Language Policy and Language TeacherEducation in the United Arab Emirates

MATTHEW CLARKEUniversity of Hong KongHong Kong SAR, China

� Many sectors of society in the Arabian Gulf have experienced startlingdevelopment and change in recent years as a result of industrialization,urbanization, modernization, and globalization. In the face of theseforces, concern is regularly expressed in the region about the preserva-tion of local cultures and identities (Dresch & Piscatori, 2005). Languageeducation policies and practices especially take on a particular signifi-cance in this volatile context.

This report presents the findings of one aspect of a larger study con-cerning the development of new teacher identities in an English lan-guage teacher education degree program in the United Arab Emirates(UAE) and outlines the ways in which student teachers responded to aprogram which aimed to heighten their awareness of the social andpolitical dimensions of language education within the current historicalcontext of globalization. In particular, the report focuses on Emiratistudent teachers’ beliefs regarding the relationship between the globaland the local and the possibilities for the local reappropriation of theglobal—what has been referred to as glocalization.1 Many of the beliefsthat the student teachers espoused reflect either a naïve optimism about

1 According to a recent study of the concept (Khondker, 2004), “the word [glocalization] aswell as the idea came from Japan (Robertson, 1995, p. 28). The term was modeled onJapanese word dochakuka, which originally meant adapting farming technique to one’s ownlocal condition. In the business world the idea was adopted to refer to global localization.”The term’s origins thus embody its meaning of global–local dialogue.

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the communicative benefits of global English or, conversely, a prelap-sarian nostalgia for Arab-Islamic purity; however, some students engagedwith the program designers’ intention to sensitize them to languagepolicy and practice issues and the inevitable cultural politics of languageeducation.

The data presented were collected through researcher-led focusgroups and student-led online conversations over a 2-year period (2002–2004) as part of a discourse analytic study investigating the discursiveconstruction of the student teachers’ community of practice. The studyexamined the students’ interpersonal relations, intrapersonal identities,and systems of knowledge and belief, including those relating to thesociopolitics of English language education. This report first outlines theUAE language education policy context before looking at the ways thatthe teacher education program sought to address sociopolitical issues inlanguage education. The report then illustrates the range of responses tothese strategies through brief vignettes of three student teachers andconcludes by briefly considering the implications for language educationin the region.

LANGUAGE, EDUCATION, AND POLICY IN THE UAE

The UAE has accommodated globalization by embracing global En-glish within a policy of linguistic dualism whereby English is associatedwith business, modernity, and internationalism, and Arabic is associatedwith religion, tradition, and localism (Findlow, 2006; Kazim, 2000). Thisdualistic approach is not explicitly stated in language policy documentsbut has evolved through practice, for as Karmani (2005) notes, in asociety without substantial governmental accountability and with rela-tively weak linkages between society and state, “language educationpolicy and planning decisions are liable to be a hit-and-miss affair” (p.90). This “hit-and-miss” linguistic dualism partly explains why this Arabic-speaking society has embraced English as a global language and hasestablished the Higher Colleges of Technology (HCT) as an English-medium institution, though it is also important to note the contempo-rary nexus between oil and English that underlies the UAE’s rentiereconomy (Karmani, 2005), a connection that supports English as least aseffectively as could be achieved by more coercive approaches. Neverthe-less, given the important role English has to play in the region and giventhat its significance will only increase in coming years, a key challenge forthe UAE as well as other countries in the region is how to resolve, or atleast accommodate, ambiguities about English (Ramanathan, 2005) andhow to reconcile the competing demands of local, regional, national,

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and religious identities with the homogenizing tendencies of globaliza-tion and English (Canagarajah, 1999, p. 76). A solution urged byKarmani (2005) is “to explore language education policy and planningsolutions that are locally based and help maintain and indeed promoteArab-Islamic values . . . [while] expanding the hugely important role andcontribution of bilingual Arab teachers of English” (p. 101).

ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION ATTHE HCT

The research that provides the basis for this report was conducted withstudent and graduate teachers—part of the first generation of youngwomen in the UAE to attend university—in a new bachelor’s degree ineducation program at the HCT. The HCT is a multicampus system, withcolleges in the cities of Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras AlKhaimah, and Sharjah, and a central office in Abu Dhabi.2 The program,which graduated its first teachers in 2004, prepares Emirati women asEnglish teachers for UAE primary schools and was developed with thedual purpose of demonstrating the benefits of progressive learner-centered pedagogies in the dual Islamic and global contexts of Emiratischools, as well as addressing the recognized need to improve Englishteaching within the Emirates (Loughrey, Hughes, Bax, Magness, & Aziz,1999). For the women entering the degree program, the chance to studyat college for 4 years often offers a welcome change from domesticdemands, and for many, teaching is one of the few career options that isacceptable to their families. In this sense, English and English teachingplay an empowering role in their lives. It also offers a potential avenuefor contributing to local language policy and planning debates.

The program is theoretically sophisticated; while drawing on a rangeof disciplinary knowledge (Grabe, Stoller, & Tardy, 2000), it is also homegrown, with detailed program development occurring locally and revi-sions made according to feedback from local stakeholders. Local cul-tures, practices, and materials are used as resources, as part of a processthat Lim (1991) refers to as cultural equivalencing, a “systematic promo-tion of the local culture in an English language teaching program . . .with the aim of putting it on the same level of significance as westernculture” (p. 66); and disciplinary theory and practice are integrated by

2 I initially came to the UAE as a consultant from the University of Melbourne and later ledthe HCT’s education division, working in the central Abu Dhabi office. In both these roles,I was involved in all aspects of development of the HCT bachelor’s degree in education.Although I was not the teacher of the students in this study, I regularly worked with andtaught them.

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linking students’ college projects where possible to the time they spendeach semester working in local schools. The HCT program also has theexplicit aim of raising student teachers’ awareness of the social andpolitical issues that inevitably accompany any language education pro-cess (Corson, 2001; Hinkel, 1999; Tollefson, 1995), especially significantin today’s context of increasing globalization (Block & Cameron, 2002;Edge, 2006).

Within the degree program, the English language studies strand3 hastwo interlinked substrands: personal language development and under-standing language. This report will focus on the understanding languagesubstrand.4 In this substrand, students develop their knowledge of thenature of language and its uses by studying formal language systems(phonology, semantics, grammar, genre, and discourse) and the relatedlinguistic terminology. It is significant for this report that the programalso emphasizes the social aspects of language (Block, 2003), includingprojects on discourse communities, language variation, and the linksbetween English and globalization.

For example, in one subject, students explain the concept of a globallanguage and identify its possible advantages and disadvantages, drawingon language education literature as well as on personal and communityexperience. As part of this project, they examine the geographical-historical, sociohistorical, and cultural factors that have led to the spreadof English as the global language, and they consider the social andeconomic implications its spread has on the contemporary UAE. In do-ing this work, the student teachers are striving to live up to Tollefson’s(2000) admonition that “English language educators must understandthe direct and powerful impact of social, political and economic forcesupon their classrooms and how these forces affect students’ lives” (p. 19).The student teachers analyze the notion of a global language (De Swaan,2001; Rajagopalan, 2004), a standard language (Bex & Watts, 1999) andthe concept of ownership of a language (Hayhoe & Parker, 1994), andrelate these issues to the development of multiple world Englishes(Kachru, 1997), as well as to Arabic language debates (Ryding, 1991) andto debates about native speaker versus nonnative speaker teachers ofEnglish (Braine, 1999). They also review the implications of these com-plex questions in English language curriculum and assessment in the

3 Other strands include education studies, teaching practice, preparation and review, and aseries of short high-interest subjects known as complementary studies.

4 Personal language competence is obviously a key area for student teachers for whomEnglish is not a first language, though Seidlhofer (1999) and the authors in Braine’s(1999) collection of articles make a powerful case for the distinct advantages brought byspeakers of English as a second language, who have been through many of the challengestheir students face, and can be thought of as double agents in a positive sense by virtue oftheir bilingual and bicultural abilities.

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UAE, as well as for themselves as future English teachers. One suchproject examines the language situation in another country. As part ofthis study, students identify the languages used in the country, includingtheir origin, evolution, and current role in the country’s social and in-stitutional life. They pay particular attention to questions of institution-alized status and to any policies relating to the use of languages ineducation, law, and government. The students share their findingsthrough presentations so that the whole group can compare and con-trast their own findings with those of their peers investigating othercountries and contexts.

THREE STUDENT TEACHERS’ VOICES

Although the student teachers’ responses to the way that the culturalpolitics of English was treated in the program varied considerably, threedistinct positions emerged in the data: (a) naïve celebration of English,(b) nostalgia for Islamic-Arabic purism, and (c) pragmatic engagementwith and response to the sociopolitical implications of English language.I briefly illustrate each position using brief vignettes of specific students.

In discussing their attitudes toward English and its role in the UAE,some students focused on the ubiquitous presence of English and itsassociations with mass media culture:

When I was a child I said to my parents I want to be a teacher. Andespecially English, because when I turn on the TV and see the movies,especially English movies, I want to speak like that . . . that was my dream.And it’s becoming real. English is around us everywhere, especially in theUAE now. (Isha, Focus Group Discussion, April 16, 2003)

Isha’s accepting and approving attitude seems to reflect an uncriticalcolonization by global English, with little evidence that she is aware ofthe sociopolitical implications, let alone threats, inhering in English lan-guage policies and practices. It is as if she lives in a world of free agents,without social constraints or compromises.

At the other end of the spectrum were a minority of student teacherswho perceived little but threats from English, as in the following excerptfrom Fakhra’s online posting revealingly titled “English Textbook VersusOur Tradition and Culture”:

These books present the characters in different clothes than the ones thelearners wear and their foods are different as well. So the child will beshocked about their own culture and traditions. . . . Therefore the childwill try to imitate whatever interests him from these books even if he is notsure about it. (Fakhra, Online Posting, September 27, 2003)

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These comments reflect a vision of the world where languages and cul-tures are uncompromisingly opposed, where social structures are all-determining and individuals are reduced to cultural dupes. NeitherIsha’s nor Fakhra’s position reflects the sort of sophisticated awareness ofthe connections and potential for dialogue between language policiesand classroom practices that the program designers aimed for. Thesepositions embody a perspective on English and globalization focusedsolely on the homogenizing aspects of global English, “rather than thepossibilities that global flows of language and cultures open up” (Pen-nycook, 2007, p. 18), while contributing little to the articulation of lo-cally derived language policy and planning solutions that Karmani(2005) calls for. However, a significant minority of student teachers didexhibit such capacities. For example, Salma offered detailed advice onhow to capitalize on cultural differences in the language classroom:

What we are supposed to do is adapt and relate to our culture. I don’tbelieve in sheltering our students from western culture and I don’t be-lieve in making them accept it without questioning. What we should do isshow them the bad and good of it and provide them with the knowledgeand thinking skills that they need to make their own judgment about itand choose what’s useful and reject what’s not. (Salma, Online Posting,October 3, 2003)

In contrast to Fakhra, Salma sees that pointing out cultural differencesresulting from particular language policies in relation to textbooks pro-vides opportunities for heightening students’ critical awareness of lin-guistic and cultural issues and for increasing their critical agency inresponding to structural constraints. The general thrust of Salma’s ar-gument reflects Lim’s (1991) concept of cultural equivalencing (men-tioned earlier), and her recommendation that teachers should providestudents with the capacity to critique English and the culture that ac-companies it is an instance of what Pennycook (1994) describes as en-couraging students to talk and/or write back to the foreign culture as acountering strategy:

When we were in schools, we were told that we should learn Englishbecause it would make us better human beings. Now what I want to do isteach my students English so they can tell others that we are good humanbeings. . . . I want them to communicate our ideas, our culture. (Salma,Focus Group Discussion, October 14, 2002)

Although she is clearly aware of issues of power and inequality in lan-guage education, Salma is not willing to accept being positioned as acultural dupe with no agency and initiative of her own. She would nodoubt take heart from Malak’s (2005) comments in his recent book,Muslim Narratives and the Discourses of English: “Writers from the ex-

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colonies of the British Empire . . . have, persistently through variousmeans, exposed, cleansed, and refashioned the English language to fittheir own agendas” (p. 10). Malak goes on to argue for the inevitabilityof mutual influence in cultural encounters: “It should be axiomatic thatas one language fertilizes another, the fertilizer itself becomes fertilized.Cross-pollination and creative encounters operate in multiple direc-tions” (p. 11). In a similar fashion—and particularly in a global climatereplete with media references to a clash of civilizations—it is importantthat this new generation of English teachers in the UAE recognizes theircapacity to fertilize a predominantly west-based TESOL—as well as amale-dominated UAE political elite—with their views about the roles andpurposes, opportunities and threats, of English in the Middle East. Ofcourse, as Canagarajah (2002) points out, we should not mistake mutualinfluence for a democratic utopia or underestimate the ongoing opera-tion of unequal power relations; but neither should we accept a domi-nant–dominated dualism that denies any and all agency to some indi-viduals and cultures (pp. 134–135).

CONCLUSION

The HCT bachelor’s degree in education is enabling young Emiratiwomen to take up influential positions in schools as teachers of Englishin a male-dominated, Arabic-speaking society. The establishment of thisdegree reflects the UAE’s dualistic approach to language policy andplanning that is not made explicit in language policy documents but hasevolved through practice. In this respect, the examples of naïve accep-tance and linguistic-cultural bifurcation on the one hand, and talking/writing back or creating cultural equivalencies on the other, reflect thecentral agency of teachers as they enact language policy. To contributeto ongoing language policy and practice debates, this new generation ofEnglish language teachers in the UAE needs to be sensitized to thesociopolitical issues surrounding language education. Their challenge isto ensure that their voices continue to be heard and their concernsvalued, without becoming essentialized or co-opted by dichotomizingagendas.

THE AUTHOR

Currently teaching at the University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Education, in HongKong SAR, China, Matthew Clarke led the development of the HCT’s bachelor’sdegree in education. His research interests include teacher identities, discourse

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analysis, and critical literacies. His forthcoming book, Language Teacher Identities, ispart of Multilingual Matters’ New Perspectives on Language and Education series.

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