Toward Increased Professionalism in Teaching English as a Second or Other Language through Pre-service Trainee Teacher Mentoring in the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

For a variety of reasons, both historical and sociological, the feasibility – as well as the very desirability – of mainstream teaching securing the status of a profession (in the sense of established professions such as law, medicine, architecture, and engineering) has long been questioned (e.g., Burbules and Densmore, 1991). If this is the case as regard regular, mainstream education, what then is the situation in relation to the subfield of teaching that is teaching English as a second or other language (TESOL)? Sadly, few if any would likely doubt that the field has so far failed to achieve the status of a recognized profession. There are numerous causes of this failure, though some especially salient reasons – less than stellar public perceptions of the fields of English as a second language/English as a foreign language, employment standards of the private sector, that is, the (in) famous English language teaching industry, the initial training and qualifications of those in the field, and discriminatory practices – will be highlighted in the following discussion. In addition, the second half of this paper draws and reflects on a trainee teacher mentoring scheme at a federally-sponsored institution of higher education in the United Arab Emirates – now sadly discontinued – which the author participated in for 3 years between 2011 and 2015, and which, it is argued, exemplified programs which can go some not inconsiderable way toward combatting a number of the obstacles currently preventing the field of TESOL achieving the status of a legitimate profession.

Multilingualism and the Role of English in the United Arab Emirates, with views from Singapore and Hong Kong

“…Th e main income for Dubai today is real estate and tourism, both of which bring in vast quantities of currency and people. Statistics today show that only about 10 percent of the residents of Dubai are Emirati (Adomaitis 2014;Government of Dubai 2019;Kennetz and Carroll 2018;Piller 2018;Solloway 2019); the remainder are all immigrants from many diff erent countries. Beyond the oil industry, workers, particularly from Asia, can easily fi nd jobs in construction, hospitality, and retail, while managerial and teaching positions are oft en off ered to Americans, Britons, other Westerners, and Arabs from various countries.…”

“…Furthermore, without an option to study higher education in Arabic, these young Emiratis lose the potential to study at university in their own country in their native language. Th ree recent studies carried out in the UAE showed that Emirati youth would prefer the option of studying in Arabic or in a bilingual curriculum (Belhiah and Elhami 2015;Kennetz and Carroll 2018;Solloway 2019). Th ese studies reveal that Emirati youth want the ability to choose what language they will study in, and some have now been demanding that option.…”