Writing Centers In The Higher Education Landscape Of The Arabian Gulf

This book addresses issues surrounding writing centers in the Arabian Gulf region. Including a foreword by Professor Ken Hyland, it brings together a number of thought-provoking chapters on the history, concept, and ground realities coupled with critical comparative discussions of writing centres in the region. The book begins by offering critical historical accounts of writing centers in the Gulf countries, before moving onto empirical research and reports on pedagogical practices that vividly capture the on-the-ground realities faced and experienced by different actors. These accounts serve to highlight how the writing centers vary between countries, as well as how they differ from the more well-known writing centers in the US and the UK. Finally, the book explores what sort of commonalities and differences the current trend of writing centres is producing within and between the six countries of the Arabian Gulf. This book will be highly relevant to those involved with writing centres along with directors, policymakers, researchers and teacher educators in the fields of Education and Sociology, particularly those with an interest in the Arabian Gulf area.

This edited volume contributes a novel understanding of the past, present and future of higher education across the six countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Against the backdrop of intense political, ideological and epistemological disruptions across the Arabian Gulf Region over the last two decades, this volume adopts critical comparative perspectives in order to chart the history, present-day and future realities of higher education in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. By focusing on dynamics relating to neoliberalism, and using the notions of ‘tensionality’ and ‘locality’ to situate topics such as curricula, policies, practices, the volume engages with current discourses, controversies and themes such as the internationalization and marketization of higher education in these countries. In doing so, the book offers a theoretical framework to enable greater understanding of the contemporary functioning of higher education in the Arabian Gulf Region. This text will benefit scholars, academics and students in the fields of higher education and international and comparative education more broadly. Those involved with educational policy and politics, and Middle Eastern studies in general, will also benefit from this volume.

This edited book uses case studies to offer a comprehensive picture of the feedback practices and perceptions pertinent to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing in the Arab world. It highlights essential themes about feedback in L2 writing in eight Arab countries, and offers a detailed critical analysis of feedback practices and perceptions in six of these: Egypt, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates. The book will appeal to an international readership of academics, researchers and practitioners interested in EFL writing in the Arab world.

This book focuses on mentoring in English language education internationally, as it applies to students, language teachers, practitioner researchers and research mentors themselves. It aims to provide an in-depth understanding of current mentoring practices in diverse contexts worldwide, drawing on case studies from Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Peru, and the USA; China, India, Japan, Nepal, and Vietnam; Australia; parts of Africa; Oman and the UAE; North Macedonia, Turkey and the UK. Areas of focus include peer mentoring, mentor courses, cross-cultural issues, and modalities such as face-to-face or online mentoring, and the chapters also highlight the value of different methodological tools for exploring mentoring situations, including cultural-historical activity theory and conversation analysis. The book’s conclusion highlights the potential of mentoring to widen access to learning and therefore address issues that relate to social injustice and inequality, particularly in, but not limited to, under-resourced contexts. This volume will be of particular interest to teacher educators, pre-service and in-service language teachers, and students and scholars of applied linguistics and English language teaching.

This edited volume examines how transnational English language assessment practices are envisioned, enacted, and justified by different stakeholders, including students, teachers, and universities in different geographical contexts, and what would be the multi-level consequences of such practices. Bringing together diverse perspectives from across the Global South and Global North, the book argues that the field of English language assessment has always been transnational, despite an absence of a research that explicitly examines English language assessment practices in relation to transnationalism. The contribution of this volume lies in filling in this critical scholarly gap. Through a wide set of epistemological, theoretical, and pedagogical interventions along with methodological orientations and analytical frameworks, the chapter authors question the social, economic, political, linguistic, and pedagogical consequences of transnational English language assessment practices in higher education (HE) settings and contexts. Offering fresh perspectives on English language assessment practices in relation to transnationalism, this book will be of great interest to researchers, academics, and post-graduate students in the fields of applied linguistics, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), and language assessment more broadly.

TESOL Teacher Education in a Transnational World critically examines theories and practices in contemporary TESOL teacher education to shed new light on the intersection of transnationalism and language teacher education. It emphasizes the scholarship of transnational mobility of language teachers, and showcases critical research from diverse contexts. The book fills a critical research gap by more fully examining the theory and practice of teacher education in a changing time when national identities and cross-border mobilities continue to figure prominently in scholarly discussions. Through a diverse set of epistemological, historical and theoretical perspectives along with methodological innovations, contributors of this volume not only index the dynamism of the scholarship of teacher education, but they also offer new forums for lively pedagogical debates. Featuring contributions from diverse educational and geographical contexts, including Europe, Asia, North America, and Latin America, the book moves the existing scholarship forward to more fully examine TESOL teacher education in relation to transnationalism. This book will be of great interest to academics, scholars, post-graduate students, teacher educators, policymakers, curriculum specialists, administrators, and other stakeholders interested in language teacher education, TESOL and applied linguistics

This edited book brings together chapters from diverse geographical and educational contexts to examine the question of transnationalism in English Language teacher education. While the activities that connect people, institutions and cultural practices across the borders of nation-states have gained interest in fields such as applied linguistics, TESOL and migration studies in recent years, there has been little research so far into how transnationalism intersects with language teacher education, and how existing practices can be better integrated into teacher education programmes. The authors fill this gap by introducing and examining existing transnational practices - including cross-cultural settings, study abroad programmes and online teacher education - then offering multiple dialogues on mobility of knowledge, practice and pedagogy in teacher education. This book will be of interest to language teachers, teacher educators, and students and scholars of applied linguistics, cross-cultural studies, and migration studies.

This book contributes new perspectives from the Global South on the ways in which linguistic and discursive boundaries shape inequalities in educational contexts, ranging from Amazonian missions to Mongolian universities. Through critical ethnographic and sociolinguistic analysis, the chapters explore how such boundaries contribute to the geopolitics of colonialism, capitalism and myriad, interwoven, forms of social life that structure both oppression and resistance. Boundaries are examined across time and space as relational constructs that mark the terms upon which admission to groups, institutions, territories, or practices are granted. The studies further present alternative educational approaches that demonstrate the potential for agency and transgression, highlighting moments of boundary crossing that disrupt existing linguistic ideologies, language policies and curriculum structures.