Lindner, 2008). And thirdly, in the final analysis, the book used at AUC, Introduction to International Legal English, (IILE), seems far more complete as a stand-alone resource for the non-lawyer teacher of English for a Special Purpose. However, as will be discussed in some detail, EFL performs very well in some respects and would make an invaluable companion in the classroom. At first glance, both books appear to be very similar; both books are paperback, come with two CDs, and both are approximately the same length since IILE is 160 pages long and covers ten chapters and EFL is 136 pages in length and covers twelve chapters. Moreover, in the back of each book is a section containing transcriptions of the CD recordings. And both books contain a word glossary, an invaluable tool for all ESL students. Finally, each book is aimed at students who speak English at the upper intermediate level. But, as the old adage goe s, its whats inside that counts. A closer examination of EFL would support a number of criticisms. First, EFL seems full of pictures. They are all legally related in one way or another, but after viewing what must be a third of the books pages covered with pictures of courtrooms and handcuffs, contracts and law books, one is inclined to wonder what has been left out to accommodate this waste of space. And while it is a fact that EFL does contain, at 318 words, a larger glossary, the entries there just refer one back into the book itself. IILEs smaller 218-word glossary would seem more valuable to students since each word includes its own, more expansive definition. However, one of EFLs most glaring omissions is the absence of an answer key to the exercises contained within the book. Any teacher must, therefore, take special care to ensure that all students correctly complete the books many matching and fill-in-the-space exercises. IILE, on the other hand, contains an accurate and complete answer key to each of the books hundreds of exercises. The result is that IILE remains as a repository resource, while EFL requires constant diligence on the part of both teacher and student to make sure all questions are answered correctly. Because of these and other failings, EFL is prevented from achieving the success of IILE.

53 In a closer comparison of the two textbooks, EFLs failings become even more apparent. The chapter headings in EFL seem to present a less than logical flow through any sort of legal curriculum. The book begins, predictably enough, with a review of the court system in chapter one. However, in later chapters the approach turns more piecemeal since it presents criminal law and torts in the same chapter and then presents the crimes of theft and homicide-- divisions of criminal law-- in separate chapters. This would certainly seem odd to any student of the law. All those who have studied the law, wherever they have studied it, are used to seeing the subject presented in a certain manner, that is with each chapter completely devoted to subjects such as criminal law, the law of torts, the law of property, contracts, and so on. In presenting the subject in this way, IILE would seem to relate better to students who have studied the law and, in the end, this would appear to be a more comprehensive approach. Before leaving this overview of the chapter layout of both books, some attention should be paid to the way the primary tasks of listening, speaking, and writing are dealt with. These four tasks make up the foundation of teaching English for a special purpose. IILE seems to understand this, since each chapter includes a segment for listening to the accompanying CD and includes writing, reading, and speaking exercises. EFL, on the other hand, alternates listening and speaking exercises with reading and writing exercises so that in the twelve chapters there are six of each rather than ten of each, as in IILE. This is a major shortcoming, since students must be given plenty of practice in reading, writing, speaking and listening if the course is to be successful. Therefore, in the overview, IILE seems a vastly superior textbook. However, a closer view of content reveals some surprising inclusions by EFL, albeit after more mention of certain misgivings. First, the authors of EFL seem to miss the point that legal English is frequently taught by non-lawyers in need of background help concerning many legal topics and principles. And so EFLs chapters seem to jump into the subject matter without taking the time to lay some sort of foundation of knowledge of the law in each particular area. Missing, for example, are the page-long narrative introductions about criminal law or property law included by the authors of IILE. These narratives establish a sort of normative boundary for the discussion of a particular area of law. This structure not only helps to provide students with vocabulary and reading comprehension materials for the upcoming chapter, but it also provides a foundation upon which the non-lawyer teacher may base further examination of the legal topic being discussed in the chapter. However, EFL does include valuable material concerning language pronunciation and writing instruction. No such material is included in IILE. Accurate pronunciation of complex legal terms is essential for legal English students and so this and other inclusions make EFL a valuable resource to consult. EFLs coverage of the law seems inappropriately jurisdictionally-specific in many cases. For example, it is hard to imagine why a discussion of the famous jurist Lord Denning, would be important to anyone practicing law in Egypt or another foreign jurisdiction. Similarly, the inclusion of case cites to cases in courts in the UK seem like a wasted effort. It is inconceivable that any legal English student would benefit from a discussion of Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. v Selfridge [195} AC 847 HL (Walenn, 2009, p. 108). However, in spite of these shortcomings, EFL manages to include very important material that makes the book noteworthy. For example, a surprising inclusion is the chapter on electronic research. Many Egyptian lawyers are not very computer-literate, and to learn the terms in English would aid them in

54 speaking with international clients. There is no comparable material in IILF and this remains as this textbooks largest shortcoming. Regarding the improvement of students writing skills, both textbooks make important contributions. The authors of IILE are aware that the most important skill for a legal English student to obtain from a course is the ability to speak and correspond with English-speaking clients about the law. IILE is designed to provide students with practice in writing informative and advisory e-mails to clients. The textbook is filled with correspondence writing exercises. Additionally, many of the listening sections are of lawyers speaking with clients. These useful exercises focus directly on the main objective of a course in legal English. The authors of EFL also focus on good writing skills, but the focus in EFL is on sentence construction and paragraph cohesion. EFL includes many exercises that teach students how to write complex sentences well and how to write paragraphs with topic and concluding sentences that support the thesis of the writing. It seems quite clear that students should receive instruction in both correspondence writing and sentence and paragraph construction. In terms of writing, each textbook omits what the other includes; thus, the best instruction would combine the approaches of each textbook. In conclusion, it seems that IILE is the better textbook because it serves as a stand-alone resource for students, because it focuses on lawyer-client relations, and because its pedagogical organization is more supportive of the non-lawyer teacher. On the other hand, EFL has some very interesting features, including a chapter on electronic research, pronunciation exercises, and a focus on improving students paragraph and sentence construction. Therefore, the teacher of legal English would do well to use IILE as the main textbook and supplement it with exercises from EFL. References Krois-Lindner, A., Firth, M. and First Translegal. (2008). Introduction to International Legal English. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge. Walenn, J. (2009). English for Law in Higher Education Studies. Reading, U.K.: Garnet Publishing Ltd. Dr. Anthony Leone monitors the Legal English program for AUCs School of Continuing Education and he teaches writing at AUC and Legal English for the US Embassy at the Egyptian Court of Cassation. He holds a Juris Doctorate and a Masters in International Human Rights Law.

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Teaching Speaking and Pronunciation: Where do I start? Robert McMullin The Institute of Public Administration in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia How to Teach Pronunciation. By Gerald Kelly, Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2000. 160 pages. 25.70. How to Teach Speaking. By Scott Thornbury, Essex: Pearson Education Limited, 2005. 160 pages. 25.70. Any teacher faced with planning a speaking class for the first time, and wondering where to start, would do well to investigate How to Teach Pronunciation and How to Teach Speaking. Both are concise, well organized, and strike a good balance between theory and practical applications, explaining theory in order to support the use of certain teaching approaches, and not to discuss theory for its own sake. Good information on creating speaking classes, especially in the area of pronunciation, can be hard to come by. As Pennington (1998) has noted, the study of phonology in many teaching programs is limited to general linguistics as opposed to being geared towards teaching in the classroom. Since in the same article she also cites numerous studies that demonstrate instructing L-2 learners in pronunciation, even for relatively brief periods of time, can produce noticeable improvement in pronunciation, it would seem the only question is how to integrate pronunciation instruction into a speaking course rather than if it should be included. The two books compliment each other well, and together provide a teacher with a good starting point for teaching or designing an oral course. I will start with How to Teach Pronunciation. The first chapter, the description of speech, gives a brief overview of the physiology of pronunciation, the articulation and transcription of phonemes, as well as the relationship between phonetics and phonology. The second chapter, teaching pronunciation, gives an overview of the pedagogy of pronunciation. It discusses approaches to teaching (reactive versus planned teaching) as well as discusses how to decide what pronunciation model to teach, and gives a few examples of different types of techniques and activities to use in teaching pronunciation. Chapters 3 and 4 cover vowels and consonants, respectively. These chapters give a good overview of phonology; they discuss how vowel and consonants sounds are articulated in detail, as well as some practical classroom exercises to teach students the phonemes of the English language. Chapter 5 discusses word and sentence stress, an especially important topic in light of the consensus among ESL professionals (Hahn, 2008) which cite difficulties with suprasegmental pronunciation as a far more significant bar to intelligibility by L2 students than segmental pronunciation. Again, the book does a good job of giving a thorough but not overly long explanation of the key concepts and terms of both word stress and sentence stress, as well as some practical exercises to demonstrate these concepts to students. Chapter 6 discusses intonation. This would seem to be an especially significant chapter, as many English teachers (especially native speakers) dont always appreciate just how much English speakers use and depend on intonation to

56 communicate information. The book discusses many of the consequences of L2 students not understanding the use of intonation. The book does a good job of discussing the key concepts involved in intonation as well as some teaching techniques to both demonstrate these ideas to students and to enable them to master the use of intonation themselves. Lastly, chapter 7 discusses other miscellaneous aspects of suprasegmental speech such as assimilation, elision, linking, and contractions, and whether these particular aspects of connected speech should be taught. The author does a good job of discussing both sides of this issue, which would seem to generate differing views among the ESL community. The author seems to take a nuanced view, supporting the teaching of some (such as contractions) while dealing with others (such as assimilation) only in certain cases. The book also contains a task file, at least one task for each chapter, to allow the reader to test his own comprehension of key concepts after finishing each chapter. One additional benefit this book provides is a CD recording and a photocopyable chart of the IPA alphabet. This recording provides both audio samples of all the vowel and consonant phonemes, as well as practical demonstrations of different aspects of phonetics. This is especially valuable for the non-native speaker teaching who needs a model of native pronunciation to demonstrate to their students. The vowels and consonants are included in the charts in sequence, numbered to correspond with the tracks of the included CD. These charts also include each phoneme's symbol from the IPA alphabet. Both the phoneme itself and several words containing that phoneme as examples are provided. How to Teach Speaking is a good companion volume to How to Teach Pronunciation. The first several chapters explain the various theories behind language acquisition, especially as it relates to the spoken word. Various theories of language acquisition are discussed, but rather than embrace any particular approach, it attempts to explain SLA in terms of a common denominator by breaking this process of acquisition down to three stages: awareness, appropriation, and autonomy. The book devotes one chapter to each of these stages and gives both theory and a practical approach to teaching students in these various stages. Chapter 1 begins by defining what speaking is. It introduces and explains such key terms as self-monitoring, automaticity, and fluency. It deals with speaking as a skill. Chapter 2, in contrast, discusses what knowledge is involved in speaking, and how it might differ between an L1 and an L2 speaker. It discusses sociocultural knowledge, linguistic knowledge, pragmatic knowledge, politeness and register. It also briefly deals with vocabulary and chunks, the latter defined as sequences of speech pre assembled through previous use and retrievable as a unit, further subdividing and providing examples of the latter into collocations, phrasal verbs, idioms, and discourse markers. Chapter 3 discusses in depth the differences between an L1 speaker and an L2 speaker. It takes the approach that there is not much of a difference between speaking ones native language and speaking a second. However, it does discuss sociocultural knowledge and genre knowledge and how an L2 speaker might be handicapped by not possessing information L1 speakers take for granted. It also briefly discusses vocabulary and phonology. Lastly, it discusses the three schools of second language acquisition: behaviorist, cognitivist, and sociocultural theory.

57 As previously mentioned, rather than favor any particular theory to language learning, the book confines itself to discussing awareness raising, appropriation, and autonomy. Chapter 4 discusses awareness raising activities. The book subdivides awareness to include paying attention, noticing, and understanding. The primary activities it recommends are the use of recordings, both for students to listen to and to make transcripts. Chapter 5 discusses appropriation activities. While the book defines appropriation as the transition from other regulated to "self regulated", via social interaction, seemingly a subtle endorsement of the sociocultural approach, as is its advocacy of the use of scaffolding by teachers. Chapter 6 discusses autonomy, and activities teachers might employ to foster it in their students. It recommends and describes task based student activities such as presentations to achieve these ends. Chapter 7, planning and assessing speaking, discusses in detail both integrating speaking into the curriculum as well as assessing speaking. Chapter 7 also discusses integrated skills and how other skills can be introduced into, or combined with, a speaking course. There is a task file in this book as well, which allows a reader to test his understanding of each chapter. For example, the task files for Chapter 1 present dialogues and ask the reader to identify features of spontaneous speech (such as filled pauses) and turn taking (backchanneling, topic shifts) to ensure the reader understood all of the terms discussed in the chapter. An answer key is provided at the end. This is another thing I find refreshing about the book; the emphasis on spoken models designed with realism in mind. Recordings abound in most speaking texts, but frequently they are so cleaned up they dont prepare the listeners for language in the real world. As a former voice model myself, I can attest that so much r ehearsing and multiple takes are used in the creation of these dialogs the odds of hearing such perfect speech outside the studio are unlikely, and may leave a student with the impression he is more familiar with the speech of a native speaker than may be the case. The only real criticism I can think to make of these books is their lack of a glossary. While key terms are introduced into the text in bold face, and their meanings generally described, it would be helpful to have a section with key terms clearly listed and defined. However, given just how much information is contained in these books, this is a minor criticism. How to Teach Pronunciation and How to Teach Speaking provide concise but surprisingly comprehensive coverage of everything you need to know to plan and teach an oral ESL course. Unlike many ESL texts they dont lose the reader in unimportant details or esoteric side arguments of little practical significance. They are good for beginning teachers as well as more experienced ESL instructors. Particularly useful is How to Teach Pronunciation, an area not always covered in depth even in some M.A. programs; even a professional with a graduate education in TESOL can learn from this book. For instance, it was my first encounter with the term triphthong (a combination of three vowel sounds). Firmly grounded in theory without being loaded down with jargon, these books are, quite simply, readable. Lastly, these books are portable. The five books of the series I own together weigh less than the average college text. They are perfect for a nomadic ESL teacher when space or weight is limited. I recommend everyone make room on their bookshelf (or in their backpack) for at least some of this collection.

58

References Hahn, L. (2008). Primary Stress and Intelligibility: Research to Motivate the Teaching of Suprasegmentals. TESOL Quarterly, 38/2:201-222. Pennington, M. (1998). The Teachability of Phonology in Adulthood: A ReExamination. Iral, 36/4:323-341.

Robert McMullin is an instructor of ESL at The Institute of Public Administration in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He is interested in genre analysis and ESL writing as well as speaking pedagogy. He can be reached at windmaster2011@yahoo.com.

59

Some from Here, Some from There: Global Culture in an English Textbook Alexander M. Lewko The American University in Cairo Global: Elementary coursebook. By Lindsay Clandfield & Kate Pickering, Oxford: Macmillan, 2010. 160 pages. 25.21 (paper). A modern textbook for a class in English as a foreign language has several important objectives to meet beyond the mechanics of the language. First, it must be authentic and culturally sensitive to be considered acceptable by curricular gatekeepers as well as to keep the students attention. Second, it must prepare students to interact with other English users from a variety of backgrounds. Finally, it is beneficial for such a textbook to be written so it is able to be useful in a variety of locations, regardless of local cultural taboos. Global: Elementary coursebook (Clandfield & Pickering, 2010) grapples with these challenges as educators continue to determine how to teach global English. The book is structured similarly to other modern English textbooks. It is made up of ten thematic units, each with four parts focusing on a narrower topic. The parts are divided into sections on grammar, reading, listening, vocabulary, and speaking and pronunciation. Each unit ends with summary sections that serve to review the units material but also give the student opportunities to use English in different ways (such as writing an email to a hotel or using appropriate speech while shopping). The pictures and other visuals throughout the book, which are visually pleasing to the point of serving as a distraction, are placed to support exercises presented in the text. Global can be used for instruction of either young people or adults; its layout is interesting and engaging so as to attract the attention of younger learners while not being infantile in a way to be insulting to professionals. Global, in trying to be a different book (Clandfield & Pickering, 2010, p. 2), attempts to teach English through discussion of various cultural topics, yet in a culturally neutral fashion. Recent perspectives on English teaching emphasize the need to direct learners away from focusing on the culture of an inner circle country and back to their own, or at least to an international target culture where users of English as a second language communicate English with each other as they see fit in relevant situations (McKay, 2003, p. 39). In fact, teaching English with a focus on traditional inner circle cultures may be counterproductive to learning, as students may feel that a foreign culture is being imposed on them when they were only looking for language instruction (Ziad, 1999). Global's authors take these points seriously. A skimming of Global will reveal no single source culture that is being used for the material, and there are no attempts to acculturate the reader to any preferred culture. A review of one unit can illustrate these points. The ninth unit, entitled Life & Style, opens with activities based on an online environmental project called the Encyclopedia of Life. Animals pictured in this section originate from different parts of the world, and a listening exercise asks the students to note these places. Part 2 of the unit builds activities around rites of passage, specifically the first haircut for a

61 Mongolian child, interesting weddings from around the world, and American baby showers. Part 3 is concerned with the body. It begins with a reading exercise on body art that discusses the history of tattoos, different reasons people may get them, and their current popularity. Pictures include a man with tattoos on his face, outstretched hands with henna, and a mans arm covered in tattoos. Additional exercises involve the major parts of the body and face, as well as how to describe a friend or family member to a person who has not yet met him or her. The final part contains exercises about clothing and the history of fashion. Different clothes are pictured on their own, but not on people (Clandfield & Pickering, 2010, pp 102-109). All of the units function similarly by creating a global context for specific themes; this context serves as the basis for the English instruction and activities. Within this framework, an exercise may highlight a topic from a specific culture or country; however, there is no cultural preference. This textbook pointedly avoids Ziads concern about student alienation by forcing a predominant culture through the content (1999). Thus, this book aims to differentiate itself from other English language textbooks by fostering in students the ability, if not the outright desire, to learn about other cultures without feeling intrusion on their own. This is a valuable skill to develop, especially if learners intend to use their English skills to communicate with English users from different backgrounds. I have written this review as an American student in Egypt studying teaching English as a foreign language, so I have tried to view the book from the perspective of an Egyptian (and I certainly admit that my attempt to do this is imperfect at best). Through that lens, Globals advantages also serve as pitfalls. Arab cultures are barely represented, so an Egyptian may see little in the book directly related to his or her own experiences. The text may lack authenticity to that student and prove a hindrance to learning. Second, topics in this text may have minimal usefulness to an Egyptian student if he or she is only going to use English in Egypt for specific purposes. The student may view the global context of the book more as an unnecessary distraction than a benefit. Finally, I did not detect subject matter in the book that I would believe to be controversial for the majority of Egyptians, but if I tried to use this book for teaching elsewhere in the Middle East or North Africa, I could not assume the same. As a responsible teacher, I would have to reevaluate the material against my knowledge of the culture to ensure appropriateness. This may seem obvious, but an outside practitioner must never assume a book is neutral everywhere. So while Global represents an evolution in the use of culture for a potentially global audience in an English textbook, it also is a re minder that source culture, or texts that reflect the students own cultural experience (McKay, 2003, p. 39) , may serve as an optimal solution for many local educators to facilitate English language instruction. This textbook will serve many students well, but the discerning teacher, depending on the students background and reasons for learning English, may re quire a more local book.

References Clandfield, L. & Pickering, K. (2010). Global: elementary coursebook. Macmillan: Oxford, United Kingdom. McKay, Sandra Lee (2003). EIL curriculum development. RELC Journal, 34(1), 31-

61 47. Zaid, Mohammed A. (1999). Cultural confrontation and cultural acquisition in the EFL classroom. IRAL, 37(2), 111-127.

Alexander Lewko is currently a student in the MA TEFL program at the American University of Cairo. He is interested in usage of and attitudes toward English in Egypt. He can be reached at lewkoa@aucegypt.edu.

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Reflections on the Egyptian landscape of linguistics Bonny Norton University of British Columbia, Canada.

One of the privileges of working in the field of TESOL/Applied Linguistics is the opportunity to meet extraordinary people from across the globe, learn more about diverse linguistic communities, and take a fresh look at ones own teaching and research. For this reason, in October 2010, I was delighted to serve as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in the TEFL department, American University in Cairo (AUC). Although I had visited AUC in early 2006, the university premises at the time were in downtown Cairo, and AUC has subsequently built a new campus a considerable distance from downtown, in an area known as New Cairo. During my visit, I had the opportunity to learn more about the new site and the greater Cairo area. I also enjoyed many conversations with faculty and students, presented two public lectures, and ran a series of workshops. In reflecting on my experience, I have been asked to address the following question: What are the greatest challenges for English language education at AUC and in Egypt? In seeking to address this complex question, I offer some preliminary thoughts and tentative observations. To this end, I would like to focus on what I am calling the landscape of linguistics in Egypt, a slightly different take on the recent research on linguistic landscape associated with applied linguistics scholars such as Elana Shohamy. During my first visit to Egypt, because I was living in downtown Cairo, and took daily walks along the beautiful Nile River, I was only dimly aware that Egypt is in fact almost all desert. At the new campus, the dry, desert-like quality of the Egyptian landscape was clearly evident, and my research confirmed that the only arable land in this enormous country lies along the Nile River. This has important implications for a poorly resourced but highly populated country. Simply put, how does a government feed 80 million people on the produce of a small strip of arable land? Although I am not an economist, it seems clear to me that if Egypt is to survive and prosper, it needs to be at peace with its neighbors; it needs the support of wealthier nations; and it needs a vibrant tourist industry. Poverty and social unrest will create divisions within Egyptian society, with potentially dire consequences for the future. So what does this have to do with English language education at AUC and in Egypt more broadly? Since English is a global language of commerce, technology, and tourism, AUC has an important role to play in reaching out to diverse communities in Egypt, both poor and rich. If English remains the language of the elite, which seems to be the case in Egypt, then economic divisions within Egyptian society will be exacerbated, and English will be associated with privilege, westernization, and post-colonialism. Egyptians with limited access to English may become resentful and disaffected, and possibly turn their anger against sites of English dominance.

63 I am not suggesting that Egyptians relinquish their investment in the rich and vibrant Arabic language: mother tongue literacy is important not only for the maintenance of sociocultural identity, but also, as bilingual education scholars such as Jim Cummins note, for second language acquisition. At the same time, if English is a language of power, then all Egyptians should be able to have access to excellent English education, and local ownership of the language. In my view, this is the greatest challenge for English language education at AUC, in Egypt, and, indeed, the entire global community. (Written prior to the January 2011 revolution.) Bonny Norton is Professor and Distinguished University Scholar in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia, Canada. Her research addresses identity and language learning, critical literacy, and international development. Her website can be found at http://lerc.educ.ubc.ca/fac/norton/

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NESTs (Native English Speaking Teachers) & NNESTs (Non-Native English Speaking Teachers): Competence or Nativeness? Heba Fathelbab Canadian International College, Cairo

The controversy regarding whether NESTs are better ESL/EFL teachers than NNESTs has been debated in EFL research for the past two decades. Even with the large number of NNESTs teaching ESL/EFL, which has peaked to almost 80% of ESL/EFL teachers worldwide (Canagarajah, 1999), the NEST has always had a superior status. This notion was termed by Phillipson (1992) as the native speaker fallacy (p.185), which is the belief that the ideal teacher is a nativ e speaker of English. Phillipson refuted the NS fallacy and believed that teachers are made rather than born whether teachers are native or non native (1992, p.194). Categorizing NESTs as competent and NNESTs as less competent represents an ethical problem, a problem that is illustrated in the fact that most EFL students see the NEST as a white monolingual teacher with a native English accent and believe that no other prototype exists (Filho, 2002). This belief is discriminatory and may be unfair to other qualified and competent NNESTs. As a result, NNESTs tend to have lower self-esteem than NESTs because they feel that their credibility is constantly being judged due to the superior status given to NESTs by the EFL community. In addition, this inaccurate categorization can influence hiring practices in the EFL market, as it may cause a conflict between commercial realities and the equality principle between NESTs and NNESTs (Ills, 1991). Therefore, addressing this problem should minimize the differences between NESTs and NNESTs in terms of job opportunities, promotions and salaries (Canagarajah,1999; Mahboob, 2003). Moreover, it might provide NESTs and NNESTs with even opportunities and allow teachers to be judged according to their individual teaching capabilities and professional knowledge. Researchers have investigated NESTs and NNESTs, and have all reached the conclusion that both categories of teachers have strengths and weaknesses. Medgyes (1992) argued that NNESTs should be given the same chance as NESTs to be successful EFL teachers. He also discussed the strengths and weaknesses of both categories in his study. He stated the main strengths of NESTs as having high language proficiency and communicative competence, and the main strength of NNESTs as being successful learner models and having knowledge of their students L1. As a result, research has altered its attempts to find the better EFL/ESL teacher into attempts to discover how NESTs and NNESTs might complement each other. In other words, it is not about who is worth more (Medgyes, 1992, p. 340), but about how they are worth more together (Gill & Rebrova, 2001, p. 1). This concept has been explored through NEST/NNEST team teaching, as well as other professional collaborations between NS and NNS.

65 Furthermore, research has explored how students perceive NESTs and NNESTs. Similar results were found, which show that students find that both NESTs and NNESTs have strengths and weaknesses. The main strengths of NESTs, as perceived by students, are that they have better speaking and communication skills, high language proficiency and are better informants of the target culture. Students perceive the main strengths of NNESTs to be better knowledge of grammar and knowledge the students first language (mainly in an EFL context). Even though students seem to be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of both NESTs and NNESTs, they tend to perceive the NEST as a more competent teacher. Moussu (2002) investigated students perceptions of NESTs and NNESTs, and his results showed that NNESTs who sounded and looked more like NSs were better appreciated by their students. Rubins (1992) study confirms the previous belief as the results showed that students associated a foreign accent with a poor teacher. In addition, most students assume that teachers that do not look English will not be able to teach English effectively, as it does not occur to these students that these nonEnglish looking teachers might have lived their entire lives in an English-speaking country. Therefore, students seem to have stereotyped native speakers and tend to decide the nativeness of their teachers based on qualities such as physical appearance, accent and ethnicity (Filho, 2002; Rubin, 1992). This might be because they know no other NS except their stereotyped blonde, blue-eyed, American or English looking and sounding NS with English first names (Filho, 2002). Hence, students view Center teachers and Periphery teachers differently. Center teachers are teachers from countries that speak English as a native language and are perceived as NSs by students (Phillipson, 1992), and Periphery teachers are teachers from underdeveloped countries that speak English as a foreign language and are perceived as NNSs by students (Phillipson, 1992). Students tend to view these teachers differently mainly due to the fact that periphery teachers do not look like NSs of English, even though they might actually be NSs. Therefore, students reject not only NNESTs, but also NESTs from countries they are not perceived as Center English-speaking countries (Inbar-Lourie, 2005). As a result, nativeness has become a socially constructed identity and not a linguistic one (Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 2001). The NEST/NNEST dichotomy has repercussions that extend beyond the perception of nativeness, repercussions that affect teachers job opportunities and salaries in the EFL job market. Canagarajah (1999) discussed the political and economical consequences that stem from the NS/NNS dichotomy such as unequal job opportunities and unequal pay. Moussu (2002) stated that the dichotomy exists in hiring practices and that some teachers are not hired because they are not native speakers. Moreover, some online job advertisements for EFL teachers still specify being a native speaker as a qualification. In addition, schools are keen on hiring NESTs because advertising that their teachers are native speakers attracts parents and allows them to compete with other schools. Mahboob (2003) stated that 59.8% of administrators surveyed in his study think being a NS is an important criterion in the hiring process. Most administrators believe that students demand is for NESTs and that students expect NESTs, which is why administrators have reservations about hiring NNESTs. TESOL published A Position Statement against Discrimination of Nonnative Speakers of English in the Field of TESOL (TESOL, 2006) which states that employment decisions based solely on native speaker criterion is discriminatory against well-qualified individuals. It also states that TESOL is against such discrimination and that employment should be based on language proficiency, as well

66 as other criteria, without any reference to nativeness. This statement shows that TESOL is well aware of the existence of this problem in the EFL job market. Therefore, this inaccurate perception of teacher competence needs to be amended so that perception of nativeness will not be exclusively associated with teacher competence. Employers should not be allowed to print Native Speakers only on their job ads, as teachers should be evaluated based on language and teaching competence. In addition, further research is needed to investigate the influence of teacher nativeness on hiring practices and explore if a bias towards NESTs exists in the EFL community. If it does exist, then to what extent? Implications of such research include increasing awareness of the inaccurate NEST/NNEST dichotomy, which consequently might encourage the EFL community to refrain from associating nativeness with competence. Finally, the equality principle among EFL teachers in hiring practices might be implemented more effectively, providing fair job opportunities for all EFL teachers.

References Brutt-Griffler, J. & Samimy, K. (2001). Transcending the nativeness paradigm. World Englishes, 20(1), 99-106. Canagarajah, A. S. (1999). Interrogating the native speaker fallacy: Non-linguistic roots, non-pedagogical results. In G. Braine (Ed.), Non native educators in English language teaching (pp. 77-92). Mahwah, NJ: Laurence Erlbaum. Filho, R. E. (2002). Students perceptions of nonnative ESL teachers. Unpublished masters thesis, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, West V irginia University. Gill, S. & Rebrova, A. (2001). Native and non-native: together were worth more. Retrieved March 11, 2009, from: www.eltnewsletter.com/back/March2001/art522001.htm. Illes, E. (1991). Correspondence. ELT Journal, 45(1), 87. Inbar-Lourie,O. (2005). Mind the gap: Self and perceived native speaker identities of EFL teachers . In E. Llurda (Ed.), Non-Native Language Teachers: Perceptions, Challenges (265-282). New York: Springer. Mahboob, A. (2003). Status of nonnative English-speaking teachers in the United States. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington. Medgyes, P. (1992). Native or non-native: who's worth more? ELT Journal, 46(4), 340-349. Moussu, L. (2002). English as a second language students reactions to nonnative English-speaking teachers. Masters thesis, Brigham Young University Provo. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

67 Rubin, D. L. (1992). Nonlanguage factors affecting undergraduates judgments of nonnative English-speaking teaching assistants. Research in Higher Education, 33(4), 511-531. Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (2006). Position statement against discrimination of nonnative speakers of English in the field of TESOL. Retrieved August 8, 2008, from http://www.tesol.org.

Heba Fathelbab received her Master degree in TEFL from AUC. She has been teaching EFL for almost 10 years in both Egypt and Canada. Her research interests include student perception of their EFL teachers.

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Tahrir Square as learning space and the role of English Phyllis Wachob The American University in Cairo

Congratulations, Egypt, on your revolution! For anyone who watched TV or went to Tahrir Square during the revolution, you have all seen the space full of people and their messages. As teachers, we often think of classrooms as learning spaces and forget that much is learned in other venues. And I believe that at least for a while, Tahrir Square was not a traffic circle but a large magic space of learning. In this forum space, I would like to describe some of my experiences and what I learned from the Egyptian revolution. Also, I want to explore some thoughts on my role as English teacher and the role of the English language in the revolution and the future of Egypt. I went to make my voice heard on February 3rd, the day after the Day of the Camels. For so many of us, without internet, without phones, and only watching TV, the days became a blur. We took to naming the days, such as the Day of the Camels, which was the day anti-revolutionary camels and horses sped through the square. Rocks thrown. Violence. But on Feb 3rd, the square was busy with chanting, marching, praying, and people holding signs. Everyone was there. I saw many children brought by their parents to witness the revolution. (Remember at that point, we did not know how it would end.) When I saw them, I thought about what they were learning. What did they think? What did they understand? And in fifty years, when they were my age, what would they remember from this time, this day? What lessons would they learn? They certainly were learning that freedom isnt free because even then the shrine to the martyrs was being erected that showed the faces of young men and women who gave their lives to stand up to tyranny and despotism. They were learning that being bold together was the way to make individual voices heard. They were learning to not be afraid to say what they thought, out loud and boldly. Thus, they brought innumerable signs. There were signs in English; the largest in the square was all in English. People demand removal of the regime. Some were in Arabic, and many were in both languages. I carried my sign too, one that I might not have been bold enough to carry just a few short weeks before. I was inspired by the Egyptians who had so much more to lose than I did. It read, Obama, support the Egyptian people, not the dictator who terrorizes them. My sign was d irected to my president, who, at that point, had been quite hesitant to align himself with freedom, democracy, open elections; the things we enjoy in our country. I was angered that perhaps he was trying to say that we could live in a country ruled by law and the people, but that Egyptians could not? This was my contribution to the learning space. My picture was taken by many. My sign was read by many and translated for those who could not read it.

69 And what did I learn? Just as I was leaving, I saw a man wearing a traditional gallabeya picking up papers and putting them into a box. Picking up the trash. Im a great one for criticizing the Egyptians for their lack of civic pride and letting their streets and sidewalks become so dirty. So I was quick to say to him, Shukran, shukran. He stood up straight, looked me right in the eye and said, I am a teacher. Rather startled, I replied, Im a teacher, too. That exchange has stayed with me and I have often thought about what it meant. Did he mean, by speaking in English, Dont condescend to me by speaking in Arabic; I can speak English too. Or did he mean Im a teacher and Im teaching young people about civic awareness and responsibility. Or Even class divisions cannot keep us apart. Teachers should pick up trash, not just the lowly garbage men. Or perhaps he was just announcing his profession? But why in English? What place does English play in Egyptian public life? And what role did it play in the revolution? We all know how it started with Facebook. When I asked my colleague what Facebook was in Arabic, he gave a very strange look, Facebook. What else? The young people of Egypt, the Middle East (and the rest of the world) have taken to the Internet, the language of computers, and they have made it their own. When we woke up one morning to silence on mobile phone networks and the internet, we called that the Day the internet went down. It was the fourth day of the revolution and my first thought was that the government was really frightened, to try to cut us off. But I knew that Egyptians had already gone too far to go back now and it was the first time that I thought that the young people of Egypt might seriously bring down the regime. After all, revolutions have been carried out for thousands of years without Facebook; it could be done again. So often lately, the language of revolution has been in English. I have started calling English an Egyptian language beside Modern Standard Arabic, Ameya (colloquial Arabic), Nubian, Berber, as well as all the French and German that Egyptians speak. But what does it mean that English is an Egyptian language? Is this just a neocolonialist vision? Phillipsons (1992) Linguistic Imperialism gave us ideas about what we, especially those of us who are English teachers, do. Do we promote English as a world language that will lead to better jobs, more connection with worldwide businesses, and perhaps immigration to wealthier, better places to live? Others, such as David Crystal (2003) and David Nunan (2003) in their Global English vision, perhaps are still referring to the same power relationships of business, aid to developing countries, and so forth. I, too, must acknowledge that for years I have been teaching outside the US to eager students in many countries with the same vision of coming in contact and being able to do English for personal financial or social gain. I maintain that there are rules of good English, that vocabulary is a canon of words used in English and that my pragmatics as a native speaker are the right ones. But Pennycook (2007) has argued that if we view English, the language, as a myth, a created idea that is a social, ideological, historical and discursive construction (p.110), then what is it that Egyptians have been usin g? Have they, as they use English for their signs, been engaged in acts of English identification [that] are used to perform, invent and (re)fashion identities across innumerable domains (p.110). We need to understand, as Pennycook says, the multiple investments people bring to their acts, desires and perfo rmances in English (p. 111). I believe this is not Phillipsons neocolonialist English, but a Global English that has been used by Egyptians (and others in the Middle East) for their own purposes. They have created their own identities with it, global citizens with a new

71 found voice. And they do not necessarily follow OUR rules of spelling, or grammar. If I point out that a phrase is incorrect, my sign-carrying Egyptian might say, Who cares; you know what I mean. Leave out an article or a preposition, Who cares? Make a joke? (De-Nile: Not only a river in Egypt.) They are entitled because it is their language. They are creating their own identities through their own use of the language. Some of my favorite signs were, Obama, its not about you. The US, its not about you. USA, its our decision, not yours. This is what Global English looks like, Egyptian style. Egyptians are using English for communication to the outside world, but also as a way of identifying themselves as bilingual, global citizens who have found their voice. This identification of ideas, often expressed in English, yearns for democracy, Egyptian democracy. A few months ago, one might say that that phrase was an oxymoron, and indeed Egyptian democracy may not look like American democracy. But we do not know, because it has not been invented yet. Let me return to my first idea of Tahrir Square as learning space. As Egyptians watched their TVs, or joined with those in Tahrir, what were they learning? As we outsiders watched TV, what did we learn? I watched CNN, BBC, and Al Jezeera TV. I saw their coverage, and I experienced for myself their many different views. The world has changed. We in Egypt know that. Every day we see, hear and experience many different things. Before the revolution is a marker of time, and of a different world. We have experienced new energy, new openness, new identities, with fierceness and a fearlessness that is new. After all, Tahrir means liberation. And what of the role of English? It is embedded in this new world not because we want to do business or have pen pals around the world. English is used as a connector via the new media to citizens of the world, wherever they are, and in whatever variety of English they choose to use. (This was first given as a presentation at the New Orleans TESOL Convention, March 18, 2011.)

References Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language. 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press. Nunan, D. (2003). The impact of English as a global language on educational policies and practices in the Asia-Pacific region. TESOL Quarterly, 37(4), 589-613. Pennycook, A. (2007). The Myth of English as an International Language. In Makoni, S. and Pennycook, A. (Eds.) Disinventing and Reconstituting Languages, pp. 90-115. Multilingual Matters. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Phyllis Wachob teaches methodology in the MATEFL program at the American University in Cairo. Her interests are learner autonomy, motivation, cooperative learning, Critical Pedagogy and introducing innovative methodologies. She can be reached at pwachob@aucegypt.edu.