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From western TESOL classrooms tohome practice: a case study with two‘privileged’ Saudi teachersOsman Z. Barnawia & Phan Le Hab

a Royal Commission Colleges and Institutes, Yanbu, Saudi Arabiab Department of Educational Foundations, College of Education,University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USAPublished online: 21 Aug 2014.

To cite this article: Osman Z. Barnawi & Phan Le Ha (2014): From western TESOL classrooms tohome practice: a case study with two ‘privileged’ Saudi teachers, Critical Studies in Education,DOI: 10.1080/17508487.2014.951949

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2014.951949

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From western TESOL classrooms to home practice: a case study withtwo ‘privileged’ Saudi teachers

Osman Z. Barnawia and Phan Le Hab*

aRoyal Commission Colleges and Institutes, Yanbu, Saudi Arabia; bDepartment of EducationalFoundations, College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

(Received 3 April 2014; accepted 1 August 2014)

This article is located in the debates concerning the continued problems underlying thecultural politics of English-speaking Western countries’ Teaching English to Speakersof Other Languages (TESOL) programmes and ‘Western’ pedagogies. It examines twoSaudi TESOL teachers’ pedagogical enactments in their home teaching contexts afterreturning from their Western-based TESOL programmes. It aims to obtain insights intoquestions of knowledge construction, pedagogy and training in Western TESOLprogrammes and their impacts on these teachers’ teaching in Saudi settings. Weargue that these teachers have never been passive in the entire process nor have theybeen naïve about the cultural politics of TESOL. They have appeared to proactivelytake advantage of being trained in the West to teach effectively and to appropriate theirgiven privileged status in the home contexts. They have also appeared to do so withawareness and with a strong sense of agency. This very aspect of agency, as we argue,deserves substantial scholarly attention in future research. We also argue that to movebeyond the mindset that positions periphery teachers at the receiving end of WesternTESOL training and as the recipient of Western TESOL pedagogical experiments, it isno longer valid to assume the enlightening and educating role of such training.

Keywords: English; pedagogy; TESOL; Western-trained; Saudi Arabia; peripherycontexts

Introduction

The growing global demand for competent English language users as well as theincreasing global demand for English-medium courses has turned the Teaching Englishto Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) enterprise into ‘a successful global industry’(Walker, 2001, p. 187). At the same time, the commercialization, the cultural politics andgeopolitics underlying the worldwide spread of English and the TESOL industry has beenwell discussed (Chowdhury & Phan, 2014; Kubota & Lin, 2009; Pennycook, 1998;Phillipson, 1992; Widin, 2010). These discussions question the ethics and effectivenessof Western TESOL degrees and training. These discussions also demonstrate how TESOLas a commercial cultural product and how colonial discourses including racial discrimina-tion and the sustained Self-Other dichotomy continue to embed and inform the pedagogyand practice of English language teaching around the globe, which has been activelycreated and shaped by both the Self and the Other.

At a more specific level, the debates surrounding post-method pedagogy (which willbe defined in a later section of this article) in the post-Enlightenment period in the TESOLsphere play an important role in understanding teachers’ everyday classroom practice.

*Corresponding author. Email: halephan@hawaii.edu

Critical Studies in Education, 2014http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2014.951949

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While the construct of method has been problematized in the literature (e.g., Pennycook,1989), to date few studies have been conducted to specifically explore and document howteachers use post-method pedagogy and its macro-strategic framework in English lan-guage classrooms, particularly those in countries where English as a Foreign Language(EFL) is taught. Canagarajah (2002) argues that the paucity and absence of explicitresearch into post-method pedagogical practices in EFL classrooms resulted from thefact that these practices ‘simply have not been documented in the professional literature’(p. 148). What is clear in the post-Enlightenment period is, as Kumaravadivelu(Kumaravadivelu, 2006) articulates, a ‘laudable transition from awareness to awakening’but ‘what is not clear is how this awakening has actually changed the practice of everydayteaching and teacher preparation’ (p. 76) in EFL contexts. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabiais one such context, in which the association of English and English language teaching(ELT) to ‘Western’ values has long been controversial (Mahboob & Elyas, 2014); and assuch it deserves more scholarly attention.

Informed by the above debates and discussions, this article examines in depth theeducational and pedagogical experiences of two Western-trained Saudi TESOL malelanguage teachers to obtain insights into questions of knowledge construction, pedagogyand training in Western TESOL and their impacts on these teachers’ teaching in Saudisettings. The article investigates the extent to which such experiences have equipped theseteachers with pedagogical underpinnings and criticality regarding post-method pedagogyand practices in their home classrooms.

The cultural politics and recent developments of Western TESOL

It can be argued that the TESOL industry is still largely shaped by the growing market-ization and commercialization of education, ethnocentrism, colonial remnants, racialdiscrimination and by the neo-colonial relations of power embedded in its curriculum,ideology and practice evident in numerous TESOL programmes in North America, Britainand Australia (NABA) (Canagarajah, 2002; Inoue & Stracke, 2013; Kubota & Lin, 2009;Kumaravadivelu, 2003; Mahboob & Golden, 2013). These programmes in various wayscontinue to reproduce images of ‘the superior Self’ over ‘the inferior Other’ (Pennycook,1998).

At the same time, despite the quest for the internationalization of higher education,most NABA TESOL programmes often give little recognition to international students’intellectual capabilities and to their academic and professional identity constructionjourneys. These programmes often demand international TESOL students to discardtheir prior knowledge in exchange of more advanced teaching methodologies and peda-gogies, criticisms that were raised by Liu (1998) and Auerbach (1995) nearly 20 yearsago. What is more, Auerbach (1995) argues that NABA TESOL are ‘often controlled notby the structure or objective of the program but by the specific and sometimes incidentalinterest of the faculty’ (p. 86). Recent studies such as Chowdhury and Phan (2014), Inoueand Stracke (2013), Ilieva (2010) and Ilieva and Waterstone (2013) continue to show thepersistence of native speaker ideology in the curriculum, pedagogy and practice ofTESOL programmes. Specifically, Ilieva and Waterstone (2013) investigate the curricu-lum discourses circulating in a Western TESOL programme for international students in ahighly reflective manner. In questioning their own practices as teachers teaching in NABATESOL programmes, these authors conclude that the discourses and practices existing inthese programmes are still informed by Western superiority. They raise several criticalquestions in their article, which include ‘Is a critique of native speaker ideology and

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embracing the discourse of multi-competence truly a route to disrupt existing powerrelations or could these be another iteration of Center [NABA] domination of TESOLprograms? [; and] Are we advancing academicentrism?’ (p. 34) (see also Ilieva, 2010 forsimilar accounts). Several studies document international students’ reflections on theirexposure to critical theories introduced in their NABA TESOL programmes (Chowdhury& Phan, 2014; Matsutani, 2012; Phan, 2008). Through such exposure the students becomemore aware of the cultural politics and the discourses of colonialism underlying TESOLand thus develop a more complex professional identity; however, the students also revealthat there is often only one course in their entire programme that gives them space fordeveloping critical understanding of the field. This calls for a more consistent andcollectively critical approach in TESOL pedagogy and curriculum.

Given all the above discussions, we are not claiming that Western institutions, teachersteaching in NABATESOL programmes and courses in TESOL programmes are not awareof international students’ pedagogical needs at all or do not provide any room for criticalengagement with critical theories; neither are we assuming that international students arepassive recipients of Western TESOL and are unreflectively adopting Western-generatedapproaches such as communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based learning(TBL) in their home settings. Instead, we are interested in how international TESOLstudents appropriate, critique and put in practice what they have obtained in NABATESOL, particularly in this era of post-method pedagogy. This is because post-methodpedagogy should all in all invite teachers and students to call into question the culturalpolitics, ethics and appropriateness of teaching regardless of contexts.

Post-method pedagogy in TESOL and its predicament in EFL contexts

We would like to start this section by highlighting Kachru’s (1986, 1996) premier workthat captures the spread of world Englishes, in which he coined and discussed the threecircle model of English, the Inner Circle, the Outer Circle and the Expanding Circle. Inthis model, the Inner Circle constitutes the traditional bases of English, largely referring tonative-English-speaking countries (e.g., Australia, Canada, the USA and the UK). TheOuter Circle includes countries where English is used as a second and/or an officiallanguage. Many of these countries were former colonies of Britain (e.g., Singapore, India,Nigeria and Ghana). Finally, the Expanding Circle contains countries that use English as aforeign language (for instance, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Korea and Thailand). However, it isimportant to note that the borders of these circles are not always clear-cut.

The Inner Circle in Kachru’s work is also referred to as the Centre, while the OuterCircle and the Expanding Circle are grouped under the Periphery (Pennycook, 1998;Phillipson, 1992). Throughout the article, these terms are used, and we fully acknowledgethe limitations associated with them.

Numerous criticisms of method particularly its embedded ‘marginality’ on the part ofthe Other and the hegemony of the Western Self’s worldview in the forms of unequalpower relationships with the Other (e.g., Canagarajah, 1999; Kumaravadivelu, 2003;Pennycook, 1989; Phillipson, 1992) have given ways to the development of post-methodpedagogy in TESOL. A fundamental shift from method to post-method is seen as anattempt to decolonize Western-based pedagogies. According to Kumaravadivelu (1994,cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2003), post-method means ‘a search for an alternative to methodrather than an alternative method’ (p. 544). He contends that ‘any attempt to discover anew or a better method within the existing methodological framework is bound to be

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conditioned by the construct of marginality’ (p. 544), hence is subject to pedagogicalinappropriateness, among other things.

Post-method presupposes that periphery teachers will devise their classroom pedagogyin ways that are compatible with local intellectual conditions. They have to have ‘a desireto challenge the debilitating effects of method’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 545) intro-duced to them as a marginalizing tool. To put such endeavours into practice, they need tocomply with the framework of post-method pedagogy that is based on the three funda-mental parameters identified by Kumaravadivelu (1994 cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p.544): ‘particularity’, ‘practicality’ and ‘possibility’. The ‘parameter of particularity’ indi-cates that language teaching should respond to the local, individual, institutional andsocio-cultural needs of a particular group. The ‘parameter of practicality’, on the otherhand, refers to language teachers’ awareness of the reciprocal relationship between theoryand practice. The ‘parameter of possibility’ offers learners space for critical reflection ontheir life experiences and their socio-cultural and historical background in order toappropriate the English language in line with their own values and visions(Kumaravadivelu, 2003). Indeed, these three parameters are not mutually exclusive, butrather, they complement each other in helping periphery language practitioners to developa conceptual rationale vital for constructing a post-method pedagogy as a move towardsdecolonization.

Nevertheless, the successful construction of such notions is often associated withchallenges, particularly when the discursive formation of the colonial concept of methodis not critically discussed in TESOL courses. Like the postcolonial predicament, post-method pedagogy derives from a colonial history ‘characterized by a particular discursiveformation called method which has been shaped by the form of orientalism’(Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 546). This colonial concept of method will continue to affectpedagogic practices in periphery ELT classrooms, particularly when periphery TESOLteachers are not aware of and are not meaningfully engaged in critiquing those assump-tions of mainstream institutions. As Kumaravadivelu (2003, p. 546) warns us, the post-method pedagogy predicament is manifested in ‘two dimensions’: (1) the ‘process ofmarginalization’ and (2) the ‘practice of self-marginalization’.

The ‘process of marginalization’ is produced and upheld through what Kachru (1996)called ‘paradigms of marginality’ that consist of ‘paradigm myopia’, ‘paradigm lag’ and‘paradigm misconnection’ in Kumaravadivelu’s (2003, p. 547) words. These three para-digms articulate the existence of flawed research practices in Centre applied linguisticcircles: i.e., ‘monolingual speakers and societies’ are treated like the norms ‘for forminghypotheses about bilingual development’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 547); the ‘scientifictheory’ status of ethnocentric-oriented hypotheses is perpetuated by the mainstreamliterature, and investigative processes of hypothesis formation, testing and confirmationare disassociated from the sociolinguistic and historical realities of language used inperiphery classrooms. Kachru (1996) also discusses the ways in which the aforementionedparadigms are implemented as ‘a very effective strategy of subtle power’ (p. 242). Oneconsequence of this myopic vision of mainstream institutions is that international TESOLstudents are subjected to constricting and exclusionary practices which may adverselyaffect their professional endeavours (Chowdhury & Phan, 2014).

It is this practice of subtle power in Western TESOL that maintains the dominance ofWestern knowledge over local knowledge. For example, the macro-strategic frameworkthat derives from the post-method pedagogy requires periphery teachers to localize theirclassroom pedagogic practices through bottom-up strategies. Yet the pivot of post-methodpedagogy is based ‘on the theoretical insights that originated from an already documented

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Western knowledge base’; it would be much more preferable for the theoretical supportfor this pedagogy to have been derived ‘from the findings of empirical research conductedand documented in and by periphery communities where English is learned and taught asa second/ foreign language’ (Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 547). In the face of a paucity ofdocumented local knowledge based on post-method pedagogical practices, internationalstudents may unintentionally transfer those ethnocentric-oriented pedagogic practices totheir contexts. Worse still, they might unknowingly argue for the validity of theseWestern-based instructional strategies.

The practice of self-marginalization by language teachers and academic administratorsin periphery contexts can be seen in different ways. It is common practice, for instance,for institutions in many EFL and ESL countries to post job advertisements stating thatthey require teachers with recognized NABA TESOL certificates and qualifications,especially native speakers (Mahboob, 2010; Mahboob & Golden, 2013). Such self-marginalization practices would further endorse NABA programmes to perpetuate theirdominance ‘by exploiting the practice of self-marginalization on the part of the subaltern’(Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 548; Widin, 2010).

With regard to Saudi Arabia, the academic relations between the Saudi governmentand many Western countries reinforce this hegemony across the country. In 2004, theSaudi government put billions of dollars into Western-style higher education by launchinga scholarship programme called the King Abdullah Scholarship (KAS) that helps Saudicitizens to complete their further education at Western universities. Accordingly, parentsare encouraging their children to apply for the KAS to pursue their education overseas,and local universities are competing (i.e., by launching different job-incentives) to recruitSaudi manpower with Western qualifications. For instance, King Saud University, one ofthe largest and most prestigious universities in the country, offers four monthly stipendsfor Saudis who are studying at the top 100 universities in the USA. Such country-wisetrends have introduced a strong discourse of the privilege of Western qualifications andled Saudi higher education authorities to normalize the effectiveness of Western pedago-gies and accept often without questioning the pedagogical outcomes of NABA TESOL.Saudi teachers without Western qualifications have been labelled a subordinate group oflanguage educators across the country. The high importance attached to Western qualifi-cations could be described as a form of hegemony perpetuated ‘through social practices,social forms and social structures produced in specific sites such as the church, the state,the school, the mass media, the political system and the family’ as McLaren (2003, p. 76)puts it.

Given the above discussions, this article examines how Western-trained Saudi teachersof English perceive post-method pedagogy introduced in their NABATESOL courses andthe extent to which such courses have prepared them to develop meta-pedagogical andcritical awareness, and how this preparation has been translated into their everydayclassroom practices.

The context: Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

English in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is not a ‘neutral’ language. It is loaded withpolitical, religious, social, and economic overtones and is a topic of heated debate. While theinfluence of globalisation and modernisation policies adopted in KSA has led to an increasein the use of English in the country; there are processes of resistance to English that questionits validity and contribute to a shift in the language to suit local beliefs and practices.(Mahboob & Elyas, 2014, p. 128)

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In the midst of such resistance and the tendency to self-marginalise as discussed above,the pursuit of English as a desirable form of social, linguistic, political, cultural, intellec-tual and economic capital has also been central at all levels in the KSA, the largest countryin the oil-rich Gulf States of the Middle East. The Ministry of Education and Ministry ofHigher Education have been investing enormously in ELT across the country. The pasttwo decades has witnessed several major government initiatives to promote mass literacyin English nationwide (see Mahboob & Elyas, 2014 for more details). What is more, thegeopolitical reality of the globalization of English, the impacts of the 9/11 event on theIslamic countries’ education systems (Rizvi, 2004), and the recent ‘Arab Spring’ uprisings(i.e., a series of protests, demonstrations and civil wars took place in the Arab world inmid-December 2010) have all played major roles in accelerating English education policyreforms in the KSA.

Together with offering scholarships to Saudi citizens to obtain Western educationoverseas, the Saudi government has been boosting the internationalization of highereducation in the country. With direct financial and logistic supports from the government,local universities have been adopting top-down internationalization policies to promotenational, institutional and individual competitiveness in response to the increasing globa-lization of English. Universities and colleges are revising their mission statements toensure a commitment to internationalization, franchising international educational provi-ders to their local people, cultivating partnerships with foreign institutions, launching jointTESOL (e.g., MA TESOL, Diploma in TESOL) and adopting international curricula,among other endeavours. English is now considered a medium of instruction in Saudihigher education contexts, especially in engineering, medicine, business and informationtechnology. At post-secondary education, topics of accreditation, international partner-ships, joint ventures, English as the medium of instruction and the internationalization ofhigher education are highly regarded in university communities as well as at seniorofficial talks. Possessing Western training/education in the Saudi contexts is consideredto possess a form of capital.

With awareness of the complexity of English and ELT in the KSA, we now presentour research project conducted with two Western-trained Saudi TESOL teachers to obtainmore insights into the questions raised in the article.

The study

The study adopted a qualitative research approach with the aim to obtain rich descriptionsof data, comprising highly detailed accounts of the participants’ personal experiences,beliefs, attitudes and everyday teaching practices. It examines the extent to which NABATESOL have prepared Saudi EFL teachers for their teaching back home with a particularfocus on how they are able to devise context-sensitive and institution-specific classroompedagogies and to develop their own sense of plausibility. A qualitative approach makes itpossible to understand such complex issues as it helps not only reveal the participants’experiences, but also connect their experiences with wider social contexts (Creswell,2007; Park, 2013).

Males and females are segregated in the Saudi education system; therefore, the firstauthor who was the one who conducted the study had access to male participants only.The data presented in this article were part of a larger project collected from male Sauditeachers of English in a period of six months. Multiple data collection methods includinga questionnaire, observation of lessons and semi-structured interviews were employed. We

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will report the data from two teachers from whom we have collected the most data usingall the above-mentioned techniques. The participants’ pseudonyms are Ali and Refat.

The data collection process consisted of three phases; each phase informed the onethat followed. The researcher first distributed a questionnaire to obtain data about theparticipants’ educational and professional backgrounds. They were also asked to voicetheir opinions about the concept of post-method pedagogy and to state whether theirpedagogical needs had been met with regard to teaching materials and the pedagogicalstrategies that informed their classroom practices, and who was responsible if such needshad not been met. Based on their responses to the questions, semi-structured interviewswere designed to obtain more details and insights.

Classroom observations were then conducted to explore how the participants’ class-room pedagogies were realized in their everyday classroom practices. The teachers wereinformed that the primary purpose of these observations was to capture the generalpedagogical strategies they employed in their classrooms to meet their students’ needs. Inorder to overcome any problems arising from power relations and conflicts of interestbetween teachers and students, we obtained the consent of each party separately. Thestudents’ consent form was written in Arabic while the teachers’ form and survey were inEnglish. The semi-structured interviews were conducted in both English and Arabic.Classroom observations began in week three of the spring semester, which meant that thelearners were familiar with the purpose of the researcher’s presence, and also with theirteachers and their classroom teaching styles. All classroom observations were scheduledwith each participant in advance to ensure that tests and other forms of examination were notbeing observed. Both participants had given the researcher their teaching schedules inadvance and at the same time highlighted the examination or test weeks/days. Based onthe data obtained from the classroom observations, interviews were subsequently conductedwith both participants, concentrating on the teaching strategies they employed in theirclassrooms and the rationale behind these practices. All interviews were conducted in aquiet place, audio-recorded with the consent of both participants, and transcribed verbatim.

The process of data analysis commenced before the end of the data collection. We alsoused the constant comparative method to identify themes related to (1) the participants’perceptions of obtaining Western TESOL qualifications, (2) their opinions about theconcept of post-method pedagogy, (3) their views on whether their pedagogical needshad been accommodated in NABA TESOL and who was responsible if such needs hadnot been met and (4) their classroom pedagogies and the rationale behind those practices.

Western TESOL qualifications as capital, privilege, marginalisation and authority

The participants viewed their Western TESOL qualifications within the Saudi context invarious ways, ranging from seeing them as monetary and tangible resources to seeing

Participants Age Gender Educational background QualificationsTeachingexperience

Currentlyteaching at

Ali 37 Male BA in English Literature& Linguistics

MA TESOL/AppliedLinguistics, UK

12 years University

Refat 40 Male BA in English Literature MA & PhD TESOL,USA

13 years University

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them as an advantage which would have a beneficial influence on all aspects of theirprofessional lives. For Ali, his TESOL qualification had transformed him into a ‘greatresource’ compared to his co-workers who held degrees such as MAs in EnglishLiterature or Linguistics obtained from Saudi universities:

I consider myself as a great resource because of my experience in the past as an internationalstudent who studied at one of the top-notch universities in the UK, and currently a teacherwho holds a major that does not exist at Saudi universities (survey).

Ali further described other forms of accumulated capital that had been bestowed on himby his Western education:

Yes, there is a big demand for MATESOL holders across the country, with high salary. Thus,I had a one-year study leave from my secondary school and went to the UK to complete myMaster's degree. I thank God for the fact that my current qualification has given me arewarding job at university level. It helped me to become the coordinator of the AppliedLinguistics track within one semester. In the university community and Saudi society, I havebeen perceived as a model language teacher who had a Western education, linguistic andcultural practices. Of course, I am extremely happy to be treated in this way. (Interview 1, 16February 2013)

Similarly, Refat stated that although his TESOL MA and PhD qualifications from theUSA had made his professional journey rather complex, they had empowered him withinthe Saudi context. Throughout his teaching career, he had experienced various types ofprivilege:

It was so sad. I was planning to complete my degree in English literature. Surprisingly, myuniversity approved my scholarship for a TESOL degree because there was a high need for it.After graduation I realized that I had been given more space to take decisions such asintroducing new, changing course structures, and leading various departmental committees,despite the fact that there are some senior co-workers who hold PhD degrees from non-Western universities. My authority has never been questioned. (Survey)

These attitudes experienced by Refat at his university are evidence of the dominantdiscourses of privilege attached to Western qualifications which have not only beennormalized and remain unquestioned (Park, 2013) at Saudi universities, but have alsocontributed to the marginalization of other Saudi language teachers who hold locallyobtained qualifications. Refat elaborated on these ‘disrupting’ normative discourses asfollows:

To be honest with you, I sometimes feel that my everyday practices are not right. Yet bothco-workers and administrators, unknowingly, attach more credibility and legitimacy to mydecisions because of my Western qualifications. This scenario has put me under a lot ofpressure. (Interview 1, 21 February 2013)

The complex feelings experienced by Refat may be attributed to the fact that Saudieducational authorities often uncritically accept the assumptions of second languageacquisition theories and pedagogy imported from Western TESOL, thus in effect legit-imizing their own marginalization. These self-marginalization practices (Kumaravadivelu,2003) were also reported by both participants, who noted that Saudi language teachersperceived degrees from Western universities to be ‘golden’, ‘the mainstream’ (Refat,

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Interview 2, 11 March 2013) and ‘the house of knowledge and research’ (Ali, Interview 2,20 March 2013). In contrast, they considered local universities as places of academiccliques, and described local degrees as ‘survival degrees’ (Ali, Interview 2, 20 March2013), ‘local knowledge’, ‘easily attainable’ and ‘not prestigious’ (Refat, Interview 2, 11March 2013). The use of such terms by these teachers is also an indication of how thecultural politics underlying NABA TESOL shapes language teachers’ perceptions andpractice in the field.

From inferiority complex to critical awareness and critiquing

In expressing their viewpoints regarding post-method pedagogy they experienced in theirTESOL courses, Ali and Refat described how they positioned themselves as they wereprogressing in their studies in Britain and in the US respectively.

Notably, the participants’ experiences of post-method pedagogy and its macro-strate-gic framework in NABATESOL seemed to be within the discursive hegemonic nature ofso-called method. As such, in the beginning Ali and Refat both saw themselves as victimsof their self-assigned non-native non-Western international student status whose confi-dence and legitimate stance were challenged in the new educational contexts. In Ali’swords,

when I was asked to review the assigned reading materials and post my responses on the classWiki, I felt that my comments all originated from existing Western knowledge … Thetheories in these reading materials stemmed from Western studies and we were asked tomake sense of them” (Interview 4, 28 March 2013).

These (ethnocentric) practices in his TESOL programmes were also reported by Refat.They had caused him to develop a sense of inferiority complex, whereby he fixated on hisnon-native speaker status and saw his international student status being insignificant andminor.

My first semester on the MA TESOL [program] was challenging because I found that thematerials were mostly based on the works of Anglo-American scholars. I could not fulfill therequirement of my first assignment that asks each student to conduct a mini-teaching session,because the class was dominated by native speakers and it was so stressful. (Interview 4, 27April 2013)

Refat further described his journey as follows: ‘I was mostly passive in class and found ithard to be assertive…’ and ‘…it took some time for me to realize that this was a wrongself-image developed by me’ (Interview 4, 27 April 2013). Ali also described his earlyexperiences in the TESOL lectures as those of a ‘handicapped student’ who accepted thefact that he needed some ‘physiotherapy sessions’ to meet the standards set by Britishstudents and professors. Accordingly, he sought the assistance of senior internationalclassmates to help him ‘stand on his feet’ (Interview 5, 5 May 2013).

Ali’s and Refat’s experiences are rather common among international students study-ing at Western universities who often experience ‘culture shocks’ in classrooms partlybecause they tend to perceive themselves as inferior and lacking linguistic, academic andcultural knowledge (Marginson & Sawir, 2011). However, the problem here lies in thetendency to overemphasise these cultural shocks and to blame international students forlacking necessary knowledge and skills required to be successful in Western classrooms,as argued in Chowdhury and Phan (2014) and Singh (2010). Obvious consequences of

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this problem include host institutions offering international students remedial support, apractice that both reinforces the authoritative image of NABA hosts while safeguardingthem from having to question and revamp their curriculum, pedagogy and practice.Another consequence is the underestimation of international students’ agency andpower to challenge the status quo and to critique what is presented to them in theircourses. Ali and Refat clearly showed their critical stance after the initial cultural shocksas they progressed in their studies and gained more experience. Regarding post-methodpedagogy, they acknowledged its strengths while pointing to its weaknesses as well.

Throughout the program, I noticed that, theoretically, the post-method pedagogy is a moredemocratic approach for the language teaching profession. It discusses how to conduct ourclassroom practices based on our personal conceptualizations and local needs. However,throughout my study in the TESOL program I felt this picture was always blurred. (Ali,Survey)

For Ali it seems post-method pedagogy was ‘the main ingredient for successful EFLinstruction as it gives more recognition to teacher autonomy, beliefs and experiences’. Yethe noted in the beginning he had struggled to adapt to ‘Western-oriented classroomdiscussions’, to comment on ‘culturally inappropriate reading materials’ in his TESOLcourse and to fulfil the requirements of ‘one-size-fits all’ assignments (Interview 3, 18March 2013). For him, these were the primary reasons preventing him from being able toexperience more fully what he called ‘the essential means for effective teaching’.

Sharing a similar view, Refat said ‘I strongly believe in the concept and practices ofthe post-method pedagogy’ and ‘much has been discussed about it and its macro-strategicframework in our classes, but the program requirements did not help us contextualizethese ideas’ (Interview 4, 2 April 2013). It should be noted that the macro-strategicframework of post-method pedagogy ‘is based on the hypothesis that teaching andlearning needs, wants and situations are unpredictably numerous’ (Kumaravadivelu,2006, p. 68). Thus, educators in NABA TESOL cannot always prepare internationalstudents to deal with the wide variety of unpredictable needs, wants and situations theywill encounter in their own countries. Nevertheless, it is expected of them to providespace that will enable international students to recognize the differences between NABAteaching practices and those that are applicable in their own countries so that they candevise a context-sensitive approach to ELT upon graduation. Doing so would enable‘counter-marginalization’ to take place among both TESOL teaching staff and students.Indeed, the heart of the matter is that post-method approach needs to be challenged byteachers and teacher trainers in all contexts.

As they went on with their studies, Ali and Refat also took on different positions withregard to what they viewed as culturally inappropriate classroom discussions and readingmaterials introduced to them. These positions included ‘avoiding’ and ‘focusing on suitableparts only’ strategies (Refat), and ‘going with the flow carefully’ (Ali) approaches to adapt andgain from the Western system. In addition to the adaptation strategies, Ali and Refat alsoshowed great awareness of the complexity of EFL instruction in different contexts. Forinstance, Ali reported that the notion of Communicative language teaching (CLT) and itsmodified version designed to suit local needs was optimistically introduced in his programme.However, he felt rather pessimistic regarding the appropriateness of CLT in the KSA:

In my program, I was introduced to the concept of communicative grammar, communicativetasks, communicative testing, communicative reading, task-based learning and so on. But Ithink the Saudi culture does not support such concepts because our students are

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psychologically, culturally and socially not ready to accept these principles in our classrooms.What matters to me is the learning outcome at the end of the day; i.e., my students shouldgain communicative and linguistic competence together. (Survey).

Ali also expressed that in his course he did not get ‘enough practical skills that areapplicable in everyday classroom practices’. This is because many of the discussionsabout teaching strategies were introduced through ‘Western lenses’ (Interview 5, 5 May2013). Likewise, Refat expressed the view that ‘the post-method condition opened up awider space for teachers to localize their classroom pedagogies’. Nevertheless, hecomplained that ‘…in classroom discussions, I found memorization and drilling methodsopenly being condemned by my professors…methodological choices are always criticalbecause they largely depend on local needs’ (Interview 5, 27 April 2013).

Overall, these responses reflect the participants’ awareness of the fact that post-method pedagogy, according to Block and Cameroon (2002, p. 10) ‘opens up newopportunities for the expertise of language teachers in periphery contexts to be recognizedand valued’ and ‘makes it more feasible for teachers to acknowledge and work with thediversity of the learners in their classrooms, guided by local assessment of students’strategies for learning rather than global directives from remote authorities’. It is also clearfrom their responses that they felt uncomfortable when their TESOL professorscondemned memorization and drilling methods so as to legitimize their advocacy forprocess-oriented paradigms such as task-based learning and Communicative LanguageTeaching in language teaching and learning. These findings show that Ali and Refat hadbeen critically aware of the complexity of the teaching beliefs that informed theireveryday teaching practices, of ‘the vitality of the macrostructure – social, cultural,political, and historical – that shape the microstructures of the language classroom’(Kumaravadivelu, 2006, p. 59), and of the importance of localizing their methodologicalpractices to accommodate local needs.

A transition from critical awareness and critiquing to Attainment: classroompedagogical strategies

To understand more clearly how Ali’s and Refat’s meta-pedagogical and criticalawareness as well as how their transitions from critiquing to attainment were translatedinto their everyday classroom practices, one-semester classroom observations with bothparticipants were conducted. This methodological technique helps justify better in whatways the participants’ everyday classroom pedagogical strategies were not mere repro-ductions of ready-made Western packages, but instead were the ‘continued recreation ofpersonal meaning’ (Diammond, 1993; cited in Kumaravadivelu, 2006, p. 74) on the partof the teachers as critical transformative practitioners. The outcomes of these observationsare presented below.

The classroom observations focused on (1) the pedagogical strategies employed byeach teacher to meet his students’ needs and (2) the underlying principles behind thosestrategies. This is because strategies ‘do not constitute a method but function as a heuristicto develop an appropriate pedagogy from the bottom up’ (Canagarajah, 2002, p. 142) tomeet local learners’ needs taking into consideration their learning traditions. Additionally,classroom realities often do not correspond to any recognizable method; in other words, ateacher might commence his class with a specific method in mind, but then might beinfluenced by classroom contingencies to alter his strategies as he goes on(Kumaravadivelu, 2003). It is for these reasons that we will summarize each participant’s

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overall pedagogical strategies and then critically report on the underlying principlesbehind these strategies from each teacher’s point of view.

Ali teaches a three-credit course called English Academic Writing (ENG 311) to agroup of EFL students. These junior students are taking the course as a requirement fortheir Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems. Refat teaches a four-creditcourse called Reading Comprehension (ENG 101) for foundation programme students.These students are expected to specialize in different engineering subjects upon successfulcompletion of their foundation programme.

Pedagogical strategies employed by Ali on the ENG 311 Course

Ali gave a full orientation to his students at the beginning of the term to familiarize themwith the teaching framework and strategies that he would be employing throughout thesemester. He informed his students that ‘you will be learning how to write throughnegotiating’ because ‘writing is a complex social process’. Notably, he used what hecalled a ‘negotiating cycle for teaching writing’ (Interview 3, 18 March 2013) throughoutthe semester, which is summarized below (Figure 1).

Ali’s pedagogical strategies placed great emphasis on the students’ roles in construct-ing their own knowledge while learning how to write in English. At the beginning of thesemester, he informed his students that he would be negotiating with them how to write inEnglish and that his role would be changing gradually from that of a ‘directive’ to that of a‘non-directive’ teacher. As shown above, Ali created a writing context to start his teachingendeavours. He brought a variety of formal and informal texts to his classes as models. Hethen explicitly taught his students which texts were considered to be legitimate academicwriting and which were not. In these practices, a careful, reflexive and critical reading ofthe various models by the students gave them ample opportunities to recognize thestructures of written texts, vocabulary, text organization, genres and so on.

Figure 1. Pedagogical strategies used in ENG 301.

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Ali also asked his students to team up with each other and bring two examples oflegitimate texts to the class. Using the materials they brought, he analysed the varioustextual features with his students and answered various questions posed by them. Alijustified such practices in an interview, ‘I want my students to have an awareness of whatwe mean by academic writing, and not to use inappropriate texts that are posted onFacebook or other social networking sites’ (Interview 3, 18 March 2013). In the student–teacher text construction stage, Ali’s students were asked to write short essays on differenttopics following the course guidelines. Ali then met his students individually to discusstheir written papers and to negotiate preferred types and strategies of feedback on theirpapers. In these sessions, he gave direct advice about sentence structure, vocabulary,writing conventions, etc. He said he felt that such scaffolding processes ‘will allow him toaccommodate different individual learning styles in the classroom and address anymisperceptions students may bring to their writing classes’ (Interview 6, 12 May 2013).This line of argument is compatible with post-process views of writing that writers oftencome to the moment of writing ‘with baggage, desires, hopes and fears about the world’(Kent, 1994, p. 4). However, writing teacher and students can negotiate to address suchissues. In the last two stages, the students were asked to write a paper on assigned topicsindependently and compare them with a similar text.

Ali justified the use of this ‘negotiating cycle’ as follows: ‘the notion of post-methodpedagogy drew our attention more towards students' needs’, so ‘depending on my owncreativity or transplanting Western writing pedagogies’ in the classroom may not helpstudents master the skills of writing. He mentioned that writing is a complex social process,and thus, ‘our students should take more active roles in learning how to write throughnegotiation and interaction processes’ (Interview 7, 15 May 2013). In Ali’s classes, a greatemphasis was placed on the student-writers; i.e., the student-writers’ innovation, creativityand their active roles in constructing their own knowledge of writing were tapped.

Ali seemed more confident about his teaching practices, explaining: ‘although it is hardto relate my current teaching strategies to a particular method, they work best for mystudents. I can see their progress through time, and their feedback is another source ofevidence for me’ (Interview 8, 22 May 2013). Ali saw that this negotiating cycle had dualoutcomes: ‘it helps me reflect upon my own practices and the way I function in classroomsas a writing teacher’, and it also ‘acknowledges students' existing or prior knowledge thathas been shaped by their local high school teachers’ (Interview 8, 22 May 2013). Buildingon his experience of teaching, knowledge of writing pedagogies, and intuition and aware-ness of local needs, it seems Ali had creatively devised bottom-up classroom pedagogicalpractices to suit his students’ needs. What really matters in post-method pedagogy, asPrabhu (1990) puts it, is when EFL teachers learn ‘to operate with some personalconceptualization of how their teaching leads to desired learning – with a notion ofcausation that has a measure of credibility for them’ (p. 172). Equally persuasive isCanagrajah (2002), who maintains that ‘though terms like experience, wisdom, and intui-tion are unscientific to base a pedagogy upon, in the post-Enlightenment period we are quitecomfortable with them’ (p. 140). What Ali did with his teaching offers a powerful pedago-gical account that is appropriate to a specific context and suitable for a particular audiencewhose learning needs and aspirations are well incorporated in the teacher’s pedagogy.

Pedagogical strategies employed by Refat on the ENG 101 reading course

The pedagogical strategies employed by Refat on the reading comprehension courseentailed a textual (or cognitive) approach, a functional approach and comprehension

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assessment tasks. He believes ‘reading comprehension involves many things; thus, stu-dents should be trained to accomplish different kinds of reading tasks’ (Interview 2, 10March 2013). Conceptually, the strategies and attitudes imparted by Refat to his studentswere something resembling a combination of explicit and implicit instruction. Throughoutthe semester, Refat would usually read the assigned topics aloud and then stop from timeto time to offer explanations of concepts, elaborations of difficult words, phrases, passagesand critical interpretations of texts. He would also stop occasionally to comment on apoint of syntax or vocabulary. In these sessions, his students usually took notes; i.e.,explanations of words, cross-references and any other remarks given by the teacher. Healso stopped from time to time to answer questions, in order to enhance his students’literacy, critical thinking, knowledge and skills. To enhance the students’ oral skills, heallowed them to comment on different aspects of the texts (e.g., difficult words andsyntax) and to ask questions centred on the assigned texts. To assess his students’comprehension skills, he would ask an individual student to read passages of text aloudand then he would question him and comment on his reading. He also used strategies likesummarization, question generation and cooperative learning as consolidation strategiesfor comprehension assessment throughout the semester.

Although direct instruction or building on one or more mental representations of a textwas predominant in Rafat’s pedagogical strategies, he believed that such practices wouldoffer his students a ‘proper grounding’ in reading comprehension, since they had had littleexposure to English in their former studies. He maintained that it is these practices ‘whichstemmed from the traditional system of Islamic education – known as Madrasah – thathave produced Arabic scholars with incredible linguistic skills throughout history’(Interview 5, 27 April 2013). He further added, ‘I know the Madrasah system hasproduced great scholars of Arabic. But I think the same teaching styles can be imple-mented with our EFL students, since they are familiar with these practices in Arabicinstruction’ (Interview 5, 27 April 2013). This line of argument is compatible with thetradition of Islamic educational views, which normally start with proper grounding (asRefat called it), in that ‘the learner was made to read and memorize the Qu’ran in welldrawn-out stages’ (Hashim, Rufai, & Nor, 2011, p. 100). Despite the plethora of NABATESOL pedagogies in the ELT industry, Refat still believed that Saudi EFL learners havetheir own learning tradition, and so this tradition needs to be recognized and maintained.Most notably, post-method pedagogy had provided him with new insights into teachergrowth, especially his own. These views were evident in his assertion that ‘in a post-method pedagogy teachers need to keep searching and developing different pedagogicalstrategies that suit their local classroom instruction. In this way, we could end upjustifying our teaching practices and reflecting upon them’ (Interview 7, 17 May 2013)

Concluding remarks and implications

Growing evidence discussed in the existing literature including that of this study con-sistently demonstrates that power relations and discourses of privilege have continued tosignificantly influence the production and dissemination of knowledge in the ELT indus-try. The increasing presence of international TESOL students means that NABA TESOLeducators should actively and proactively acknowledge and engage with the various waysin which ELT is realized in other communities and critically reflect on the appropriacy andintellectual rigour of their pedagogies and practices to enable necessary change beneficialto those involved.

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By exploring local realities, this study has examined how Western-trained Sauditeachers apply, critique and reflect on post-method pedagogy in their classrooms tooffer a response to the cultural politics and questions of appropriateness and ethicsunderlying TESOL in the Saudi context. This article represents only an initial attemptto examine the extent to which NABA TESOL have prepared international teachers todevelop meta-pedagogical and critical awareness, and how this awareness is beingtranslated into their everyday classroom practices. More studies with similar purposeswould open up more avenues for negotiating, ‘(re)examining and (re)structuring world-wide graduate [TESOL] programs aiming to prepare all teachers to work in globalizedcontexts’ (Park, 2013, p. 22).

Having acknowledged the above, we nevertheless assert that when it comes to whetherand to what extent NABA TESOL programmes are appropriate and relevant to theirinternational multilingual multicultural participants, the answer is complex. While it istempting to condemn such programmes for their colonial and imperial ideology, it is alsoimportant to look at the multiple layers of the training and listen carefully to the voices ofthose receiving the training. The empirical data reported in much existing literature, whilehighlighting the cultural politics of TESOL and its advocated pedagogies, demonstratestudent–teachers’ varied degrees of appreciation of the training (see for example Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 1999; Inoue & Stracke, 2013; Phan, 2008). It also discusses how andin what ways TESOL as a site of struggle, growth and identity (re)formation andnegotiation is felt and affirmed by TESOL students. This is also clearly evident withAli and Refat in this study.

Criticisms of TESOL programmes in many cases stem from ideological debates(Pennycook, 1998; Phillipson, 1992), or from data collected through questionnaires,journal writings, group discussions and interviews with TESOL students (see the refer-ences cited above). As such, what happens between the ideological level, TESOLstudents’ perceptions and their actual classroom teaching remains little known. Ourstudy with more data collected in a period of over six months using multiple techniquesincluding classroom observations of two teachers’ microteaching processes helps unveilthe myth to a modest extent, given the small data sample.

The data obtained from Ali and Refat demonstrate each teacher is striving to deviseand create his own pedagogical paradigm. Neither Ali nor Refat had uncritically adoptedthe assumptions of Western pedagogies or acted within the existing methodologicalframework. Instead, they both showed great understanding of the complexity of ELT inperiphery contexts. These aspects were reflected in the pedagogical axioms underlyingtheir practices. Ali used his ‘negotiating cycle’ throughout the semester to help hisstudents acquire competence in writing. He started with explicit instruction and thengradually assumed the role of facilitator. These practices show how Ali was creativelyand constructively adopting what he had learnt in his NABA TESOL courses specificallythe process-oriented approach. Ali clearly articulated these creative practices work forSaudi students owing to his ‘personal knowledge, experiences and students' feedback’. Incontrast, Refat employed pedagogical strategies originating in the traditional Islamiceducation system as a framework for devising relevant methods of teaching readingthroughout the semester. He believes his students are more familiar with such teachingpractices in their first language and hence believes these strategies should also workeffectively in their EFL classrooms.

A significant similarity across the pedagogical strategies used by both Ali and Refat isthat they are creatively using the process-oriented approach of EFL instruction throughouttheir pedagogical strategies. Their pedagogical strategies appear to have been informed by

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their critical stance of what they have gained in their NABA TESOL education. The dataobtained from the classroom observations show that a selective and well-informedemployment of post-method pedagogy has made it possible for Ali and Refat to playmultiple roles, including an analyst, a critical transformative practitioner and a decision-maker. This is clear evidence of an ‘art-craft conception of teaching’ (Arikan, 2006, p. 4)by EFL teachers who ‘theorize what they practice or practice what they theorize’(Kumaravadivelu, 2003, p. 37).

It can be argued that although many aspects of NABA TESOL education can beirrelevant, colonizing and alienating to their prior knowledge, experience and practices,such education at least offers space for critical reflections that then enable more informedpedagogies to be implemented in the classroom. It is also evident that Ali and Refat havetaken the ownership of their pedagogical practices and thus have been able to performtheir teacher roles effectively.

Ali and Refat have invested in their educational journeys through fulfilling admissionrequirements of their respective programmes, participating in overseas training, andsuccessfully completing their respective degrees on the grounds that such qualificationshave great value in Saudi Arabia. In return they have benefited from these investmentsfinancially, professionally and socially across Saudi contexts and settings.

Ali’s and Refat’s accounts offer evidence that the hegemony of NABA TESOL isacknowledged, resisted to, appropriated and negotiated by stakeholders at the receivingend. In the midst of all this, the data show the hegemony of NABA TESOL programmesexists and operates at multiple levels, and it is partly through the Western-trained TESOLteachers that such hegemony continues to sustain. Ali and Refat were never passive in theentire process nor were they naïve about the cultural politics of TESOL. They appeared toproactively take the advantage of being trained in the West to appropriate their givenprivileged status in the home contexts. They shared with one of us their concerns aboutproblems of NABA TESOL pedagogies and Western practices, but their struggles andtheir scepticisms of the quality of their training were not known to their colleagues, theirbosses and the society at large. They continued to enjoy the social cultural economic andsymbolic capital brought about by such training. They appeared to do so with awarenessand with a strong sense of agency. This very aspect of agency deserves substantialscholarly attention in future research.

At this point, we would like to revise the question Prabhu (1990, p. 175) raised24 years ago in which he was concerned about how to prepare periphery teachers toreflect critically on their own practices and to enable ‘teachers' varying senses of plausi-bility’. To move beyond the mindset that positions periphery teachers at the receiving endof NABA TESOL training and as the recipient of NABA TESOL pedagogical experi-ments, it is no longer valid to assume the enlightening and educating role of such training.The question now should demand periphery teachers and NABA TESOL teachers toconstantly reflect, engage and communicate with one another to create meaningful inter-actions and pedagogies throughout the training process and in their classroom practice.

Notes on contributorsDr Osman Z. Barnawi has a PhD in Composition and TESOL from Indiana University ofPennsylvania, and a Master of Education in TESOL from the University of Exeter, UK. He iscurrently Director of the English Language Center at Royal Commission Colleges and Institutes,Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. He teaches at the Department of Applied Linguistics of RCY and holds anadjunct position at King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has published extensivelyin international referred journals. He is also a regular presenter in local and international

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conferences. His research interests include second language writing, teachers’ identities, criticalpedagogy, crisis leadership in higher education, performance assessment in higher education,language programme evaluation, curriculum design and development, and teacher education. DrBarnawi can be contacted at albarnawim@hotmail.com.

Dr Phan Le Ha is an associate professor of Education in the Department of EducationalFoundations in the College of Education, University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA. She also holdsadjunct and honorary positions at Monash University in Australia, Vietnam National UniversityHanoi, and University of Reading in the United Kingdom. Her expertise and research interestsinclude international education, TESOL, identity studies, culture and pedagogy, academic writingand higher education. Dr Phan has published widely in these areas too. She can be contacted athalephan@hawaii.edu.

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