The Qatar Blog: The Moorman's Experiences in Qatar

This has become quite an adventure, as Kathy talks about in the entry below. It has been an ongoing series of problems related to technology. I think things are settling down, but we are still clearly in transition in terms of both the professional work here and the details of moving into a new home.

As Kathy mentions I was thrown for a loop the first day at the university. I was in a meeting discussing their accreditation efforts. They are going through the international equivalent of NCATE. An interesting note on this, Linda Blanton, former ASU professor and Ass't Dean is their lead consultant. As the meeting ended and I was talking with Dr. Hissa, the Dean of the COE here, someone came in and said, you are supposed to be teaching your class right now. Interestingly, no one had told me I would be teaching this class, or actually any class, during my stay here. So I got a quick background briefing, and rushed up to meet the students.

It is a post graduate "Diploma" class designed to help students speak English well enough to teach in the Qatari schools; most schools will eventual use English as the language of instruction. My students are terrific. We meet four and a half hours a day, four days a week (I haven't had this much student contact since I taught in high school!). They are from Algeria, Syria and Sudan. They are in Qatar because of the opportunity in the super-charged economy. They are all college graduates, in things like business, computers, mathematics and English literature, and they are bright and energetic;.They bring to the classroom lots interesting life experiences, a drive to improve their lives, and a certain desperation. They are all mothers, most also work. And they are committed to succeeding and becoming highly fluent in English.

I've spent the week putting together ideas about how to approach the class. I've finally have a syllabus ready and the first assignments outlined. I would appreciate any suggestions on how to approach the class. Obviously, it must evolve over the course of the semester, so multiple insights would be helpful. It's a real challenge, so stay tuned.