How the CELTA course motivated me to be a better Muslim

For those blissfully out of the loop, the CELTA is a month-long course touted as ''an internationally recognised teaching qualification, highly regarded throughout the world'' by the University of Cambridge.

It's also notoriously ''intense''.

Consider, for example, the 'Nature of CELTA', according to the Uni. of Technology, Sydney, that ends with the ominous ''although this course is very rewarding, it must be emphasised that the full time course is an intensive course and most people find that it demands 100% of their time, effort and psychological reserves. The part-time course appeals to people who work but it also requires a considerable commitment. You need to be in a good state of health and be able to manage the demands and stress produced by the course. ''

Consider also, a typical day in the life of a CELTA trainee:''The morning is devoted to learning about teaching - how to manage groups, how to analyse language for teaching purposes, different approaches to pronunciation and so on. The course programme is designed to reflect the syllabus as set out by UCLES. Each course will also take into account the needs of the individuals within the group, as reflected by negotiable sessions and regular revision of techniques. The afternoon is devoted to putting it all into practice. Trainees are divided into 2 or 3 groups and these teaching practice groups work with their trainer to advance the learning of practice students. Each trainee spends 2 weeks teaching each student group, guided each day by the trainer who is supervising them. The trainers endeavour to create a real-life teaching situation by having trainees work with contemporary published materials, keep attendance records and so on. After teaching there is group or individual feedback, the opportunity to comment on what has been more or less successful and why. As well as learn from the experience of teaching and watching their peers, trainees also observe 8 live lessons taught by an experienced teacher on the staff. ''

By virtue of having lived life in the 'intense' lane for the past decade and more, having got through days of maximum aggravation on minimum sleep and producing written work on laughably short notice, I had thought the course would be a cinch.

How wrong I was!

(to be continued, iA)

Meanwhile, check out this absolutely hilarious ELT glossary from a brilliant site...
Disclaimer: Makes complete sense only to CELTA trainees/trainers, though.

''A glossary of ELT
The word aerobics came about when the gym instructors got together and said: If we’re going to charge $10 an hour, we can’t call it Jumping Up and Down. (Rita Rudner)

This is a simple glossary. I have not included terms like inductive learning or procedural syllabus, as it would be far too boring and also I have no idea what they mean.


accuracy
Terribly old-fashioned concept, in which students worry their pretty little heads about boring grammar, etc. Not nearly as important as fluency.
authentic materials
An article or poem that the teacher raves on about and the students cannot understand.
Celta
Basic four-week ELT qualification. Impossible to fail unless you are really thick.
communicative approach
Prevailing ELT orthodoxy, in which students chat, play games, have fun and produce lamentable English.
contract
Satirical composition that the school owner rewrites whenever the fancy takes him.
Cuisenaire rods
Little ludicrous bits of wood which your more demented colleagues may use for a range of pointless demonstrations in class. Worth borrowing if your lesson is being observed.
Delta
Advanced qualification for misguided sad gits who want to make a “career” out of teaching English.
DOS
Director Of Studies. Pronounced “doss”, an informal British word that means “an easy task giving the opportunity for idling”. drilling
Useful tool for humiliating uppity students.
eliciting
Asking the students for information that they will not have, then dropping increasingly unsubtle hints until the nerdiest student finally gets the answer.
errors
As anyone with a Delta can tell you, not the same as mistakes (which see).
explaining
Utterly forbidden technique shunned by all good teachers, who practise only eliciting. (See also translation.)
feedback
By the teacher: telling the students that their mangling of the English language was brilliant, excellent, a great improvement, etc, but there are one or two teensy-weensy little areas that might need extra practice.By students: reporting back from a Find Someone Who with enthralling revelations such as “We found that Ari and Ria have never been waterskiing, Wawan, Dani and Sri think Titanic is a good film, and all the class want to go home.”
filler
Something meant to fill an unavoidable gap in a lesson. Typically lasts 90 minutes.
fluency
The ability to produce gibberish at speed. Far more important than accuracy.
FSW
Find Someone Who. Students stand up clutching bits of paper and gossip while the teacher sits down and wonders what to get them to do next.
Things like agreeing, suggesting, offering and insulting. For example, “Do you like hospital food?” is either asking someone their opinion or warning them to shut their gob.
Grammar
The G word. Once taught only by unimaginative fascists, but now possibly coming back into vogue.
hot correction
Pointing out a mistake immediately, instead of meaning to do so later and forgetting all about it.
jigsaw activities
Activities where students have differing and incomplete information, which they need to pool. For example, one has a map that shows only a garage, a hospital and a post office, while the other has a map that shows only a library, a school and a restaurant. This information gap is meant to reflect a real-life reason for communication. As in real life, students efficiently bridge the gap by showing each other their maps.
L1 interference
First language interference. The reason you give for your students speaking such dreadful English.
language aims
Something you need to write out at length on a lesson plan.
lesson plan
An over-ambitious document that you give your DOS before an observed lesson.
materials development
Photocopying pages from books and laminating them.
mingling
Pointless activity that uses up loads of time and gives you a chance to sit down.
mistakes
Quite distinct from errors (q.v.).
needs analysis
Pointless ritual you are meant to do when starting a new class, especially a company class. The students do not have a clue what they need—and will usually answer, “Grammar. And speaking. Oh, and writing.” But it looks good and keeps your DOS happy.
NLP
Neuro-Linguistic Programming™. Barmy and rather sinister methodology that teaches you how to “program your brain”.
noticing
Vogue word in ELT theory. In ELT practice, what teachers cannot help doing when (say) Irma comes into class wearing an extremely tight school uniform.
overteaching
Dangerous thing to do. Point this out to your DOS when he asks why you did not cover some crucial point in an observed lesson.
pairwork
Activities where students gossip animatedly in their native language and the teacher cannot work out what anyone is saying.
peer correction
Getting students to “correct” the errors (or mistakes) of their classmates, giving you a chance to nip out for a cigarette.
phonemic symbols
Those squiggles on the wall chart that neither students nor teachers understand.
PPP
Presentation, Practice, Production. Old-fashioned methodology, where you teach the students something like “be going to” for future plans, then they practise simple sentences (controlled practice), then they start using it all the time (free practice). The only problem with PPP is that it does not work.
prep
Lesson preparation. Fresh off the Celta this takes about 2 hours, after six months of teaching, 10 minutes, after 2 years of teaching, 0 minutes.
pron
Pronunciation, “that part of a student which is the same at the end of a language course as at the beginning.” (Tom McArthur)
realia
Things you can lug into the classroom to impress your DOS. For instance, if you are teaching the names of parts of a bicycle, you wheel in your old bike. Only done by teachers fresh off the Celta.
recent research suggests
Key phrase used in English teaching journals to justify the writer’s latest barmy idea. (The research is never cited.)
role play
Good time-consuming skive.
senior teacher
The lance-corporal of the ELT platoon. Earns fractionally more money in return for numerous thankless tasks like doing placement interviews, relabelling cassettes, laminating games, attending extra meetings and nodding sympathetically while teachers whinge about the timetable.
Silent Way
Barmy methodology, where the teacher rarely opens his mouth. Potentially useful ploy if you do not know what to say.
student-centred learning
Good phrase to use when you are trying to explain why you were out of your classroom having a fag, chatting up the front desk staff, etc.
study centre
Ill-lit cupboard with a few ancient books that nobody borrows, some dog-eared magazines with the pictures missing, and possibly a computer used by the school caretakers to look at pornography.
Suggestopaedia
Barmy methodology, where students lounge about listening to baroque music. Possibly worth trying, if you happen to like baroque music.
task-based learning
Brilliant skive. You and the students just sit about, writing a brochure or drawing pictures or building a website, and you never have to teach them grammar or anything. They just magically absorb English. Highly recommended, if you can get away with it.
teacher-induced error
This is when, in ignorance or drunkenness, you tell the class something like, “Use will for plans and be going to for spontaneous decisions.” It instantly becomes the one grammatical commandment they will never ever forget.
TOEFL
Bizarre American exam, in which candidates listen to robots intoning things such as, “Wow, I sure hope my meticulously assembled entomology collection has not gotten misplaced by the faculty janitors.” A deep-voiced robot then asks, “What does the woman mean?”
TPR
Total Physical Response. Barmy methodology, in which the students act out instructions from the teacher. Still in vogue, so worth droning on about if you want to look keen.
translation
Despicable practice abhorred by keen teachers and craved by all students.
TTT
Teacher Talking Time. What the students think they have paid for, but DOSes do not like.
Vulcan mind meld
As practised by Mr Spock on Star Trek. Not actually part of current ELT methodology, but probably the only way you will ever get your students to learn English.
workshops
Ordeals arranged by sadistic DOSes to sabotage the teachers’ mornings off.
zero conditional
A structure taught for no very good reason at a low level. Useful if you want to say conversation-stopping things like, “If you heat water to 100°, it boils.”
New terms
language bandit
Annoying student who arrives 10 minutes early or sticks around at the end of a lesson and engages you in meaningless banter just to get a few more minutes of “free” English. This species can also be found in their droves at Language Fairs. (Thank you, Fergus Crossen, who attributes this coinage to his uncle, Ernie Crossen.)
PEQ
Preparation/Execution Quotient: the time spent planning an activity divided by the time spent doing it in class. For example, the hour you spend searching the Internet for a ten-minute filler would have a quotient of 6. A fifty-minute role play that took you five minutes to dream up would be 0.1. Any activity that has a PEQ greater than 0.5 should definitely be avoided.

Why do Muslims stick their feet in the sink in public restrooms?

It's called 'wudhu'/ablution and it's about cleaning up/purifying one's body before standing for prayer, not the other way around as bystanders might think!
I thought of putting up this post when I recently heard people denouncing the ritual (especially when performed in a public restroom) as ''gross'' and ''unhygienic''.

The method of performing ablution comes from directly from the Qur'an:

''O you who believe! When you prepare for prayer, wash your faces, and your hands (and arms) to the elbows; Rub your heads (with water); and (wash) your feet to the ankles. If you are in a state of ceremonial impurity, bathe your whole body.

But if you are ill, or on a journey, or one of you comes from offices of nature, or you have been in contact with women, and you find no water, then take for yourselves clean sand or earth, and rub therewith your faces and hands, Allah does not wish to place you in a difficulty, but to make you clean, and to complete his favor to you, that ye may be grateful.” (Chapter 5, Verse 6)

Before a Muslim performs his prayers, he carries out the ablution movements mentioned in the above verse as well as others, which the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) has added.
Thus, the ablution comprises of washing the hands, arms right up to the elbow, face, mouth, nostrils, and feet up the ankle, all three times each. The inside and behind the ears, as well as the part of the head above the forehead is wiped once.

Done five times a day, it not only cleanses these vital parts of the body from dust and dirt but also "softens" and refreshes them.1
Interestingly enough, the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also encouraged doing ablution before going to bed. This same ritual is also encouraged by Yoga experts who say that washing important motor and sensory organs such as the hands, arms, eyes, legs, mouth and genitals before sleep using cool water relaxes the body preparing it for a deep sleep.2

Read the complete article here

So what happens when it's time for prayer and a Muslim's in a public place -- should they simply stick their feet in the sink and ignore all the horrified/disgusted looks they get?

This is being touted as an option:

I'm not sure how feasible / acceptable this would be, but speaking for myself, I'd rather perform my ablution in peace, somewhere private (since it is an act of worship as well) rather than show complete unconcern for other restroom users and perform it in full public view, knowing fully well that it might seem off-putting (to put it mildly) to some people.

How prejudiced can people get?

from: Yahoo News

WASHINGTON - A high school track star has been disqualified from a meet because officials said the custom-made outfit she wears to conform to her Muslim faith violated competition rules.

Juashaunna Kelly, a senior at the District of Columbia's Theodore Roosevelt High School, has the fastest mile and 2-mile times of any girl runner in the city this winter. She was disqualified from Saturday's Montgomery Invitational indoor track and field meet.

Kelly was wearing the same uniform she has worn for three seasons while running for Theodore Roosevelt's cross-country and track teams. The custom-made, one-piece blue and orange unitard covers her head, arms, torso and legs. Over the unitard, she wears the same orange and blue T-shirt and shorts as her teammates.
The outfit allows her to compete while adhering to her Muslim faith, which forbids displaying any skin other than her face and hands.
"It's not special," Kelly said. "It doesn't make me perform better."
But meet director Tom Rogers said Kelly's uniform violated rules of the National Federation of State High School Associations, which sanctioned the event. Uniforms are required to be "a single-solid color and unadorned, except for a single school name or insignia no more than 2 1/4 inches," he said.
Rogers said that he knew Kelly was wearing the uniform for religious reasons and that he offered her several options to conform to the rules while still respecting her faith, including placing a plain T-shirt over her unitard and then wearing her team uniform over it.
Kelly's mother, Sarah, and Roosevelt Coach Tony Bowden disputed that account. They said officials made several demands of her daughter before Rogers made his decision.
"First, they said she had to take her hood off," Sarah Kelly said. "Then, they said she can't have anything with logos displayed. Then, they said she had to turn it inside out. When I told them that there weren't any logos on it, they said she had to put a plain white T-shirt on over it."
Juashaunna Kelly has worn the same uniform for three years without any problems, including at last year's Montgomery Invitational. Rogers said officials must have missed the uniform last year.
"It wasn't a problem last year, and it's a problem this year? Make me understand why," Bowden said.
Kelly, whose 1,600-meter time of 5 minutes 17.49 seconds and 3,200-meter time of 12:00.81 are the fastest of any D.C. girl, was hoping to run fast enough at the Montgomery Invitational to qualify for the New Balance Collegiate Invitational in New York on Feb. 8-9.
Bowden said the team has no other meets scheduled that would allow her to qualify for the event, which attracts dozens of college recruiters.

Heard of the new 'Islamic' car?

New Islamic car to have compass to find Makkah
Agencies

Published: November 11, 2007, 10:16
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Iran, Turkey and Malaysia are planning to build an "Islamic car" that will have a compass to find the direction of Makkah, Malaysia's state news agency reported.
The proposed car will also have a compartment for the Quran and prayer scarves, the Bernama agency quoted an official of Malaysian automaker Proton as saying.
"The car will have all the Islamic features and should be meant for export purposes," said Proton's managing director, Syed Zainal Abidin Syed Mohamed Tahir.
"We will identify a car that we can develop to be produced in Malaysia, Iran or Turkey," he said during a visit to Tehran.
Syed Zainal said the vehicle was an Iranian initiative. "What they (Iran) want to do is to call that an Islamic car," he said.

How will Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor pray towards Mecca when orbiting the earth at 17,000mph?

Malaysia's Islamic scholars spent a whole year finding solutions to these and other ticklish problems as Mr Muszaphar, a 35-year-old Malaysian doctor and part-time model, prepared for his nine-day trip to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.

Read the complete article and see a picture of the astronaut in The Guardian.

Want an insight into moonsighting?

The issue of moon sighting has never been as divisive as it has become today.

In the past, Muslim scholars agreed on a certain method to decide the start and end of the month of Ramadan. In the last few years, advancements in communications and media have turned the world into a small village creating a new context where matters concerning inter-countries relations are involved.

A second new context may also be related to the presence of many Muslims in countries that lack one single Muslim authority. Resultantly, readily understood issues related to a number of Islamic rituals have now become controversial and confusing. This confusion is further fuelled by the influence of a Western lifestyle upon Muslims; generally speaking, Muslims are often accused of being anti-Western or even unscientific in their spheres of life. This can influence them to react emotionally and unreasonably.

One such observable sphere in which many Muslims have reacted in this manner is with regard to moon-sighting and the establishment of the start of the month of Ramadan, ‘Id al-Fitr and ‘Id al–Adha. In this article, I would like to draw attention to specific principles in an attempt to remove misconceptions surrounding the ongoing debate.

Read the complete article by Shaykh Haytham Al-Haddad here

Why don't Muslims shake hands with the opposite gender?

Just as many people harangue "nothing is too trivial for the mullahs to pontificate/legislate over"...the converse is often true too...the most ordinary acts of Muslims are automatically imbued with "what-a-weirdo"undertones and unpleasant implications.

An opinion piece in a prominent Australian newspaper (incidentally by a Muslim) analyses the propensity of an increasing number of Muslims to refuse/shy away from shaking hands with the opposite gender...

"a small but growing number of young Australian Muslims identifying more with the intricacies of their religious beliefs, it is unacceptable to touch a member of the opposite sex to whom they are not related. Not only is pecking the opposite sex on the cheek a no-go to avoid temptation, even shaking hands is taboo. This extends to non-Muslims they come into contact with.
Recently I have been caught out several times on this issue in public. On each occasion I was left feeling awkward, if not a little embarrassed. By the time I had figured out that the man did not shake hands, it was too late: my hand was left hanging in the wind.
It was hard not to take this personally, even though for Muslims who take this position it is nothing personal at all. They simply do not want to shake hands because they believe it is against their religion. To avoid seeming disrespectful, these men will often touch their heart as a sign of goodwill."

[...]

"But this issue is not restricted to Muslims: Orthodox Jews do not shake hands with the opposite sex. Nor should it be assumed that only Muslim men take a strict approach, as some women take this position even when their husbands ignore it."

link: Austrolabe (don't miss the lively comments section!)

Is wearing a hijab to a sauna carrying political correctness too far?

Row over fully-dressed woman in sauna

from:Oxford Mail

A health club has been criticised for allowing a Muslim woman to go for a swim and sauna while wearing traditional head dress and robe.The woman was admitted to David Lloyd Leisure, in Garsington Road, Cowley, on Sunday in contravention of the company's own rules on dress.The decision has been condemned by club member Ian Caldwell, who was in the sauna when the woman walked in and by Muslim community leader Taj Hargey, who said it was "political correctness gone crazy."

Mr Caldwell said: "The woman walked in wearing her head dress and robe down to the floor and I said 'do you think it's appropriate to wear all that gear in the sauna'."There were other women in there who felt threatened because they were wearing swimsuits while she was fully dressed."She then left and got into the swimming pool. I asked the manager why she was allowed to break the rules and he said they had to observe her religious customs.

"They've got a dress code but they are effectively making exemptions for religious dress. I don't think they should put religious custom over and above health and hygiene. It is customary in this country to wear swim gear in the swimming pool."Liam Macgilp, general manager at David Lloyd Oxford, said: "Whereas we respect the religious beliefs and customs of all members, the health, hygiene and safety of members is always the first priority."

The rules are that all members in the sauna or the wet areas of the club should wear swimwear that is less voluminous for the health, safety and hygiene of all its staff and members."He would not comment on the incident on Sunday which he said he did not witness but said he understood Mr Caldwell's description of the sequence of events to be correct.

Mr Hargey, chairman of muslim group MECO, said: "If this woman wants to wear this garb it's not Islamic custom, it's a cultural tradition which has nothing to do with faith."This is political correctness gone crazy and there should be one set of rules and regulations for everyone, regardless of their culture or religion."Perhaps she should consider wearing a new Islamic swimsuit that has been designed called the Burqini which covers all the necessary parts."That would be one way around it if she wants to preserve her modesty."

Muslim community leader Muhammed Khan said: "Muslim women who choose to use a facility do so through their own free will and hence need to uphold both personal safety, relevant Islamic injunctions pertaining to the matter, as well as the health and safety of other users."It seems Muslim women are being permitted to wear clothing, not a swimsuit, that is concealing yet non-voluminous. It would be advisable to clarify what types of clothing would be classed as 'less voluminous'."