Teaching international teachers:

How Saudi Arabian teachers experience learning about teaching in New Zealand

Gerard Duignan

Adult Education

School Of Humanities, CPIT

Culture

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How do learners feel when coping with a foreign environment?

Task:

Recall a situation in which you had difficulty adjusting to a new environment (e.g. relocating to a new town/country).

Who helped you to cope ?

Levels of adjustment

Culture "Surprise": Usually occurs early in your stay

Culture "Stress": A mild response to stimulus overload.

Culture "Irritation": Item Irritation observable behaviours which touch a personal “hot button”

(spitting, hygiene, verbal harassment, public displays – affection/drunkenness)

Culture "Fatigue": added stimulus overload. Lots of unfamiliar & difficult cultural information all at once Language fatigue - Ability to function declines

Culture "Shock": Contradiction between our accustomed patterns of behaviour and

trying to maintain them in the new cultural environment.

U-curve of adjustment

Honeymoon stage

Hostile / aggressive stageRecovery period

Adjustment period

Fatigue

What/who helped you to recover?

Implications / reflection

What challenges do you face when teaching learners from a different culture to your own ?

Spindler, G., & Spindler, L. (Eds.). (1994). Pathways to cultural awareness: cultural therapy with teachers and students. Thousand oaks, CA: Corwin

“Teachers carry into the classroom their personal cultural background. They perceive students, all of whom are cultural agents, with inevitable prejudice and preconception.

Students likewise come to school with personal cultural backgrounds that influence their perceptions of teachers, other students, and the school itself ...

“… Together students and teachers construct, mostly

without being conscious of doing it, an environment of

meanings enacted in individual and group behaviours, of

conflict and accommodation, rejection and acceptance,

alienation and withdrawal.”

(Spindler & Spindler, 1994, p. xix)

Spindler, G., & Spindler, L. (Eds.). (1994). Pathways to cultural awareness: cultural therapy with teachers and students. Thousand oaks, CA: Corwin

Background to case study

CPIT staff developers deliver in-service professional development short courses to overseas teachers

groups from Bahrain, China … Saudi Arabia technical teachers

4 dozen in 3 years

Challenges▫ Curriculum design ▫ Learner expectations▫ Principles of adult learning & teaching ▫ Relevance to home context▫ Western vs Arab world views

Case study Research Question

How do Saudi Arabian teachers experience learning about teaching in a New Zealand context?

MethodologyCase study • Interpretive qualitative methodology • Participatory and self-reflective• Grounded theory• thematic approach

Method

•Focus groups semi-structured interviews

•written questionnaires

•Reflective journal

FindingsParticipants:

voiced concerns about teaching practice Classroom management Dealing with large classes Practical methods vs theory of teaching and learning

challenged the Adult Education curriculum asked why they weren’t consulted on arrival

Creating a cultural pedagogy; “Culturally responsive teaching”

Halaqa - teaching as The Prophet did

Culturally Responsive Teaching …

Four foundational pillars of CRT practice:

• teacher attitudes and expectations, • cultural communication in the classroom, • culturally diverse content in the curriculum, • culturally congruent instructional strategies.

(Gay, 2000, p.35).

“Culturally Responsive Teaching“ - Geneva Gay

encompasses:• curriculum content• learning context• classroom climate• student-teacher relationships• instructional techniques• performance assessments.

“Culturally responsive pedagogy validates, facilitates, liberates, and empowers ethnically diverse students by simultaneously cultivating their cultural integrity, individual abilities, and academic success.”

(Gay, 2000, p.44)

Gay, G. (2000). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New york, NY: Teachers College Columbia University

Literature that informed the study

• Cultural capital Friere, Dewey, etc.

• Multi-cultural discourseAu, Ladson-Billings, Merriam, Echevarria, Short & Powers

• Scholarship of teaching & learningVygotsky, Knowles, Race

• Non-”western” ways of learning and knowing • e.g. Kaupapa Maori, Islamic, Confucian, Bishop and Berryman

• Culturally responsive teaching Gay

Ka kite ano …