Professional doings as promised and more - ENGLISH WORKS! A Workplace Based English Course

The main and exciting professional 'doing' in my life is working on the new staff course ENGLISH WORKS! James referred to it in his comment on the Almost the Holiday post.



Anyway I have led this process from its inception. Along the way wonderful colleagues have supported, criticised and expanded and now while still very much in process it is starting to take shape and although there are still grey areas it is looking good.



The first thing was to work with the original needs analyses and supplement them. Then I wrote a Vision statement which passed muster with little controversy. The Head of the Curriculum Development Unit told us that this is an opportunity to do so mething different. So we proceeded to do just that.



The result is a course which incorporates most of the good things we learn about when looking at the best ways to facilitate language acquisition as well as doing what the bosses want which is to add value to the employees work at the University by improving their facility in English.



We have based the shape of the course on the ALTE (Association of Language Testers of Europe) descriptors. Thus we have 4 modules which we have named Working in English, Out and About in English, Everyday English and Thinking in English. They correspond to the 4 ALTE sections. We will also offer IELTS/TOEFL training. Our students will work a lot online, maybe even have one class session a week in a virtual classroom! They will get thorough training in emailing, using the internet and Moodling for their learning journals which will be a major source of assessable data.



The teaching team will be dedicated to this programme and will take their class through the 8 week block/module. The students will be assessed regularly during this time and will each do a small research presentation as part of that assessment. No student will be asked to do something beyond their reach and our expectations will be based on what we find out they CAN do.

Well we have started to find this out - we gave them the Language Centre Placement Test and we now know that we have a majority of Level 1 learners. and at least 30 Level 6 - this in terms of the Language centre levels. We are going to administer a BULATS test which will place them on the ALTE levels but in the meantime we know that we have to prepare for a very wide spectrum of learners. We have adopted the principle of heterogenous groups but are seriously questioning our resolve.

The highest and lowest level students are going to require such radically different materials that it is hardly conceivable that we can place them in the same groups. So to some extent it is back to the drawing board... And in this regard we are all trying to work on the drawing board already - we have wikis on the SQU Moodle site and are trying to flesh out our programme. I am struggling with the technicalities of things like how to load pictures and format the pages.

Fortunately we have Moodle-savvy people to help us and for the next week we should have a bit more time to work on these things. It is going to be very useful for the students to do their homework as it is accessible online off campus and they will be able to read and work in their own time. We just have to increase our skill level.

Administering the test was interesting for us as it gave us a 'look' at our students, 134 turned up for the test and they are a motley crew. They are mostly male and mostly pretty playful!

This has been too long in the writing so I am going to post it now and hope that it is of some interest to some of you.

Back 'home' after a non-holiday!!

Well here we are back in Muscat and very pleased I am to be here too.

We had a good time in Australia - nothing bad happened and everything went pretty much according to plan except that we didn't unwind and relax. And we didn't get to see or contact all the people we had wanted to see and contact.

I suppose there are reasons for all the above. Here are some of them.

It was very cold. General consensus was that this is the coldest it has been at this time in Australia in living memory. Coming from very hot summer temperatures we didn't adapt well. Also we did not have the warm weather gear we could have had because last time we were in Australia at this time of the year it was mild and pleasant...

Alan did not get a job he really wanted and that depressed him. Also things had got a bit unpleasant between him and the Oman Hockey bosses in Hyderabad. Before we left he wrote to them saying that his continued association with them depended on them making some important changes. Worry about that situation cast a pall over the whole non-holiday! And, in some ways worst of all Marino Berta one of Als close friends from childhood had died and on arrival we went straight to his funeral in Brisbane. As you can see from the picture old friends reconnected at the wake and found joy in reminiscing and catching up but it was still a still a very sad occasion.

For more pictures from the wake look at
http://picasaweb.google.com/lynettefaragher/BertSWake

I was more exhausted that I had realised and took ages to re-establish proper sleep patterns...

I also came up with the bright idea that we should invest the extra pennies we earn here in another property in Australia - so we had to have a round of meetings with bank managers and estate agents and go to look at properties.

Of course all came to nought when we factored in the possibility of Al not being employed... but we did get some other financial planning advice and it seems if we follow it we will be able to retire to Australia when the time comes and not have to live in penury which was my great fear.

The good stuff was the visits from daughter Ruth, brothers Rick , Brad and Vince,niece Te Leah, sisters Christine and Angela, brotherinlaw Kevin, nephew James and friends, Sharon and David.

More good stuff was walks on the beach and a little bush whack with Ruth - she had some bad luck and was assaulted by little ticks - I believe she is still suffering a little from that aftermath!!! Some people are unlucky - I didn't get one!

Al had a few decent surfs but found the cold a problem! Never has before... there were not a lot of waves either.

We re-connected with our house but were disappointed that the painter had not finished his work and that the garden has become very overgrown. Still it will be a very nice place to live in when we need to go home, and the current tenants are nice people who are looking after it.

If you want to see more pics of the house you can look at http://picasaweb.google.com/lynettefaragher/TheSinniesPlaceSafetyBeach

The whereabouts of 'home' was also part of my inner issues... accepting that Australia will become my home. I do have some inner conflict about not returning to South Africa but I think that the conversations with the financial planner clinched it. The social security system will look after me in ways that the SA one will not.

I started to write this a week or so ago and Al's situaion was not resolved. It is now and they have accepted his resignation. the Vice President shook his hand and thanked him for all the very good stuff he had done but said that they would not be making the changes he needed as they are constrined by the Department of Sport - Al's nerves and professional integrity won't allow that so he is looking for a job.

Watch out for the next post which will be about my professional doings at the University.

Lots going on

Well a month has expired since last I wrote here - been busy with work and stuff. Having Mary here has been a bonus though.

Al has been and gone - they came second in Singapore - everyone was thrilled. Quite unexpected and they were financially rewarded!!! Now they are in Hyderabad (U21)and they have lost their first game against Pakistan but by fewer goals than they feared. The boys did well.

Mary has discovered hidden talents as a teacher and we have had some good conversations about the profession and all that. But the best has been the trips we have taken.

We went up the mountain - Jebel Al Akhdar - but I am going to link you to her blog here http://www.marysomanimoney.iblog.co.za/ - she does it better than I could - but I do have some good pics and I will link you to those here as well... http://picasaweb.google.com/lynettefaragher/JebelAlAkhdarTripInNovember2008. Then we had a memorable walk on the beach at Al Azaibah - balmy evening, not too hot...

Then Salalah featured in our lives... we met Tamsin there - was gorgeous to be all together... here again I will connect you with Mary's blog http://marysomanimoney.iblog.co.za/ - she does it so well but will put in this video..

The blowholes were spectacular... this gives a tiny taste of it. When I have conquered the workings of MovieMaker I will be able to put in a longer piece of blowholes. The noise was quite scary and then the eruptions... This next picture is the girls covered up for Job's Tomb.

It was lovely and peaceful in the tomb

but the best part of that trip was the thick mist on the twisty road up the mountain. We had to have our headlights on it was so thick but was amazing to us was the sight of many Omani families all having joyous picnics on the mist on the sides of the road and wherever a suitable spot presented itself!!

Another highlight was a walk around Al Baleed, the archaeological dig around the Frankincense Museum. It is a wonderful setting, paths and signs give an idea of what was there before. It seems that that was mostly mosques. There are little carts that you can ride in and also barges that go on the river.
We went back to Muscat refreshed and re-bonded with each other.

Music and Mary

Well today is a very good day. My daughter Mary arrived in Muscat from Cape Town. There she is on the left. We took that picture in Portugal when we were all together for a family holiday.

She is going to be a trainee English teacher at a local private language school. This is a lovely opportunity for her to get to experience what I have for so many years!!! The guts and the glory! She will probably be so grateful to return to Cape Town where she makes a few pennies writing for the newspapers. Mostly about music and musicians. We are going to have a lot of fun while she is here I want to show her as much of what I like about Muscat as I can in spite of it being summer and there being not much happening in Muscat.

She just missed The Proclaimers on Thursday night. I went with some colleagues and we assembled with a whole lot of other pale-skinned mid-lifers and others of course in the Intercontinental Hotel garden. We stood and stomped and sang along with this highly energetic duo and their backing band. We dripped sweat as we stood and jiggled then later we dripped water that some noisy neighbour poured over us!!!

It was a very good night though - such fun to have something to do in our own culture - just a change. I only knew their one song and for a change it was possible to hear the lyrics of most of the other songs and pretty intelligent they were too! Again a change from what mostly graces the radiowaves and calls itself music!!

Next week we are going to camp on Jebel Al Akhdar http://picasaweb.google.com/lynettefaragher/JebelAlAkhdarTripInNovember2008 check out the pictures we took last year. We just did a day trip as we didn't know what we'd do for the ret of the time once we had driven around the whole place and popped in to some of the villages and bought our rose water and mint and thought about buying the juniper berries. Anyway we will find out what to do next weekend.

To go back briefly to the music theme - I have finally cracked the use of the iPod and am uploading all our CDs onto it. They are so amazing - all that music in that tiny little card case sized object and available in the car in the bedroom and the living room. To be surrounded by music and with almost no effort - I am sure none of the readers of this blog will remember the days of changing 78rpm records on wind up gramophones... to be honest I don't remember it that well but do remember stacking 33 rpm vinyls on my dad's turntable so that we didn't have to jump up at the end of each record and change... this one in the picture was a state of the art record player when I first got married!!!

Do we do more with our time now that we have all this labour saving stuff??

Almost the holiday

This blog is being written at the least pleasant time of the year in Muscat and yet it is still a nice place to be. It is very hot. Hot and humid at times and we have been almost preparing for a cyclone. There was one last year at this time - 5th June to be precise and it caused a lot of damage - so we are nervous at the thought of another one.

My husband Alan checks the weather on the internet because he is always wanting to see if there are waves to surf on the east coast and he says that what looks like sinister weather patterns are not serious and we shouldn't worry. Some people are obviously worrying because there are no ordinary candles to be found in any of the Al Fairs in Muscat! (Al Fair is the supermarket that we like because they often have South African products - like Ouma Rusks and Mrs Balls Chutney!!)

With luck we will be able to go to the east coast to our favourite spot at A Sila near Al Ashkarah before we go on vacation to Australia to our home on the Australian east coast. The picture is of Alan surfing in Australia. I can't get close enough to him in Oman to get a decent picture! The beach is too wide! The only thing about camping at this time of the year is that the flies get very persistent and sticky! I am sure that even before the dawn of Islam the people who lived in the desert covered up completely against the heat and especially the flies!!