this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2024
47 points (91.2% liked)

World News

39004 readers
2832 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I know about English education in the Middle East since I'm from there; what I meant is: Does it actually stick in Gaza? At least where I'm from it goes like this: You just memorize the words and grammar, somehow pass the exam and then forget all of it, after high school you go from kinda sorta having intermediate level English back to only knowing the basics unless you study a field where you learn in English. I doubt the average person in the street from my country would be able to have a functional conversation with a, say, foreign tourist, so I'm wondering if it's different in Gaza.

[–] snek@lemmy.world 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

There are certainly problems with teaching it as a second language, but it's still taught by UNRWA teachers (to at least one third of the kids there) from an early age.

I grew up in Jordan and the average young person will in most cases speak good English. It fades with older generations given how much their education sucked, but a large portion of people speak it. I've even been told that it was taught better in the 80's than now.

Don't think I've ever met anyone who doesn't speak enough English to communicate with someone on the street except for my Grandma and she was basically illiterate.

What country are you from?

Ps: to answer the question specifically about Gaza, I don't have any stats for that, but I know the UNRWA schools teach English

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)
[–] snek@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Curious: how would you describe your educational system with how they teach Arabic vs English?

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Both are bad but for different reasons.

English education has one core problem: It focuses too much on vocabulary and grammar, and not enough on production. Your average Egyptian student should know a decent amount of vocabulary (until they forget it after their exams end anyway), but they have next to no idea how to create a natural sentence or actually write a passage or essay because while we do have essay writing on the exams (I think it was removed in favor of MCQ questions a few years ago, though) it's taught as a second thought or not at all. There's also a (heavily abridged) novel taught with every school year, but rather than treating it as a vehicle of language learning teachers (and exams) focus on the actual contents, so you end up with questions like "What was character X wearing in situation Y" that make just reading Q&A summaries a much more efficient way of tackling the exam than actually reading the novel. Also almost nobody does listening or speaking unless you're lucky or rich.

As for Arabic, it's a different situation but the outcome is similar. The Arabic curriculum in Egypt is massive. There are about 5 sections, each with a ton of content that you need to memorize because the exam focuses more on content than the skills you're supposed to learn. For example in reading you have 5 or so passages whose contents (including metaphors the author used, for example) you have to memorize and regurgitate in the exam. Grammar is a little better, but it also has some issues. There's also a story but like in English the focus is on the contents and for some reason it's abridged. Writing is, like in English, an afterthought that is barely given any care in the classroom. The end result is that the curriculum does little to give students the ability or desire to read or write Arabic literature. I'm pretty sure you could get Al-Mutanabbi to take the Egyptian Arabic exam and he'd fail unless he studies about the same amount as a normal Egyptian student because of the amount of fact memorization that's unrelated to actual mastery of Arabic. Edit: If it sounds like I'm salty that's because I am.

[–] snek@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago

Seems like you have every right to be salty. All of this totally sucks!