Writing Centers in the Higher Education Landscape of the Arabian Gulf

266 Pages·2018·2.58 MB·English

by  Osman Z. Barnawi (eds.)

Writing Centers in the
Higher Education Landscape
of the Arabian Gulf
Edited by
Osman Z. Barnawi
Foreword by
Ken Hyland
Writing Centers in the Higher Education Landscape
of the Arabian Gulf
Osman Z. Barnawi
Editor
Writing Centers in the
Higher Education
Landscape of the
Arabian Gulf
Editor
Osman Z. Barnawi
Yanbu English Language Institute
Royal Commission Colleges and Institutes
Yanbu Industrial City, Saudi Arabia
ISBN 978-3-319-55365-8 ISBN 978-3-319-55366-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-55366-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947199
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To my father, mother, brothers, sisters and son—Jawad
F
oreword
Writing Centers in the Higher Education Landscape of the Arabian Gulf
represents a major step forward in higher education writing in the Gulf. It
is the logical outcome of the enthusiastic embracing of the writing centre
idea among HE institutions in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the
United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and elsewhere who have seen the possibili-
ties for pedagogic change and for language learning in these writing
venues.
Writing centres are student-centred and learning-oriented spaces,
which, compared to many other aspects of higher education, offer excel-
lent conditions for facilitating learning, peer learning and life-long learn-
ing. Originating in the USA to support first-language undergraduates,
writing centres have typically provided a place where students can get
advice on their assignments ranging from argumentation to punctuation.
More recently, they have become popular in Europe and, now, the Middle
East, expanding beyond tutorials on the process and mechanics of writing
to support curricula in Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) and English
for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes. Two key features of writing
centres are positioning of the writing tutor and the focus on individual
writers. Here, the tutor is a facilitator and mentor, eliciting the students’
ideas and helping them to scaffold their writing, rather than as someone
who will grade their assignment. Here also is a space where students can
get individual attention in a safe haven, away from the potential distrac-
tions and potential embarrassments of watching classmates. A central
advantage, however, is the fact that students can bring disciplinary writing
to the centre, with assignments set in subject classes rather than those
vii
viii FOREWORD
given by their English teacher. For many students, this is the only help
they are likely to get on their engineering assignment or business report.
It is also important to note, and the chapters in this volume testify to
this, that writing centre development is dynamic and responsive, and with
increasing globalization, they have had to respond to greater language
variation among the students who turn to them. Clients with different
proficiencies in English, from different disciplines, and sometimes with
different language backgrounds turn to these centres often as a last resort,
and expect to get help. For many students, the English they learn in their
formal classes is insufficient and the writing centre is their main source of
writing support in a crowded curriculum.
The chapters in this book contribute substantially to our knowledge of
writing centres and the impact they can have in a region where the per-
ceived need for English is growing rapidly, but which still struggles with
the socio-cultural and political issues surrounding the language and writ-
ing centres in particular. The issues raised by this book are important and
worth discussing: What is the status of the writing centre? What skills and
training do tutors need? What collaboration can be achieved among them?
What roles should technology play in them? What is clear, however, is that
the writing centre idea has great appeal and potential, and that it has firmly
taken hold among the universities of the Arabian Gulf.
Ken Hyland
Professor of Applied Linguistics
Director of the Centre for Applied English Studies
University of Hong Kong
Pok Fu Lam, Hong Kong
P
reFace
The Arabian oil-rich Gulf countries—Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain,
the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait—play an influential role in today’s
global socio-political, cultural and economic environments. There are
now ‘New’ high increases in the number of Western educational institu-
tions as well as international corporate agencies appearing in these strate-
gic geographical areas of the Islamic world. At the same time, there is a
‘New’ emerging desire for the Englishization, internationalization, priva-
tization and mallification of education, and English medium of instruction
programmes at all levels across the Arabian Gulf countries. Under these
neoliberal discourses of a free market economy, the sale and consumption
of digital, written and/or multimodal texts are guided by the market val-
ues of those written products being exchanged among the community,
affiliations, partners, actors, administrative bodies, stakeholders and con-
sumers in the Arabian Gulf region and beyond.
Since the establishment of MENAWCA—Middle East and North
African Writing Centers Alliance—in 2007–2008 (as a regional affiliate of
the International Writing Centers Association, IWCA), the number of
writing centres (WCs) inside higher education (HE) institutions in the
Arabian oil-rich Gulf countries—Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, the
United Arab Emirates and Kuwait—has started to increase dramatically.
Although issues surrounding English as a foreign language (EFL) writing
and its cultural politics in the Arab world have long been controversial,
owing to the inclination towards oral literacy of the Arab society, there are
now symposiums, conferences, forums and several academic events related
to WCs in Oman, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and
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x PREFACE
Bahrain. These events are sponsored by local universities, government
bodies, organizations and international associations.
Throughout the course of these events, tutors, students, WC adminis-
trators, writing programme directors and coordinators, along with their
Western counterparts (i.e., from the IWCA), have been discussing and
negotiating various pedagogical, ideological, socio-cultural and political
issues related to WCs in the Arab world, including encouraging students
to use WCs, sustaining WCs in the region, strategies for second language
writing, learners writing identities, writing across the curriculum, writing
programme administrations, writing labs and writing studios. While all
this is happening, however, there are still some serious under-explored
questions: On what basis did stakeholders establish their own WCs across
the Gulf region? What informed the design of those centres in each coun-
try? What roles do WCs play within/between HE institutions in the
region? What types of training and professional development did tutors,
WC directors, coordinators and administrators receive before working in
their respective centres? How and in what ways has the presence of
MENAWCA, in collaboration with the International Writing Centers
Association, restricted, shaped (reshaped) and/or facilitated the literacy of
the local discourse community? How do other stakeholders (e.g., employ-
ers, community, students, engineering and business faculty members) per-
ceive WC tutors, directors, administrators and coordinators in the Arab
world? How do WC tutors, directors, administrators and coordinators
perceive themselves within their own institutes? In the era of a scarcity of
resources and uncertainties in global HE settings, what sorts of technical
discourse do WCs employ in each country to sustain their status? What
sorts of ideological, political, cultural and institutional challenges do WCs
face in the Gulf region in the neoliberal globalized era? What are the com-
monalities and similarities being manifested within/between HE institu-
tions in the Gulf region? This collection of thought-provoking chapters
addresses and critiques cultural politics of WCs in the Arabian Gulf region.
This book is divided into three parts. Conceptually, understanding the
historical foundation of WC(s) in a particular discourse community is a
prerequisite for obtaining an accurate reading of its present state. In Part
I, ‘Historical Review of Writing Centre(s) Across the Gulf Countries’,
contributors offer critical historical accounts of WCs in the six Gulf coun-
tries—it is a call to know the past in order to read the present and predict
the future. In Part II, ‘Writing Centre(s) on the Ground’, authors provide
empirical research and/or pedagogical practices that vividly capture the
PREFAC E xi
on-the-ground realities faced and experienced by different stakeholders,
including students, tutors, WC coordinators, directors and the society at
large. In Part III, ‘Comparative Investigations of Writing Centres in the
Arabian Gulf Countries’, the contributor, building on the previous sec-
tions, discusses what sort of commonalities and differences the current
trend of WCs is producing within/between the Arabian Gulf countries.
He also discusses the future of WCs in the Arabian Gulf countries as well
as major challenges centred on the cultural politics of EFL writing under
the neoliberal economy.
To this end, the aim of this book is to paint a comprehensive picture of
the inner workings of WCs across the Arabian oil-rich Gulf countries and
at the same time to expand on some of the global implications for how the
WCs are placed within the Gulf countries. It is also intended to serve as a
primary reference for both novice and experienced actors in the region
and beyond. It aims to draw out conclusions for the region without mak-
ing generalizations.
Yanbu English Language Institute Osman Z. Barnawi
Royal Commission Colleges and Institutes
Yanbu Industrial City, Saudi Arabia