Two Interviews on The Borderlands

A Small Ethnographic Study

For my research project I attempted to begin my initial exploration of the

question of identity formation and English language learning among L1, Arabic

females. This idea was prompted by my teaching experiences previously. Though

years of informal observations abroad in my teaching experiences in the Arabia Gulf

States, I noticed that self-expression in English was very different than self-

expression in Arabic amongst my female student population base. Also, informally

and “off the record’ my students confided in me things they said were virtually

impossible to discuss in their native language. Many of my students also wrote

journals and diaries, in English saying “writing in English made them feel different;”

When pressed about what different met, they would often say ”free”, “light”, or

“powerful”. Furthermore, many students compiled English scrapbooks for fun,

composed of English magazine and newspaper clippings, and computer print outs;

they would write appropriate commentary, popular song lyrics, etc. around the

margins. They often took great pride in these scrapbooks and I have had several

students who commented that the scrapbooks represented “the American Me”

It is also relevant at this point to discuss the cultural perceptions of language

learning in the Arabian Gulf states, and Saudi Arabia in particular. The learning of

foreign tongues had traditionally been discouraged for young people, especially


women as it was seen that the Arabic language contained within it all knowledge

that was relevant by virtue of its position as the sacred language of the Holy Quran.

Public education was initially tied to the mosque and was limited to males; the

Quran was the text studied. With the advent of public education run by the

government in the 1950’s (for males) and in the 1960’s (for females), the curriculum

was expanded to include mathematics and science, but Arabic remained the medium

of instruction. By the 1970’s, the government realized the need for English language

instruction in order to offset the large number of English speaking expatriate labor

employed to run the vastly expanding and modernizing country. The need to enter

the global scene was imminent.

English was introduced as a high school foreign language for boys in the

1970’s followed a decade later by its introduction to girl’s high schools. The

religious authorities’ feared introduction of the foreign tongue to the

impressionable minds of teenagers may encourage cultural and religious

corruption. Even to this day it is illegal for Saudi national to send his child to and

English medium school without royal decree.

The learning of English, therefore, is not culture free, and the exposure to any

foreign tongue requires cultural as well as linguistic Knowledge. [Mention

something about identity theorists and foreign language learning]

I met with the director of the Intensive English Institute, Dr. Deborah


McMillan and the head of the linguistics and TEFL, Dr. Maria Theresa Seig. Both

introduced my call for female Arabic speaking English Language learners to their

instructors who, in turn, made the announcements to their classes. This was done

several times and yet I had no volunteers. Finally, after much despair, two Arabic

speaking women agreed to meet me for informal interviews at my place of work, the

Learning Center.

The first participant is a 38 year old singer mother From Libya studying for

her PhD in Natural Resource Management. She is not from my target region of the

Arabian Gulf and the language of colonization in Libya is Italian. She did however

make some interesting comments regarding how she felt when she speaks or writes

in English. She commented that English was "straightforward" and encouraged

"personal attacks on theirs and making black/white judgments." "In Arabic we see

the grey color. Nothing is simply black or white; no isn't really no, and we never

attack each other directly in speaking in public. We focus on sharing our argument

with you to convince you. We just see the world in light and dark grey; not like

Americans in "Yes" or "No's." She also made the comment that peer review was very

difficult for herself and other Arabs because it was "like picking out the faults of

someone and displaying them; # it is not our place-it is the teacher's role not the

students to do so.”The participant also commented on the nature of English to

"make the individual feel important." When she speaks in Arabic she is conscious of


being a member of a community and speaks accordingly, but in English she says "I

speak only for me." This is a negative aspect of the English language for Reema who

concludes our interview in saying "If i do not care for others around me, what

benefit am I in this life?."

The second volunteer was a citizen of the Arab Gulf state of Kuwait but her

father is Iranian and her mother is an Egyptian national. Her diverse parentage

made her an atypical representative of the closed, traditional Gulf culture. She is a

36 year old divorcee studying for an M.A. degree in Elementary Education. She is

also unique in that she is living as a "home stay" with an American family.

Nour made the gesture of having her head cut off when she explained her

home stay situation and commented, "If I were a typical Gulf girl this would be a

death sentence to live with a man who is not my blood relative but my parents are

very different." She also commented that English was very different than Arabic or

Farsi (her Father's language) in that in English "we can debate. We are free to speak

anytime and anything." Nour commented that American culture makes "you depend

on yourself for everything. You must not depend on others." She remarked that

"learning English has improved my listening skills in Arabic. I learn when I speak

English it is not polite to interrupt people when they speak. I must listen to them. In

Arabic we all speak at the same time and somehow we figure out what we mean, but


in English I must listen and then respond. I do this now sometimes in Arabic which

is strange and people think I an stingy with my words,,, I have also become more

stingy with my money and my things. Learning English made me learn more self-

control so I am different now.”

Nour learned English in Kuwait before the First Gulf war. She spent a great

deal of time explaining how people changed after the war to be more “American”.

She expressed how many other Arabs viewed the American presence in Kuwait as

negative and how Kuwaiti’s are seen as being dependant on the U.S.A. for military

support against other Arab “brothers.” After the war, Nour explained that the

Kuwaitis became more accepting of American pop culture and now “English is

taught from kindergarten so children learn to speak it and understand it well.” She

feels the Kuwaiti national identity changed after the war to be “more Western” to

the point many in the region feel “we are too like the Americans now, like the Dubai

people aren’t really Arabs anymore either, they are too Western.” When I asked her

what she meant by “to Western” she replied “like we are not Arabs now but we are

not English, we are neither, we are without traditions maybe.”

My last participant did not want her story told when she found out it would

be posted on the Internet. I respect her privacy.

While my pilot study may not be directly useful for the purposes of my

research proposal, I did uncover some of the same types of concerns which


prompted my initial Interest in identity and language learning. Both my subjects

were atypical in their statues as divorced, independent females without immediate

male guardianship studying alone in a Western country; this status makes them

extremely unusual for the standard population of dependant females in the Arab

world. The I.E.I head Dr. Macmillan lad warned me of this phenomenon. She had said

that female students from the Arab world studying alone in the USA are significantly

unique---- in their “strong personalities.” While neither Nour nor Reem thought that

English affected their identities, their respective comments belie otherwise. Both

saw English as focusing on individualism rather than collectivism, and both

identified the binary nature of the English language as lending itself to

argumentation and debate.

Two Interviews on The Borderlands

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