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Qatar Today Editorials - A Milestone for Education City
Dr Amal Al Malki is set to reach a new milestone, both personally and for the Qatari community as a whole, as Education City's first Qatari teaching faculty. She will be conducting an elective course at the Carnegie Mellon University- Qatar campus from September. Dr Al Malki, a visiting Assistant Professor, will conduct a course on writing, for sophomores, at Education City. The course, titled 'Writer's Craft' is open to students from other universities at EC too. A graduate of the University of Qatar (in English and Education), she went on to do her Masters (Applied Linguistics and Translation) and Doctorate (Post-colonial novels: Anglo-African and Anglo-Arab) at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies. Last year she joined the Qatar Campus as an Orientation Manager, and after a short stint was absorbed by Carnegie Mellon Pittsburg campus as an Assistant Professor. Dr Malki talks about her passion for education and linguistics and what she hopes to achieve with her first batch of students.
After a Qatari and British education, how did you join Carnegie Mellon? I applied for QF when I first came back from London. I had a teaching position in mind. They told me Carnegie Mellon was opening a campus here, and asked me to talk to the people there. So I did. And I was here for 8 months and then my teaching break came and I went to Pittsburg for the Spring semester.
What did you teach in Pittsburg? I worked on two courses. I designed two comparative literature courses. And I worked closely with the head of the English department – David Kaufer. A Milestone for Education City I got to attend his lecture and loved his course. I started co-teaching with him.
What do you hope to achieve here with the students at Education City? First of all to introduce Arabic literature into the curriculum, I don't want our students to be deprived of such a large part of their tradition. My studies were in comparative literature (Arabic and English). So I thought of doing a course on that.
When did the passion for books start? Very early really. I started reading novels when I was only 10. Started with Arabic novels and English short stories. I read for pleasure. And also during my graduation in Qatar University where I studied English and Education. There was a requirement to teach students, as they were qualifying us to be teachers. I taught for a month at a secondary and then in a high school for a whole semester. Completed this in 1996. And then went to London for further studies.
When you work so closely with two languages, which one do you think in? Both. This started in my Masters degrees. Because I discovered more about how my mind functions while doing linguistics and translation. An African writer says though English is his second language, he dreams in English. I reached that stage, where most of my thoughts are formed in English sometimes, or hybridity of English-Arabic languages. When I get into a heated discussion, even when I am talking to non-English speakers, I can’t speak in Arabic, I switch to English. I can't formulate it in Arabic. In the heat of the topic, I express more in English. I think this needs more studying. When it comes to emotional talk or thought then it's in Arabic. Arabic is a romantic language. I love reading poetry in Arabic. If there is an Arabic novel translated into English, I read the original first. And when I read the English translation, how much ever people say it's perfect, I feel the Arabic is better. It is the same for all languages and translations.
Is there enough being done for Arabic literature? A UN report on Arab human development in 2002 said there was "a severe shortage" of Arab writing. It said a large part of the Arab market was made up of religious and educational books of limited creative content. If it's a news statement, then maybe it is understandable in the political atmosphere we are living in. But otherwise, no. Literature was highly perceived and highly encouraged, in Egypt and the Levant area, for its own artistic sake not for any religious purpose.
But in the GCC region, there are no literary records... Yeah, that is true. Because in countries like Egypt, education has an older and deeper foundation. It is true there are no records of history and life in the Gulf area. And someone should do that. And one of my goals is to record women's movements, feminism, literature, and female writers in the Gulf. It is going to need work and it is going to need time. But I would like to write a book on that.
Have you started work on any book yet? First of all I need to convert my PhD thesis into a book. I did my PhD in Post-Colonial Novels (Anglo-African and Anglo-Arab comparative).
Does African literature draw more colonial influence than Arab? No, through my studies I discovered that colonialism in any form went through the same phases. There was the language domination through education, which started with colonialism and went on to hybridity and globalisation. The African writer I researched for my doctorate thesis, Chinua Achebe of Nigeria, wrote in English, though that was not his first language, whereas Tayeb Saleh (the author researched) of Sudan wrote in Arabic, and his works were then translated to English. This is a major difference of course, using different languages as the medium of expression. The first one used the coloniser's language and the second used his own. But when you analyse the novels itself, you realise that the culture itself, be it African-Nigerian or Sudanese, was highly impacted by colonialism. Highly changed and impacted. Different shape and different form with globalisation, but we are living in the age of hybridity.
Arabic is still the first language here, do you think its importance and popularity will vane as more people take to English? Arabic is preserved for good. I believe that. It's the language of the Quran. Look at other nationalities who don't speak Arabic but read it, because of the Quran. There is a very strong cultural background which depends on language and religion. It is a bit funny. When I was in school and college in Doha, I found it difficult to practice my English. Because there weren't that many people speaking English, and if you did it was a sign of being a snob. I was in boarding schools in London during the summer. I had to live these two lives, where each life had its own language. But one of the things that is making me really happy in this environment is that I get to combine both, and live both lives in one.
Your family was supportive of the fact that you wanted to build a career out of books. Reading them, teaching them, writing them... Yes. I am lucky to have such a family. Both my parents were educated in Lebanon. They are graduates. They know that education is the way to go. It is a family thing to keep studying. My brother is a senior engineer (petroleum and gas) and graduated from an American University. I have a sister who is doing her PhD and she is very young. Seriously young! She is a computer engineer. And I have a sister who is doing her graduate degree in AUB, Lebanon. And they all will come back here to work. But the lucky one is my sister in high school here, because she doesn't have to go anywhere, everything is available here. She can choose Carnegie Mellon or other universities here at Education City.
When you chose this career path, you had no idea that these opportunities would be available – like Education City. Weren't you worried at some point that you won't be able to apply it locally. Did it deter you? No, I knew things were changing. And I could have gone back to Qatar University to teach. We have a lot of Qatari women PhD holders at the varsity. My best teachers at the university were Qatari. But, working at CMU is much better for me, because it is the atmosphere I am used to. The transition was easier for me to work in this atmosphere. And believe it or not, culturally too.
Do you expect the students to have some kind of mind block. Will they respond to you differently, because you are a woman and a Qatari? On the contrary. I am finding them very excited. I will be teaching sophomores (second year) not freshmen. They got to know me last year. And when I was in Pittsburg, a group of students from Qatar campus came to visit. So we got an opportunity to sit down and chat. And now I got to speak to them a while ago and they were saying they can't wait. I am very happy. It is an elective course. It is the very first course I am going to teach here and I have a good number of students. Eleven. As an elective it is very good. My first course, this semester, is mainly a writing course, not a literature course. It is open for everyone in Education City, though housed in Carnegie Mellon. The course is called 'The Writer's Craft'.
Why did you choose this course? I loved this course in Pittsburg. I wish it were something I had studied at the University. It is taught in Pittsburg for design students, by Kaufer. We had students whose English was not perfect. We have to bear in mind that our students here are ESL (English as a Second Language) students, how much ever comfortable and fluent they are, it is still their second language. So there are ESL issues involved - and I have a background of Education where ESL issues were involved. I was an ESL student too. In Pittsburg I saw students develop through the course, how comfortable they were with the assignments they had to do. We go through seven prototypes of English prose. And we don't emphasise grammar. It is important of course, but we treat is as bumps. At the end what we hope to establish is people who are open to expressing themselves in other languages. Through experience and time they will overcome those bumps.
Did you have to innovate the course for Education City? We had to alter it a bit. This course alternates between lectures and workshops. And I am going to present more workshops for the students here. We are going to workshop their writing, we are going to read and discuss their writing in class... they will be writing several drafts to reach the final draft.
What kind of writing? This is the interesting part of those prototypes, which include scientific, creative, narratives, instruction... There are seven fixed prototypes and they have to go through all seven and they will be graded on each.
Is the lack of accessibility to a wide range books going to be a deterrent? That's true. We were just talking about it. The dean was saying, 'Why not open Barnes & Nobles here'. Back when I was in the Qatar University I had a problem finding English books. I was fortunate to be in London half of the year, to buy my own books. But what about the others? Such universities will make a difference. We have a very good library that is growing. We are looking at achieving the One million book mark soon. It's primarily a reference library. Each professor orders a set of books. And I ordered a lot of books, not just to do with writing. Also books to do with ESL issues, creative writing...
What about reading for pleasure? Students are travelling a lot. Like we were interviewing students, to place them in their English level courses. And most of them were reading Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code. They have access to those books while travelling. And we will work harder here, to find the good titles and make it available for students.
How will you draw from your experiences as a teacher and student – In Qatar and abroad? Well I think one of the things that benefits me most is the ability to relate to students... I was a student till recently. Back in the University (Qatar) we are treated as students. But in London we were treated differently. I was addressed as 'Ms Al Malki'. They allowed us to gain confidence in ourselves. I have to treat them as equals – students I am going to teach and learn from. Being an Arab is going to help. An Arab who studied abroad is going to help more. To help them towards hybridity. You can see it in my personality, the way I talk and dress... I have been living it all my life. But if they didn't have my background, they are still going to hit it really soon. They will face hybridity in languages, they will be speaking both languages at the same time, they will be annoying people by doing that... but this is a fact that people have to accept. This is their language of their education. Culturally, we are very strong. I am sure that as the whole country is doing it, we take what suits us as Qataris, as Muslims... we are tailoring it to our needs and our culture.
This article is reproduced with special permission from Qatar Today - Qatar's only news, business and lifestyle magazine
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