Hi!
I am Kadidia Doumbia a French Teacher in northern Georgia.
I am very much involved in the arts especially dance and I do silk painting too. Besides that I emphasize in my classes the respect of other cultures and values and I am a part of the Civic Voices program.
I am a francophone and I believe that learning and knowing more than one language opens the doors to universal knowledge.
Once upon a time there was a young girl named Muna Al-Gharebi who lived in a place called Oman and who loved reading fairy tales. She dreamed of being like Alladin on a flying rug visiting the world. That's what fairy tales are about, to enable us to dream and to learn about the wonderful things that we will or we will never have a chance to see for real. It is a way to open one's imagination and creativity but above all it emphasized the need to learn and the respect of the other. Traveling can be compared to an adventure in which one gets to discover unusual things. It allows us to leave our comfort zone.
ReplyDeleteThis thirst of knowledge leaded our friend to the University of the United Arab Emirates where she decided to study English and to be trained as a TESOL teacher. Teaching is one of the most difficult occupation and also one of the most rewarding in terms of human relations. Knowing your community makes you understand where your students come from and from this point on you have the necessary indication to communicate with them. And this is one of Muna' strength as a teacher.
When I asked her how she teaches a foreign language in a predominantly arab speaking country, she answered : "Let me say that here in Oman or any Arabian country, we teach the culture of our communities which is called here Omannization.Mainly,we focus on our culture,so the students can pick up the language easily". I like it very much because this is one of the drawbacks of teaching a foreign language, not being able to take into account the social and cultural values of the learners. Of course, It is possible when the students come from the same community.
That said, things have not been easy, all the time, for our friend. As a new teacher as young as some of her students she had to maneuver to find a balance. That's when her abilities as a caring and intelligent individual were challenged. With a lot of attention, respect and hard work she reached out to her students and received the respect that any teacher deserves. Guess what, at that time, she used journals to help them opening up. Visiting them and their families, communicating by emails, being available when they needed to see her,being available was the foundation of her teaching strategies. This is what teaching is about and this exactly what Muna is about. A teacher; not just one person who comes to school, teaches her classes and is gone.
Good teaching is demanding, it is time consuming and it is a choice. Muna loves teaching, she likes her students and her community. She is a real teacher this kind that can be difficult to find nowadays. To use a French expression one can say that teaching is a real "sacerdoce".
MunaAl-Gharebi is a real "cordon-bleu" this another of her pasions. Therefore, if one is willing to taste a good omani dish such as the Maqbous or the Mashuai you can call her you will not be disappointed.
Today's teachers are preparing the citizens of a global world.
Kadidia