Horizon-313.indd 3
Carrots aren’t Just for Rabbits!
Panorama
The 21st TESOL Arabia Conference: A Review
Mind Over Matter
SQU, Kennesaw University Communities Share Cultures
News Update
Killer Litter on
the Shore
Department of Public
Relations and Information
Sultan Qaboos University
Issue 313
4/15/15 12:25 PM
View Point
In the Best Interest
of Students
Mohamed Salem Al Ghailani
Editorial Supervision
Santhosh Muthalath
Senior Editor
Sara Al Gheilani
Nasebah Al Muharrami
Translation
Ahlam Al Wahaibi
Design & Layout
Photography Dept., CET
Photography
Salim Al Sudairi
Circulation
SQU-info
Communication between university’s administration and the student community is important for the smooth functioning and progress of any higher educational institution. The establishment of the Student Advisory Council at SQU
aims at facilitating communication between the students and the university’s
administration with the goal of meeting student needs to a greater extent and
enriching the university experience of all the students. The Student Advisory
Council should function as a conduit for direct communication between the university’s students and administration. The regular meetings of the Council in
the presence of administrators should provide an opportunity for the mutual
exchange of ideas and open dialogue about problems and issues in the university. The meetings can also offer an opportunity for the administrators to solicit
advice and student perspectives on decisions affecting matters of importance to
students.
The Student Advisory Council at SQU is designed to allow full discussion of
issues concerning students and seek combined input and recommendations to
help advance and improve the academic life at the university. It aims at building
aspirations and ambitions of the students in academic field and university life
through the involvement of students in solving challenges faced by them with
regard to academic pursuits and campus life. The establishment of the Council
under the direct supervision of the Deanship of Student Affairs, is expected to
help students to have active participation in improving the educational and research processes and services to students. It will also help to promote the principles of transparency, constructive criticism, national integration, culture and
values.
Apart from the abovementioned goals, by actively involving in the Council’s
day to day activities, the members and the other students can develop their own
personalities and the spirit of teamwork, in addition to inculcating systematic
evaluation of issues, developing the spirit of dialogue and respecting others’
opinions. The Council has a key role to play with regard to raising the extent
of student activities in scientific, cultural, social, sports, artistic and other fields
through supervising and coordinating efforts and practices. The most important
goal of the Council is to ensure that it joins hands with the administration to create suitable environment for students to pursue learning and research.
@SQU-info
Horizon invites contributions from SQU members of staff and faculty. Contributions in the form of
articles, news, travelogues, stories of unique and interesting experiences, encounters, etc., are welcome. Contributions may be edited for the sake of clarity and length. Please send your contributions
to horizon@squ.edu.om preferably, as MSWord attachments. Authors will be suitably credited.
The views and opinions expressed in the articles published in this newsletter are those of the authors
and are not to be construed as the official views of the publication. Horizon is published three times a
month by the Department of Public Relations and Information, Sultan Qaboos University, P.O. Box 50,
P.C. 123, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
Phone: +968 24141045
E-mail: horizon@squ.edu.om
20 April 2015
Horizon-313.indd 4
Fax: +968 24413 391
Website: www.squ.edu.om
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Straight Talk
Elizabeth K. Joseph
Elizabeth K. Joseph works for HP as a systems administrator
on the OpenStack Infrastructure team. The team manages all
the servers used by OpenStack developers, including the continuous integration system, wiki, project chatbots and support resources. The entire OpenStack Infrastructure also open
source, so anyone can contribute to it or use it within their own
organization or project. Elizabeth visited Oman and attended
the FOSSC Oman 2015 Conference as an invited speaker. Her
talk focused on building a career in FOSS.
Horizon: How do companies make money on Open Source?
Elizabeth: There are various ways companies make money with open
source. The first is through support and deployment services, where they
are hired in a consulting capacity to deploy open source software for a company. The company still benefits from an open source software stack (they
can make customizations, aren’t locked into a proprietary framework) but
they don’t need to have the in house expertise to manage the software. Another popular mechanism is by developing an open source “core” product
that people can use on its own, or buy up to a premium version offered
by the company which often includes support and additional components
for better reporting, ease of use and more features. Some companies also
make money by developing features for a company on top of an existing
open source application. Companies can also save a considerable amount
of money by using open source software. Much of what companies use
software-wise can be identical, so you see companies like Google, Amazon and Facebook using Linux and other open source tools as their base
system, with a small (perhaps 20%) stack on top of this shared software
that provides their own, often proprietary tooling that they’ve developed
in house.
Horizon: In your view, why do individuals want to work on Open Source?
Elizabeth: Individuals may want to work on open source for a variety
of reasons. Most get involved because they are using a piece of software
and want to make an improvement, add feature or fix a bug. Others have
philosophical support for open source and do their work because they’re
passionate about it. Recognition within an open source community is also
a popular reason, for many projects it’s still possible to become a notable
contributor even if you only work part time on a project, giving real opportunities to students and others who can only contribute on a part time
basis. Companies typically get involved because they’re using a piece of
software and need to expand upon it. They submit patches they make to
the software directly to the project so that the entire community can benefit
from the changes and they don’t need to handle the maintenance burden
long term.
Horizon: In Open Source, what can you work on and how to go about it?
Elizabeth: When people think about contributing to open source, they instantly think of programming. However, that’s not the only thing required
for an open source project! Like other software, there’s a need for software
packaging, handling bug reports, writing documentation, doing user support, running testing and quality assurance and doing systems/infrastructure work. Many projects also need support for the developer community
and people to handle event coordination, whether the events be physical or
virtual. All of these tasks are in high demand for companies hiring in open
source roles, so by adding open source expertise in with any of these skills
you become a great candidate.
Horizon: What advise do you have for those who would like find a job in
Open Source?
Elizabeth: My first recommendation would be to seek out an open source
internship or scholarship. Google Summer of Code for students is a valuable experience and will immediately gain you recognition in the community upon being selected. Programs like Outreachy.org for women and
other minorities in the open source space is a wonderful program that also
gives a stipend to work on open source and you then work with a mentor who can help you complete a project. Some companies also sponsor
scholarships here and there, so always be on the look out for them. Beyond
internships and scholarships, if you want to work directly on open source
projects you have a few options. You can target a company that does only
open source, a company that has an open source “core” which I mentioned
earlier, or do what I’ve done: join a large company that has an open source
division that specifically focuses on open source development. There’s also
a lot of work out there for developers and deployment experts who can
build features and fix bugs with open source software and deploy it for a
company.
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Panorama
Carrots
aren’t Just for Rabbits!
By: Ms. Jansirani Natarajan
Lecturer
Fundamentals & Administration
College of Nursing
Vegetables are essential for a healthy, well-balanced diet, and
carrots are among the best vegetable choices. Carrots are a naturally low-calorie food, yet one that is rich in vitamins, minerals, fiber and many healthy, natural phytochemicals. They are
among the richest sources of carotenoids, potent antioxidants
that include beta-carotene. These compounds give carrots
their bright orange color and can help keep us healthy. Carrots
are rich in beta-carotene, which is converted into vitamin A in
the liver. Vitamin A is transformed in the retina, to rhodopsin,
a purple pigment necessary for night vision. Beta-carotene has
also been shown to protect against macular degeneration and
senile cataracts. A study found that people who eat the most
beta-carotene had 40 percent lower risk of macular degeneration than those who consumed little.
The results of a 10-year study from the Netherlands about
carrot intake and risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), are
fascinating. Intake of fruits and vegetables in the study was
categorized by color and focused on four color categories:
green, orange/yellow, red/purple, and white. Out of these
four categories, orange/yellow (and in particular, foods with
deeper shades of orange and yellow) emerged as most protective against CVD. And even more striking, carrots were determined to be the most prominent member of this dark orange/
yellow food category. From all the above benefits it is no surprise that in a Harvard University study, people who ate more
than six carrots a week are less likely to suffer a stroke than
those who ate only one carrot a month or less.
one medium carrot. Dietary fiber in carrots is about half insoluble and half soluble, according to Harvard University. This
can lower your blood cholesterol level and prevent spikes in
glucose that can raise your risk of type 2 diabetes. Carrots are
generally low in calories, with most of their nutrition in the
form of carbohydrates, along with a tiny amount of protein.
One medium carrot contains a total of about 6 grams of carbohydrate, with 3 grams present as sugar. Carrots have a low
glycemic index, about 16 for a small, 3-ounce carrot, so they
tend to cause only a slow and small increase in blood sugar.
Carrots provide five of the eight B vitamins, including thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, vitamin B-6 and folate. These vitamins
support many biochemical reactions that help your body process food into energy. They are also essential for formation of
new red blood cells. A 1 cup-serving of boiled, cooked, diced
carrots provides 0.2 milligram of thiamine, 0.07 milligram
of riboflavin, 1 milligram of niacin, 0.2 milligram of vitamin
B-6 and 22 micrograms of folate. Carrots do contain a small
amount of protein, about 0.5 gram in one medium carrot, but
none of this protein is in the form of gluten, making them a
naturally gluten-free food.
Crunchy carrots scrape off plaque and food particles just like
toothbrushes or toothpaste. Carrots stimulate gums and trigger a lot of saliva, which being alkaline, balances out the acidforming, cavity-forming bacteria. The minerals in carrots prevent tooth damage.
Much of the research on carrots has traditionally focused on
carotenoids and their important antioxidant benefits. But recent research has turned the health spotlight onto another category of phytonutrients in carrots called polyacetylenes. These
two amazing groups of phytonutrients in carrots may work
together in a synergistic way to maximize our health benefits!
Different varieties of carrots contain differing amounts of
these antioxidant phytonutrients. Red and purple carrots, for
example, are best known for the rich anthocyanin content. Oranges are particularly outstanding in terms of beta-carotene,
which accounts for 65% of their total carotenoid content. In
yellow carrots, 50% of the total carotenoids come from lutein.
Studies have shown carrots reduce the risk of lung cancer,
breast cancer and colon cancer. Researchers have just discovered falcarinol and falcarindiol which they feel cause the anticancer properties.
Carrot juice is rich in vitamins and minerals, just like raw carrots, and relatively
low in calories -- 1 cup of carrot juice
contains 94 calories. Raw carrots have essentially the
same content of fiber
as cooked carrots, about 1.7
grams in
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20 April 2015
4/15/15 12:25 PM
News Round Up
Book Explores Issues in
English Education in the
Arab World
UK’s Cambridge Scholars Publishing released a book entitled Issues
in English Education in the Arab World, for the Humanities Research
Center at Sultan Qaboos University. The book, published on 15 January 2015, was edited by Dr. Rahma Al Mahrooqi, The Director of the
Humanities Research Centre, and Christopher Denman from SQU.
The book explores some of the concerns related to the place of English and English-medium education in the Arab region. The volume
examines the relationship between English, Arabic, cultural identity,
tradition, and power in the Arab world within a historical and contemporary framework, the experiences of learners from Arabic-medium secondary schools adjusting to English-medium colleges and
universities, and the challenges and potential rewards of promoting
student-centered classrooms and technology in traditionally teacher-centered environments. These issues are explored from the perspectives of teachers, students, researchers and other stakeholders in
Arab countries including Oman, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Sudan.
A number of contributors to the book explicitly acknowledge that
learning a foreign language in a country where it is not widely used
can be a daunting task. This becomes even more challenging in
those situations where the language is positioned as a gatekeeper to
academic success and social mobility. In these contexts, students are
asked to master the language without any real opportunity to use
it in real life settings, with the potential ramifications of not developing adequate levels of foreign language proficiency including a
lack of access to higher education and difficulty in finding esteemed
forms of employment. This is a situation that has long been apparent in Oman, with the central role English plays in many domains
across the country even preceding the introduction of a governmentfunded, universal education system in 1970. In fact, Oman, like
much of the Arab world, has to reconcile the importance the English
language assumes in the country with issues related to the interaction of Omani culture and traditions with the provision of “modern”
education in a foreign tongue.
Contributors to the book acknowledge some of the many complexities associated with the place English and, to a lesser extent, French
play in education systems around the Arab world. While all Arab
nations have been independent of their Western rulers for decades
now, debate about the potential effects, both positive and negative,
of the dominance of education in European languages – and especially in English − in the region’s schools and universities is still
evident today. In fact, even as this debate about the “modernizing”
value of English-medium education continues pressing issues of
politics, culture, social mobility, and identity are played out in the
English-language classrooms of the Arab world on a daily basis.
While this is perhaps best demonstrated by recent developments in
nations across the Arab Gulf, education policies and practices across
the 22 nations of the Arab world can be argued to be all, in one form
or another, affected.
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Horizon-313.indd 6
Tashkent Islamic University
Seeks Ties with SQU
H.E. Dr. Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, the Vice Chancellor of Sultan Qaboos
University, recently received in his office, Prof. Abdullaev Ravshan Vahidovich, Rector of the Tashkent Islamic University, Uzbekistan. The two
sides discussed on the possibilities of establishing academic ties between
the two institutions through exchange of students and faculty members,
and collaborative research.
They discussed about establishing research collaboration in fields of mutual interest such as Islamic studies, Arabic language, manuscripts and
documents, in addition to the economics and information technology. Prof.
Abdullaev Ravshan Vahidovich, said the aim of Tashkent Islamic University, which was established in 1999, is to prepare specialists deeply mastered the basics of religion, research principles, the history of Islam and
philosophy, issues related to its role in the life and development of society.
Tashkent Islamic University is home to the UNESCO chair on religious
studies and the comparative study of world religions. The university conducts several academic programs in Islamic Studies, spirituality and law,
international economic relations, computers and information technology,
and other areas. The university has more than 500 students in undergraduate and graduate programs, and about 10 doctoral candidates.
A Book on Response Data
Compression Techniques
Jabir Al-Balushi, a Senior Engineer (A) in the Department of Electrical &
Computer Engineering at Sultan Qaboos University, recently published a
book with worldwide publishing group Lap Lambert Academic Publishing, Germany. The book is entitled “Response Data Compression Techniques in Digital Circuit Testing – Study and Evaluation” with the ISBN:
978-3-659-23961-8. Engr. Jabir Al-Balushi, a graduate of 1996 from Sultan
Qaboos University earned his B.Eng. Degree in in 1996. He holds M.Eng.
Degree which Al-Balushi earned in 2003 from the same university.
Engr. Al-Balushi joined the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering in 1997 as technical staff, later promoted to posts, Engineer and
Senior Engineer (B) and since 2012 he is working as a Senior Engineer
(A) in the same department. Engr. Jabir is responsible for handling various
laboratories especially in the areas of Digital Logic Design, Advance Digital Logic Design, Embedded Systems and Advance Embedded Systems.
The coauthor of this book is Dr. Afaq Ahmad. At SQU Dr. Afaq Ahmad is
Assistant Head of the department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
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News Update
SQU, Kennesaw University Communities Share Cultures
Cooperation Office. The visiting students and faculty members reviewed their experience in Oman focusing on its natural
beauty, warm hospitality and friendliness of the people, and
geological wonders. Kennesaw University delegation consists of
by Danier J Paracka, Professor of Education and Director, Academic Initiatives, Douglas R. Moodie, Professor of Management
and Assistant International Officer, Sandra Bird, Professor of Art
Education, and other faculty members and students.
As part of the cultural exchange programs of Sultan Qaboos University with international universities, the faculty learning community
from Kennesaw State University in USA visited SQU recently. As part
of the visit program, the US university team including faculty members and students spent two weeks in Oman visiting different places
of historic and cultural significance and tourist attractions.
At SQU, the Kennesaw State University delegation was received
by H.E. Dr. Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, the Vice Chancellor, and H.H.
Sayyidah Dr. Mona bint Fahad Al Said, Assistant Vice Chancellor for
International Cooperation, and other officials from the International
SQU, MoH to Boost
Medical Research Ties
The sixth meeting of the joint committee between Sultan Qaboos
University and the Ministry of Health was held recently at SQU in
the presence of H.E. Dr. Ali bin Saud Al Bimani, SQU Vice Chancellor and H.E. Dr. Ali bin Talib Al Hinai, Undersecretary at the Ministry of Health for Planning Affairs. The meeting discussed means
to strengthen research partnership between the Ministry of Health
and SQU through involvement of more medical researchers and postgraduate medical students from SQU. The committee agreed on exchange and sharing of patient data between SQU Hospital and the
Ministry of Health hospitals.
The meeting decided to form a committee to study the most expensive medical conditions in Oman. It also agreed on proper coordination and advance communication between SQU Hospital and Ministry of Health hospitals and provision of alternative arrangements
with mutual understanding in case of temporary closing of medical
departments in hospitals for periodic maintenances. The meeting also
discussed about if SQU Hospital can provide certain specialized laboratory and sample analysis services to Ministry of Health hospitals.
The two sides also reviewed the existing ties between SQU and
Kennesaw State University and discussed on the ways to boost
the ties through exchange of students, staff and faculty members. Special attention was given to academic collaboration in
nursing and Arabic language teaching and other areas of mutual
interest.
After visiting the Cultural Center, the delegation met the Dean
of the College of Arts & Social Sciences at SQU, and interacted
with the faculty members and students. They listened to presentations on climate change in Oman, archeology of Oman, seafaring tradition of Oman, Omani music and arts, date cultivation
and production in the Sultanate, and Omani women community. The team also visited the Agricultural Experimental Station.
During their visit to SQU, the US delegation will give talks on
US life and culture, foreign students in the US, and other topics
of mutual interest.
Forum Sheds Light on
Psychology
The 2nd Psychology Group Forum in the College of Education titled
“Psyches” was held recently under the auspices of HH Sayyida Basma
bint Fakhri Al Said, in the presence of Dr Sulaiman al Balushi, Dean of
the College of Education. The forum sought to introduce the psychology departments in new ways that attract various categories of audience and propose solution to psychological problems experienced
by university students through the accompanying exhibition, which
included six corners, namely Clinical Psychology, Group Psychology,
Criminal Psychology, Social Psychology, Educational Psychology and
Comparative Psychology.
Those corners were showcased in an interesting and simplified style
to the recipient. The exhibition included participations from Mazoon College, Hamasat psychological clinic, SQU Student Counselling
Centre. Four seminars were held on the sidelines of the forum . The
topics included social psychology and its role in psychological counselling, “Six thinking hats” and personality understanding between
men and women.
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Insight
Killer Litter
on the Shore
of 29g per meter of beach or 29 kg per km of beaches. “The
quantity of debris varied considerably between beaches, with
for instance greater than 7.5 kg per km near Sawadi to 10
times less (750g) at Qantab. Although these quantities may
appear small, plastic bags and bottles that comprised a significant part of the debris are very light objects, often taking a
volume of two to three large garbage bags”, Dr. Claereboudt
said.
According to him, littering in Oman is not particularly bad,
compared to other countries in which quantities can be as
much as several tons (1000s kg) per km of beaches. In terms
of numbers of items (some items are as small as a cigarette
butt, others can be as large as car tyre. “Oman beaches are
also at the lower end of the range with 3939 objects for 2200 of
beaches: 179 items per 100 m of beach”, Dr. Claereboudt said.
Why is there so much litter on the shore? When
we don’t throw litter into a proper bin, it falls to
the ground, goes into the drain, flushes into the
canal, then into the sea. Litter in the sea isn’t just
unsightly. Litter kills marine life. Of all the litter in the ocean, plastic litter is the most lethal.
Plastic floats. In the ocean currents, plastic trash
literally travels the world.
Dr. Michel R. Claereboudt, Associate Professor
in the Department of Marine Sciences & Fisheries at SQU, has conducted a study on shore littering along the sandy beaches of the Gulf of Oman.
“We looked at the abundance, diversity and
origin of litter on a series of 11 beaches from the
Batinah and Muscat Region from Sawadi beach to
Qantab (which were still accessible to the public
at the time)”. As beaches differ in length but also
in width, Dr. Claereboudt used length standardized measures: number of item per meter of beach
(i.e. numbers of items divided by the length of the
sampled area) and mass of debris (total mass of
debris divided by the length of the sampled area:
typically 100m).
Dr. Claereboudt along with three undergraduate students, collected everything from the highwater mark to the limit of the vegetation (or constructed wall), then counted and weighted all the
items that were collected. In total they collected
60kg of debris from 2200 m of beaches: an average
20 April 2015
Horizon-313.indd 8
Plastic is not only the most common item in Oman, it is the
most common material found almost on all beaches worldwide. This is explained by three characteristics of plastics: 1.
plastics generally float; 2. plastics are widespread; 3. plastics
are durable. Although they degrade overtime, this can take
months if they stay at the surface of the water or the beach
and years if they sink or get buried into the sand. The main
actor in degradation of plastic is the UV light. “In terms of
consequences to the marine environment, plastics are nondigestible to most organisms but unfortunately can be ingested either because the organisms mistakenly assume it is a
true prey. Plastic bags moving on the bottom, resample furiously seaweeds moving with the swell and can be eaten by
sea turtles. Sea birds in particular are often attracted by the
bright colors of floating plastics. Very fine plastic particles can
be ingested even by zooplankton, which are then eaten by
larger predators” Dr. Claereboudt explained. On the beaches
themselves, fishing nets in particular are inescapable traps
for crabs (attracted by whatever may be rotting in the net)
or small baby turtles hatching from their underground nest.
Dr. Claereboudt said that there is a clear need for public
awareness on the risks of beach littering not only for ecosystem health but even for human health. “Broken glass and
barbecues skewers are also among one of the common items
on beaches. There is also a need for a change in management
of the beaches: today some beaches are regularly cleaned by
Municipality workers. This, in fact, gives a mixed message:
you can litter, we will clean it up. Garbage cans are often
overflowing, a situation not very conducive to using them.
But I still believe that an awareness campaign with the slogan
“leave only foot prints and take only pictures” might work”,
he said. Dr. Claereboudt remains optimistic. “Like anywhere
in the world, awareness needs perhaps to be paired with both
positive (garbage bins, messages, facilities in fishing villages)
and negative (beach police, littering brigade, etc.) elements
conducting both educational and punitive actions.
According to newspaper reports, and to the finding of Dr.
Claereboudt’s study, fishing debris tend to be abundant on
the beaches of Oman: this is a relatively unique situation,
possibly related to the large number of fisher folk. Fishing in
many countries is done by a much reduced number of people working on much larger fishing vessels. The situation is
made even more difficult by traditional practices. Styrofoam
floats, cut from packaging material are by far the most common system of floats used for traps and nets. Dr. Claereboudt
believes that awareness and perhaps facilities to recuperate
old fishing gear (old nets, ropes, lines, etc.) in villages with a
recycling bonus might be feasible approach in villages. “Once
the bin is full, the municipality takes it away and gives the
village a cash reward” he suggested.
The outcomes of the research on shore littering along the
sandy beaches of the Gulf of Oman, carried out by Dr. Claereboudt and team, was published in “Marine Pollution Bulletin” (Volume 49, Issues 9–10, November 2004, Pages 770–777).
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Mind Over Matter
The 21st TESOL Arabia
Conference: A Review
By: Neil McBeath
Language Centre, SQU
There is a proverb – “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, but unfortunately, the
organizers of the 2015 TESOL Arabia Conference chose to do just that. For
20 years the TESOL Arabia Conference allowed presenters 45 to 60 minute
slots, so that research could be explained and the results analysed. Cases
for and against theories could be examined and explained. There was time
for reflection and for debate.
This year, however, presenters were limited to 30 minutes, resulting in
mad scrambles through the exhibition, as delegates pushed from one
venue to another, trying to assimilate what had been thrown at them in
the previous session. Weaker presenters spent so long explaining their research methodologies that the findings were almost an afterthought. Theory was often delivered as a set of incontrovertible truths, rather than as a
matter of dispute. Question time was limited. Discussion was impossible.
And it could have been so much better. The Hyatt Regency Hotel hosted
the conference for the third consecutive year, and access to that hotel is
now even easier. The Dubai Gold Suq Bus Station – direct lines to the airport – now stands directly beside the Gold Suq Metro Station, and both are
within very easy walking distance of the Hyatt.
An inspired feature this year, moreover, was the outsourcing of the manufacture of the Conference bags to the Chetana Women’s Empowerment
group in Nepal. That order alone allowed 22 women to fund their children’s education for five months, and provided delegates with something
more than just another laptop bag that is only good for the life of the
shoulder strap.
Back at the Hyatt Regency, previous years’ complaints about the paucity
of refreshments had been partially addressed, although there were still
problems with timing. Delegates arriving for early sessions on Friday and
Saturday were disappointed to find that it was impossible to get a coffee
or a croissant. Service began at 9:30 a.m. and not before. Never mind that
food was visible and beautifully displayed.
So what of the Conference itself? With the theme of Theory. Practice. Innovation. Teaching and Learning in the Digital World, possibly too much
was attempted, and with 483 presentations, possibly too much was delivered. It is clearly impossible to give a comprehensive account of the
Conference, but here are vignettes from the three days.
From Thursday, March 12th, two presentations stood
out because of their implications for the future. Maggie Saba’s Saudi Students’ Perceptions of Teachers’ Authority contrasted the difference in approach between
“mainstream” Saudi education (memorization; gender
segregated; teacher-centred; product orientated) and
American education (critical thinking; mixed gender;
student centred; process orientated) in the light of the
major revisions that are currently affecting education in
the Kingdom. The second, related, paper was by Keith
Kennertz of the Emirates College of Advanced Education. Entitled The 21st Century Status of English in the
UAE, it explored the contradictions inherent in teaching
a language which exists in different varieties – Indian,
Phillipino, East African, BANA – and registers – professional, academic, journalistic, colloquial – in a country
where “The official language is Arabic, the most spoken
language is Urdu and everyone speaks English”.
On the Friday, I gave my own paper – A Luddite View of
the Digital World. The paper questioned some teachers’
unreflective reliance on technology, and was given extra point when my flashdisk, from the Shinas College of
Technology, no less, proved incompatible with the hardware provided by the Hyatt Regency. As a result, my
powerpoint slides never appeared, and more important
quotations had to be read aloud. The paper is available,
on request, from nmceath@squ.edu.om
More important, however, was Deema Boraie’s plenary,
The Shifting Sands of Teaching/Learning English. She
identified eight major areas – 1. The Increased Demand
for English. 2. The Early Start for English. 3. The Impact
of Technology on Teaching. 4. The Impact of Technology on Learning. 5. The Focus on Communication in
Teaching. 6. The Change in Teaching Materials. 7. The
Localization of Teaching Materials. 8. The Emergence of
Teachers as Life-long Learners. This was an extremely
valuable paper which gave in-depth coverage to each of
the major points. It made no attempt to understate the
difficulties of teaching English in societies where Arabic
is intertwined with culture and religious faith, but celebrated the emergence of multilingualism. It was a paper
that might have informed two other presentations from
the Saturday sessions.
The first of these, Tobias Pror’s Teachers react to Linguistic Imperialism in Oman, was the result of very smallscale research conducted in a single institution. More
remarkably, it appeared to assume that the theory of
linguistic imperialism remains tenable. For many scholars, the limited appeal of Phillipson’s (1992) theory was
shredded when English was adopted ass the language
of liberation by the ANC in South Africa, and then by
revelations that Phillipson’s references to the 1961 Makerere Conference ignore the fact that “the conference
was essentially focused on local matters relating specifically to English as a second language” (Howatt and
Widdowson 2004; 311).
The second paper, Michelle McGrath’s Linguistic Diversity in the Oman Classroom was similarly shaky.
McGrath, formerly of Dhofar University, was originally
unaware that heritage languages – Jibbali; Mehri – were
spoken Oman, and had had decided to share her discovery and to “problematize” it.
On balance, therefore, this was a rewarding conference,
but not an outstanding one. Only now, after reflection,
do its themes come into focus. Next year, inshallah, we
will be back to longer presentations, and if this means
there will be fewer speakers, that is a burden that most
delegates might be happy to accept.
P5
Horizon-313.indd 9
20 April 2015
4/15/15 12:25 PM