Teaching Writing at George Mason RAK

by Aisha Ravindran, Ph.D., English

George Mason University’s newly established campus at Ras Al Khaimah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is a model for the combined global vision of GMU and Crown Prince of Ras Al Khaimah, H.H. Sheikh Saud bin Saqr Al Qasimi, an alumnus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). This campus demonstrates the central role education can play in creating a bridge between cultures.  In fall 2005, Mason-RAK started with the Foundation Program, an English language program that prepares students for college-level study.  By fall 2006, three full-fledged Bachelor of Science degree programs were offered in biology, business administration, and electronics and communications engineering.

Mason-RAK is in every sense a multicultural university, with a student body and faculty from varied origins: the UAE, Syria, Iran, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Ethiopia, Somalia, Tanzania, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Germany, Russia, Bangladesh, Palestine, and Lebanon, among others.   Dr. John Varghese and Dr. Aisha Ravindran, the English faculty for the undergraduate program, are both from India.   They find that teaching composition at Mason-RAK poses unique challenges and also provides unprecedented professional rewards.

For the majority of students, English has been the easiest subject in the secondary school curriculum, located as it has been in the study of literature. With just a final examination to test learning in English, concepts were not applied consistently, unlike in the study of the natural and social sciences.  However, at the college level, the relevance of writing, reading, and critically responding to a text, inherent in studying composition, is an essential requisite for academic writing.

The course in composition thus has initiated a process of unlearning past methods. For example, peer review was initially considered an incursion into privacy. But students have adjusted gradually and can now see the virtue in this kind of feedback.  In addition, once discussions in the classroom became a natural process, the physical space buzzed with the interaction of multiple interpretations and connections.  This kind of learning emphasizes the significance of reading critically and of synthesizing the strands of information and knowledge derived from personal experience and other sources. 

Another issue was the selection of an appropriate text.  Would a text that contains content closer in relevance to the cultural context of the students encourage a better understanding of the text, in terms of the linguistic nuances and implied content, and thus encourage better responses in the writing assignments? Or would the selection of a text with content that is located within the North American setting be more useful to students, in terms of the insight into academic, linguistic and social acculturation that it would provide?

Yet another issue to consider is the relevance of the terms “native speakers” and “non-native speakers” in the era of English as a global language. Does the teaching of English in a non-native speaker setting, with a majority of non-native speakers of English forming the student community automatically preclude the teaching of English 101?  The administration of a placement test would, no doubt, be a likely solution.  However effective the accepted taxonomy of “native” and “non-native” may be for purposes of course classification, perhaps a less reductionist compartmentalization that focuses on course objectives rather than on linguistic origin could be considered.

The exposure to a new system and methodology is challenging for students at Mason-RAK, but until they become acclimatized, their diffidence toward the system is reflected in their response to the subject.  As the student community is presently small, the one-on-one attention that can be provided benefits both students and instructors. The effects are revelatory regarding the achievement of learning objectives and assessment criteria in writing for the student, as well as specific pedagogical issues for the instructor. As both faculty and student community expand, the ramifications for research also seems to be evolving into an exciting and fulfilling possibility.