“Insha´Allah I´ll do my homework”: adapting to Arab undergraduates at an English-speaking university in Dubai

Chrysi Rapanta (Zayed University, UAE)

Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives

ISSN: 2077-5504

Article publication date: 1 December 2014

Issue publication date: 1 December 2014

625
This content is currently only available as a PDF

Abstract

The United Arab Emirates and Dubai in particular have in recent years attracted an increased number of Western teachers for all educational levels, especially universities. As part of the orientation for a Western teacher before entering a classroom, the main differences between Western and Middle East culture are often highlighted without an effort to explain how these differences are manifested in students’ behavior in courses, or to suggest how the teacher could address them. This paper aims at helping current and future faculty in their professional practice by considering Emirati Arab cultural characteristics as well as strategies adopted by the author to cope with them. Such strategies have been successful, as her students´ evaluations and academic performance distinctions during the last two years have continuously shown.

Citation

Rapanta, C. (2014), "“Insha´Allah I´ll do my homework”: adapting to Arab undergraduates at an English-speaking university in Dubai", Learning and Teaching in Higher Education: Gulf Perspectives, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 60-67. https://doi.org/10.18538/lthe.v11.n2.177

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2014 Chrysi Rapanta

License

This article is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this article (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode


Acknowledgements

Publisher's note: The Publisher would like to inform the reader that the article ““Insha´Allah I´ll do my homework”: adapting to Arab undergraduates at an English-speaking university in Dubai” has changed pagination. Previous pagination was pp. 1-8. The updated pagination for the article is now pp. 60-67. The Publisher apologises for any inconvenience caused.

Related articles