TEFL and the present situation

[Muin]

Hello Amy and Everybody,
Nice to meet you too. Well, English in Gaza has so far passed a lot of circumstances which imposed the ideology and philosophy of any authority. I remember when I was young I studied English at the age of 13. It was called at that time "preparatory level" . It was the audio-lingual method -as I learned later. that we were taught through. The material was not authentic but that was fashionable at that time. Then came L.G Alexander with his series of New Concept English: Practice and progress for Secondary Level ,then Developing Skills and finally Fluency in English for more advanced learners. During the occupation days they changed the syllabus to include Excel in English, followed by
Hello ( eight series). Today, we teach English for Palestine from the 1st grade (6year)to 12th grade (18 year ).
Actually, I teach English for Secondary Level (12th) grade ,girl's school, as you might know we don't have mixed sexes, although we have male teachers and female ones ,even our principal is a woman! But we deal with each other as brothers and the girls are our daughters . We do not have stories ! like other societies. I do not mean to show that we better than others but it is the philosophy of society. People feel that their daughters are secured and who commit a moral mistake i.e. betray his honesty and the rules of the profession , wow wow wow.....A big scandal and you know the rest of the story.
Music, all people love music. even the fundamentalists like music but descent music .I mean no bad words or swear things or describing the beauty of a woman! For me I wanted to use music in my teaching but do you think the people of my town will agree? Maybe but with reservation. Although I played the guitar with an oriental band in wedding parties ,people respected me even if they saw me on the stage. I never allowed anyone to mock my being a musician. I used to tell them that at school I am a teacher but out I am free!!!
I changed the guitar to play oriental music : playing the quarter of a tune . in your music you only have half tune but in Arabic ,there is a variety of scales ,in addition to western music( major scale ,minor , 7th , diminished ,9th, sus, pentatonic ,rock ,heavy metal blues....etc.
I hope you enjoyed this though I am humble and do not like showing off because I believe that nothing last forever except good deeds that we take with us in our graves.
hank you Amy again ,and stay in touch.
By the way Amy, Alan Johnston;the BBC correspondent in Gaza was a friend of mine. I fought to release him because I translated reports for him and he even made adocumentary report entitled :A day in the life of a Palestinian Teacher. I was the model. Realy he is a good man and he helped to show the world how we suffer during the millitary operationlast summer by Israel which was called Summer Rain. Do you know what was the rain? It was the fragments of artillary shelling bombs ,flying over the town killing civillians . Alan himself came to my house and lived the experience. I used to watch from a hole in the wall ,seeing the explosion before the sound come near. I was able to hear the buzzing sound of a flying fragment to land finally on my roof!!
What can say Amy! I can't sing " Those were the days my friend"
Regards,
Muin