English is the most dominantly practised language in the Middle East when it comes to communicating and interacting in social, academic and professional contexts with others. During the past decade, the need to be fluent in a second language has become more of a labour market demand as well as a social class requirement. English is the most common language spoken in the Middle East and the Gulf after Arabic. It is considered to be an essential tool of communication in different contexts; this may be due to the British Colonial influence.
As clarified in the introduction on the UAE, my research has selected a gulf country in isolation, which is inhabited by a variety of ethnic groups resulting in what may be termed a multinational society (Al Saifi, 2007). This is also considered to be one of the key reasons to have given the research a rich context.
Although Ghubash (1990) has stated that female UAE nationals accounted for 4% of the total workforce, this percentage has dramatically increased within the past few years. More female UAE nationals have started going out to work, leaving house chores and the daily care of their children to housemaids who originally came from countries such as Pakistan, India, the Philippines and Indonesia. As a result, children would need to learn a new language other than Arabic, since these housemaids rarely have efficient competence in Arabic. As stated by Sharhan (1990), 65% of children whose families had hired housemaids learnt a new language, which were primarily Urdu and English. Having grown into such a cosmopolitan area, a need to communicate with one another created a challenge in terms of identifying the most commonly spoken language within the area. Although Arabic is the official language of the UAE, the diversity of immigrant origins has created the need to use a common language that could be used in official and non-official settings, including a form of pidginised Arabic (Al Saifi, 2007). Pidginised Arabic is a combination of Arabic and several native languages used by immigrants coming from Pakistan, India and Iran. Nevertheless, the most popular and common language used between individuals tends to be English.
With the economic growth occurring in the UAE, the number of the languages spoken is continuously increasing. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, large numbers of Eastern Europeans have also migrated to the UAE, and within the past four years thousands of Chinese people have been working in trade particularly in Dubai. Within the major cities of the UAE (Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Al Ain), most sales assistants speak another language in addition to Arabic and English.
The British colonisation of the Middle East in the early 19th century had a major role in
imposing the use of English language as the official language of the local government and commercial activities in cities. This could also justify the existence of so many English words used in UAE colloquial Arabic. Table 2.2 lists a few English words that are commonly used in the UAE Arabic dialect:
On the other hand, the UAE Arabic dialect has several words borrowed from other languages such as Urdu, Turkish and Persian. This makes the UAE Arabic dialect more complicated than other Arabic dialects in Arabic speaking countries such as Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt and Palestine.
Due to constant contact with expatriates, many UAE nationals have become multilingual, with the ability to speak three or more languages efficiently; these include Arabic, English and Urdu. The use of the different languages in this case would not be restricted to listening and speaking only, it may also involve the ability to read and write confidently (Al Saifi, 2007). This state of multi-lingualism has affected the position of Arabic being used as the first choice of language for purposes of communication as in other Arab countries. This may be due to the freedom expatriates have in communicating with one another using the language of their choice without needing to learn Arabic in order to communicate efficiently with others.
Table 2.2: Common Words Used in Arabic Originally From English
Word in English Pronunciation in Arabic
Light Leit
Motor Motar
Rubber Rubbal
Tyre Taayer
Visa Wiza
Air conditioning Kandeisen
Taxi Takse Driver Dreiwel Wire Waayer Cinema Senema Body Bode Bicycle Seikel Pump Bamp Glass Glaas Gallon Kalan
Wrong Side Ranseid
Hose Hoz Leak Lik Lorry Lore Truck Trak Bottle Batel Spring Spreng Source: Al Saifi (2007, p. 45)
Within the UAE Ministry of Education it has generally been understood that, although English is one of the dominant languages used commonly on a social basis, students graduating from schools, having studied twelve years of English still seem to have difficulty in using English within an academic context. Therefore, the majority of students graduating and proceeding to tertiary education are required to take further intensive English language courses to raise their English language performance. Nevertheless, they still seem to fail in communicating effectively within academic or formal contexts. Interestingly, the majority of secondary school graduates can use English in their day-to-day lives. However, the language competence they have does not seem to be recognised within academic contexts.
The UAE Ministry of Education and Higher Education have realised this and taken it as a challenge. The Ministry of Education decided to improve the materials adopted in schools and train teachers on new curricula that could better prepare students for studying in English at tertiary level. It seemed that students’ inability to study in English, as in the majority of colleges and universities in the UAE, was blamed on the English language curriculum being implemented even though there was a lack of professional training for teachers. The sudden change in teaching materials and expectations towards teachers has put them under extreme pressure to accommodate unrealistic expectations from the Ministry of Education within such a short period. 2.4.3 Educational Policy in the UAE
In light of its growing economy and existing presence regionally and internationally, the UAE aims to build a competitive and resilient economy that places it within the leading countries of the world by year 2021. As part of the Vision 2021, the UAE is working towards establishing a cohesive society that is loyal to its identity and enjoys the highest standards of living within a nurturing and sustainable environment (http:// www.vision2021.ae/home-page.html).
Of the main policy strands, responsibility, destiny, prosperity and knowledge, which define this desire is the United in Knowledge vision that expresses the ambition to establish a competitive economy driven by knowledgeable and innovative Emiratis. This vision requires that all Emiratis make a valuable contribution to their nation’s growth by increasing their knowledge and using their talents in innovative driven ways. In order to achieve this, a lot of emphasis is placed on the education of the youth. Accordingly, the UAE has recently been undergoing many changes towards improving its educational system. This includes the revision of areas related to the delivery and provision of education to the youth: the curricula used in schools, availability of technical and modern resources, school management and most importantly teacher qualifications and support.
Due to the desire for rapid change and improvement, the UAE has been continuously struggling to define the best and fastest ways to have these improvements take place. This has been perceived by some decision makers in the Ministry of Education to be
rather unrealistic, specifically in relation to educational change. Consequently, teacher preparedness programmes that aim towards updating educational practices have been of recent interest to the UAE Ministry of Education. These programmes would help teachers handle these changes, which have been a big challenge given the diverse community teachers come from. This goes in line with their policy to develop their native force to become more independent and less reliant on expatriate expertise.
2.4.4 Nationalisation
The large expatriate community has recently caused concern regarding national values (generated from the Arab Islamic culture), being diluted by foreign values. In response to this, the UAE government has recently initiated a programme that serves towards nationalisation in all sectors. Nationalisation mainly involves employing and replacing current expatriates with qualified nationals who can meet job requirements. However, this also contradicts their interest in economic globalisation and the demand for international business practices (Richardson, 2004). The nationalisation is being processed throughout both private and public sectors, including trade, industry, health and education.
With this change being encouraged, a group of colleges throughout the UAE, under the name of ‘The Higher Colleges of Technology’, have taken charge of the educational sector. They will develop teacher education programmes that offer degrees to increase teachers’ qualifications, specifically in the field of English language teaching and computer science. As Richardson (2004) notes, educators developing these degrees mainly come from western societies such as Australia, North America, Canada and the United Kingdom, bringing with them ‘western’ notions of knowledge and educational practices, although such practices may not be applicable within the UAE’s educational context. Minnis (1999) further concludes that educational practices must be filtered through the local culture, in this case the Arab Islamic culture of the UAE, if they are to be successfully adapted to meet the needs of teachers and teacher educators. Therefore existing professional development schemes do not appear to address the growing needs of teacher preparedness programmes in the UAE. This is considered to be a major challenge, since the professional development of teachers would need to be thoroughly
analysed in terms of the variety of demographic origin and educational backgrounds teachers bring.