Jeddah Teachers College’s

Visit to Edinburgh

The trip was organized by Moray school and hosted by the British council

The British council has a series of programs that aims at connecting the future. They seek to share knowledge with different parts of the world and in different fields of life such as education, technology and science. They also try to develop what they do in order for them to help bridge the gap between cultures and help people to make a benefit of whatever experience they might have. 

Saturday

We arrived on Saturday afternoon so the only thing to do was just to have some rest at the hotel. At night student were encouraged to go and visit the mosque which took us 15 minutes to go there.

Sunday

On Sunday we met with two students from Moray house Jade and Mahmood and went on a trip to Wallace Monument and Loch Lomond. We headed first west to near Glasgow and then North to the loch and there we had the chance for a cruise. Loch Lomond is the largest fresh water Loch in the UK. The Loch is 24 miles long and five miles wide and at its deepest point is some 600 feet deep. Loch Lomond must be the world’s most famous Loch and has been much written about, both in song and verse. The area is renowned for its beauty and tranquility and offers picture postcard views around every corner.

On that day we also had the chance to visit Sterling Castle. It lies at the very centre of Scotland and has always been important for Scottish history.

The trip was so exciting and all the scenes, places and areas that we visit bring us very close to nature and remind us of the basic rhythms of life. Two students from Moray school, Mahmood and Jade, came to join us. They help to answer our curiosity to know more and more about places we visited.

Monday

We met the staff of Moray House School of Education to discuss what we were supposed to do in the upcoming days. Next, we were introduced to the Scottish Educational system. Scotland has its own independent system of education, but still need to follow a series of guidelines that they receive from the government. The system helps sustain a high standard of teaching especially that teachers integrate with each other in order to succeed in achieving these guidelines. Students study French and German as a foreign language, but what they have to do is just focusing on the communication side.

A short tour followed the meeting in order to know about the history of Moray House Campus. It stands on the south side of the Canongate and it is considered as one of the few remaining original aristocratic buildings in the Canongate and the oldest building in the University of Edinburgh.

After having lunch at Chapters restaurant we were divided into three groups in order to get involved with students in the music, drama, and primary art class. In the music class, students work in groups in order to show how they can teach ideas through music. They made good use of the musical instruments and succeeded to show how music can enhance education.

In the drama class, students study how to use a poem as a stimulus to bring out themes. They do that through certain skill that help them achieve the task. It therefore required that they know how communicate verbally and non-verbally when in-role, make a personal and human response to the characters in and out of role, and convey their personal pair and group ideas and responses through the conventions and activities they have. They also need to know how to evaluate and reflect on the ideas and responses they have and finally be able to provide positive feedback on the performance of other groups.

We gathered at night and moved to the witchery restaurant. There we met not only to hear about the stories of the Old Edinburgh but to have the experience of being involved in a performance that reflects the scattering witch beliefs together with some haunting tales of witchcraft and the supernatural. It was obvious that Old Edinburgh has dark accounts of violence, crime, hangings, executions, plagues.

Tuesday

We assembled and left the hotel to visit Currie high school with the company of Morag, Holly and Mahmood. The school was designated as a community school and announced as the Public Sector winner of 2001’s Quality Scotland Business Excellence Award. This was a tremendous accomplishment for the school and recognition of the hard work, commitment and achievement of the staff, pupils and the wider school community.

A staff member welcomed us and gave us a briefing about the system of the school, departments, campus, staff members, and their plans for the future. Then we moved through the departments of the school and it was quite interesting to meet students inside the classroom and see what they do in each particular subject. Some of our students were allowed to attend a class at the foreign languages department to share ideas and receive feedback from students about whatever methods they use to learn a foreign language.

Teachers at Currie school meet regularly to keep updated with the latest development in both secondary and primary education and thus allow a discussion of work in some detail in particular subject areas.

The school offers what is called Learning Support Service (LSS) which aims at helping students in a variety of different circumstances. The staff works with groups to develop strategies and practice in the basic skills required by pupils at secondary level. The L.S.S. staff works also in the classroom in close liaison with the subject teacher to provide help where it is most required.  The staff also advice and discuss with other members of staff ways in which pupils may best achieve success. It is all in all about the additional help that pupils need for achieving success in their SQA exams.

After having dinner we moved to attend a lecture in TESOL together with a group of postgraduate students. The students took part and shared ideas with the other students. The lecture was based on discourse analysis and this made it easy for our students to share views based on culture. Things where considered different when referring to certain aspects of our culture, this is what motivates our students to think and consider the language of discourse communities, raised by TESOL students, with some additional useful comments.

Immediately after the TESOL class I met with Gavin Raid to discuss educational strategies used for students with special needs particularly dyslexic students.

At 5.00 p.m. we headed to the British council and there we met with another group who were in an exchange program concerned with the Information Technology. Quite interestingly, the two groups shared opinions to find the impact of such visits on future developmental progress. Our visit to the British council showed our students’ willingness to participate in acculturation.

Wednesday

Our first visit on Wednesday was to the Adult Learning project, Tollcross primary school. The school provides educational and learning opportunities for adults for people from all walks of life, from Edinburgh and beyond. Their strategy of teaching is based on the fact that education should a social experience. ALP is therefore working with adult basic education to develop a new approach to teaching reading and writing through using the students’ experience of their world as the starting point. We were introduced to the ALP Association which is run by ALP students and friends of the ALP in partnership with Community Education staff. The Association aims to create a community and enhance learning through promoting collaboration, social events, learning events, outings and cultural exchange.

A chance was given to us to go and share the experience with one group and we shared them the learning event. It was quite interesting to share these adults who have different cultural backgrounds the experience of learning through communication.

Another visit was arranged to Abbeyhill primary school where we popped in to see the different activities and facilities used to teach and motivate education.

Thursday

The two visits on that day were extremely beneficial. First we attended a lecture on self-evaluation and second we joined some of the practice trainees their microteaching class. Microteaching is an organized practice teaching. The goal of microteaching as it proved was to give instructors confidence, support, and feedback by letting them try out among friends and colleagues a short slice of what they plan to do with their students. Ideally, microteaching sessions take place before the first day of class, and are videotaped for review individually with an experienced teaching consultant. Microteaching is a quick, efficient, proven, and fun way to help teachers get off to a strong start.

In the evening, the cinema visit was symbolically telling about the hardships, obstacles and difficulties of teaching as a career and how tiring it is to go for the first stage in primary and secondary teaching. Yet at the same time the film succeeded to show the excitement, enthusiasm and blessing of the teaching profession.  

Friday

Comments and Feedback

1. The trip is seen helpful in two different directions. First, it provided visits to different schools in order to show the advantages, disadvantages, features, characteristics and elements of the Scottish educational system. So these visits provided the students with different approaches used both in primary and secondary schools. Second, it planned for some other visits to show how the colleges and universities educate and train their students to become successful teachers. These kinds of visits help to enlighten our student with the up-to-date methods, approaches and strategies of teaching. Some other meetings were arranged to show how trainers approach students with special needs which gave us an insight about different possibilities for approaching students with special needs. 

2. The trip was an interesting experience to most if not all of us to meet people with different mentality and attitude which helps our student to envisage the image that they used to have in mind about western people in general and Scottish in particular.

3. The trip offered quite a lot of varieties that help them acculturate with people and students of Scotland

4. It encouraged students and gave them the confidence to express themselves in natural social settings and therefore to comprehend the essential framework in which language functions. 

5. Obviously, the trip seems to adopt some strategic objectives which supported students to improved thinking and enabled them to adopt a package of procedures and strategies to step up their developmental progress in successful teaching.

6. The visit invited students to share their expertise and thoughts on how to improve the quality of education which is a recurring issue in the in Saudi Arabia.

7. It also helps the students keep abreast of and focused on the needs to provide the best education to the youth through motivation encouragement.

8. The trip also tackled the problems that face any teacher during the first stages of his career as a teacher and the need for the additional professional training that seems to be crucial for all who wants to succeed as future teachers.

9. Our visit encouraged some student in Moray House to come and share the same experience with the Saudi students.

10. The TESOL staff member showed their interest to help English teachers in Jeddah teachers college develop skills and teaching and train them on how to make use of Linguistics in language teaching.

11. The visit helps to enhance cultural insights and understandings for the different instructional strategies in the field of teaching which helps also to address culture and its influence on schooling.   

12. Students were always keen on visiting the mosque on daily basis which help them was always a reminding them of their duties towards religion.

13. The visit to Scotland indicated how important it is for teachers of English to pay attention to the process of learning a culture that has a vital impact on understanding a foreign society and communicate in its language.

14. The shortage of time was to be seen as a disadvantage because for such a trip to succeed, there is a need for an extended involvement with the both students, teaches and trainers of both school and colleges.