THE FIRST EVER RUSTAQ STUDENT FILM FESTIVAL

The Rustaq Student Film Festival was one of those wonderful ideas that I dreamt up during a momentary lapse of reason commonly known as course design. Reality has a nasty habit of getting in the way of the best-laid plans of mice, men and English teachers, but my students and I have persevered. The first ever Rustaq Student Film Festival debuts tomorrow. I am sincerely hoping that the method in this madness will be the highlight of the Language Through Arts course for final year teaching students.

The Language Through Arts course arrived on my desk as a skeletal outline of very practical arts activities from the Ministry, along with a very theoretical and utterly unrelated, if fascinating, reading list. Fortunately I have had freedom in implementing the course, except for the edict from on high that there must be a final written examination. Along with the theoretical component, which I found thrilling and my students found dull, we have explored different arts activities that can support language learning each week. Rather than a string of unrelated projects, I planned to encourage students to put all their work together in a summative “gesamtkunstwerk” (the term is attributed to opera composer Richard Wagner): a spectrum of art forms combined in a performance. Ambitiously (and perhaps foolishly!) I suggested that this be done in a short educational film, although students may opt for a live performance. Naturally, they all chose film, taxing the college’s already overloaded tech resources the limit.

This is a massive project, which is why I announced it three months ago, held ongoing planning and scriptwriting workshops and provided in-class preparation time. Naturally, most students didn’t do much before last week. I am a little grouchy about this, but the experience will teach them far more about time management than my workshop ever could. The work that students have shown me so far is extremely encouraging. I have checked their screenplays for viability and language accuracy, and some work is truly excellent. Several groups have thrown themselves into the project. Some invited me to their hostel rooms to see their meticulous preparation of scenery, props and puppets, while others have trained younger actors to bring their ideas to life. One classroom is filled with palm tree props and I have seen students abstractedly muttering their lines around campus. Any language teacher is thrilled to see students taking their learning beyond the classroom walls… if students are also being creative and enjoying themselves, I am simply over the moon.

A hefty part of students’ grades depends on this project, but more importantly, a hefty part of their learning does, too. I would like to give my students some recognition beyond the numbers, and will have certificates ready for non-evaluative categories: most humorous, most educational, most resourceful, most tech-savvy and so on, and of course, a People’s Choice Award, voted for by the students themselves. It is important to break away from the numbers game: once they are teaching, my protégés will find that sustained quality is not about the grades.

Since these students are about to graduate, I also hope to compile all their films on a commemorative DVD, a copy of which can be distributed to other colleges, and a few of the big cheeses at the college and Ministry, as well as, of course, my film crews themselves. Hopefully the students will agree to distribution of their work for educational purposes. These are our first English Degree Programme graduates, and it would be wonderful to help them make their mark. Although I can’t distribute their work online, I do hold the rights to the short film I made as an example. Mine is exceedingly amateurish, although it does meet the demands of the brief: a short film illustrating the use of a language point. With a film crew of one and a deadline that was early in the semester, I make no apologies for the film’s weaknesses, though I certainly admit them. (Of the rest is too excruciating, the last 100 seconds are well worth it.) If it is any consolation, I am sure the students will far exceed their teacher

CONFERENCE JUNKIE!

At last my “big” presentation has come and gone, and with it, a whole new world of experience. This year, Oman’s ELT conference graduated to being “International”, and featured 88 sessions and near a thousand participants. It was so popular that on-site registrations could not be allowed, causing considerable disappointment for some. This is a pity, but as it was, the facilities were stretched to capacity.

What really impressed me was the atmosphere, which was friendly and collegial, even with such staggering numbers. This distinguishes Oman’s ELT conference from others in the region, and I hope it will remain this way.

Of course nothing makes you as aware of how nice people are, as actually presenting. Although I have taught every working day of my life for almost a decade and have presented before, it was my first time at such a big conference. (not to mention “international”…), and I was a little uneasy. Even so, the participants in the audience were so wonderfully welcoming that I soon forgot about this. I was caught somewhat unawares by the local tradition of poster presentations. At other conferences I have attended, poster presentations are more like an exhibition where you can have a discussion with the presenter. The poster remains on display throughout the event, but the presenter is only available for a limited time. Here, I was a little stunned to find that an actual presentation was the plan. I have lived and worked with the beginnings of this poster over several years, and have a great deal to say about it, but felt a little tongue-tied when suddenly confronted with it. I did have a structure PowerPoint presentation and handouts to use as a structure, but basically I wanted the poster to be the star of the show, not me. Having had far more attention than I had bargained for, I was relieved to hear that people did enjoy the presentation and really liked the poster. Which is nice, because in retrospective it is actually outrageously avant-garde for an esteemed conference.

The PowerPoint slides are (hopefully) attached here, with a picture of the poster in the background.

In the Name of Science

The wonderful thing about a scientific experiment is that it never fails. It simply shows you, by trail and error, that this trial did not work. That is not failure but success of the most Polyannaesque sort. Though it doesn’t necessarily feel like success.

The study that has absorbed the past three months of my life appears to be firmly on Polyanna’s Success Steamboat. With the data now gathered, triangulated and meticulously analysed, I am discovering that I am not conclusively able to prove that which I so confidently set out to: that context exerts a significant influence over students’ learning styles. It seems so obvious, looking at the shared strengths and weaknesses, the common behaviours, the same mistakes made year after year… and yet my data refuse to confirm it in three out of four categories. So what I have been able to prove is simply that although there are some shared preferences among Omani Foundation Year program students, the influence of context on learning style appears to be limited, and moreover, years of observation do not necessarily yield the same truth as a triangulated study of students’ own views.

So basically, my whole conceptual apple-cart is overturned, and while bravely preparing the first draft of my study for submission, I fluctuate between certainty that it is gold and conviction that it is garbage, secretly doubting the measurability of the unfathomable human mind.

ILLUMINATION

With a pressing deadline, it is tempting to work right through the weekend. I have resisted, taking off yesterday evening to have a little bit of a life. This morning I rose early and started fatiguing the “ancient” poster I will present at the national ELT conference on 23 April, and put together with a Powerpoint presentation for the less lateral thinkers in the audience. Then I chilled flat-out.

Is relaxation justified? According to Wallace ( reference not found), genius works in five stages: the first are concerned with gathering information, and the final with “illumination”. While no step should be underestimated, the fourth is the one that fuels the revelation: “incubation”. Stepping away.

There was an area of my literature review that simply seemed labyrinthine: the myriad typologies of learning styles make them difficult to pin down. After my afternoon of sloth, I sat down with my distilled notes and a few coloured pens to find direction. Suddenly, it all fell into place: those many typologies can be boiled down to four continua represented as spokes of a wheel. A person’s learning style can be represented as four points on the axes, and connected to a kite. To verify my loosely structured interview data, I can ask students to use the wheel to represent their perceived styles, and use the resulting kites for analysis.

Is there time, in modern life, for a full-time professional studying part time to take a day of rest? I believe the day lost is more than compensated for in the efficiency gained every other day, and in the insights gained from stepping back to see the forest and the trees.

"Maktub"

“Maktub”

During a conversation with a dear colleague today, she kindly pointed out that my career (to use the term very loosely) is not the field my heart is in. That is stating the obvious, I replied. So why was I following a course with such marginal relevance to my interests and, more importantly, my abilities?

Her question was an important one. Yet the paradox it presents led me back to an inspiration and sense of purpose that I had lost in the past few weeks. How can that be, if this is not my vocation?

The prosaic answer is that in the brick wall of no options that so many third worlders like myself are presented with, this is the only door I have found. Many have found nothing, and I am well aware of the grace I have had.

The poetic answer is that every leap I have taken into the unknown has led me to steadier ground. My decisions have, each time, been sped along by wind in their sails. They have been so clear and obvious that there was barely a decision to make: the current swept me to safer waters time after time. And this was one of those decisions.

The Arabic word “maktub” means “it is written”. It is often used to refer to destiny. I do not think that matters are pre-determined. But I do believe that the right route is one that takes advantage of the prevailing winds. That, and casting the sails for all you are worth.