Working With Iraqi Kurds: Teaching, Writing EFL Materials, and More

Cherie Rempel, cjrempel@cs.com

Background
After the first Gulf War I began working among Kurds, who are primarily from Iraq. In 1992 I lived with a Kurdish family in Iraq, where I learned to speak, read, and write the Behdini Kurdish language and taught a couple of EFL classes for women. My students were teachers from a girls' secondary school, and our classes focused on English conversation. My team of two married couples and I lived there for 15 months. Next I immersed myself in a Kurdish community in Germany for a year, and then in 1997 I moved to Virginia, where I have continued to work with Iraqi Kurdish immigrants. During my first 2 years in Virginia I taught some ESL conversation to my Kurdish friends, but my main "practical" work has been writing Kurdish language-learning curricula and teaching crash courses in Kurdish language to others who want to teach or work with these students.

Four years ago the United States went to war with Iraq. This time Saddam Hussein was removed, and the doors to Iraq opened for Westerners to be involved in that part of the world again. A few months before the second Gulf War, I got the idea of directing an English program in northern Iraq. I wanted to create a program that would enable like-minded Westerners to go to northern Iraq to make a difference in the lives of the people and in their English education system. Thankfully, the English program seems to be meeting the felt needs (or rather, the demands) of the Kurds who live in northern Iraq, and it is providing a practical way for teachers to serve others there. I have been primarily interested in having teachers go as summer short-termers, especially if they have the potential of returning later as longer term (1 to 2 years or more) workers. You can read more about our program online at www.go2melik.org.  If you would like to consider joining us for a summer, a year, or longer, please feel free to e-mail me for more information.

The Need for EFL Materials
As the director of this English program in northern Iraq, I am responsible for providing teacher-friendly EFL materials for our teachers. There is no postal service to northern Iraq, which limits our choices in terms of practicality to whatever is locally available. Good-quality American English EFL materials in six levels with meaningful content that is culturally appropriate (my ideal) are not available locally. For this reason, we are having materials written for us by a team of EFL professionals, which we then print in the field and use in our classes. These materials are meeting our needs, and students appreciate them. Because we own the copyright, we are able to print our own books, and others who choose to use them overseas can buy a license and print them where they work as well.

An Overview of New Bridges
Our texts are called New Bridges: Connecting People Through Language and Culture. The target audience is adult EFL students who want to improve their conversation skills by building on the grammar and vocabulary knowledge that they acquired in secondary school. This five-book series of American English language instruction for adults can be used in both ESL and EFL contexts. The books are divided into eight topical units with three lessons in each unit, so that each book is estimated to provide enough material for at least 48 hours of instruction. Teacher's editions are also available. The books are designed for beginning to advanced levels of learners who have studied English in school with traditional methods and who want to learn to use their English to communicate. New Bridges distinctives are as follows:

  • New Bridges takes a lexical approach to language learning. Each lesson is rich in words and contexts, and each book contains over 2,000 different words. The series is designed to empower learners by expanding their active and passive vocabulary, thus providing them with the building blocks they need to communicate. By presenting vocabulary topically, New Bridges increases the student's ability to retain new information and to start thinking in English.
  • The series is organized around topics relevant to the adult learner. Though the series is not grammar-based, structure is included in each lesson. The four macro skills—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—are also practiced. 
  • The syllabus employs a modular shape, which allows teachers to choose the order in which they present the units. Though the grammar sections are somewhat sequenced, they can also be used in any order with teacher support.
  • Illustrations reinforce the topic visually and can be used as teaching aids.
  • The Teacher's Resource Pack (card games, whole-page sized illustrations, and other teaching resources) helps teachers easily present the topics, vocabulary, and exercises to the students.
  • The expressions in the callouts give students additional language related to the topic. 
  • A crossword puzzle at the end of each unit can be used for vocabulary, grammar, and content review; the answers to the puzzles are in an appendix.

Lesson Sections
Each lesson includes a number of sections. Expressing Opinions launches the topic by introducing learners to what others have had to say about it and by engaging the class in discussion at the start of each lesson. A variety of proverbs, sayings, and quotations are used to present the topic and evoke a personal response from the students. Expanding Vocabulary introduces the core vocabulary for each lesson with words organized according to parts of speech, and collocations are often given to set the lexical units in context. After the presentation of vocabulary, students have listening exercises that focus on the new words in context. The listening scripts and answers for these exercises are in the teacher's edition. Exploring Culture focuses on an aspect of American culture through a reading passage that is related to the topic and is designed to provide students with additional vocabulary as well as cultural information. Explaining Language highlights different aspects of English grammar from the lesson. There are clear explanations of how English words are put together to form structures. Students then practice writing structures using topic-related vocabulary, with the focus on effective communication. In Exchanging Information, students communicate with one another using what they have learned in the lesson. The dialogues are guided and students are given sample expressions to assist them as they strengthen their oral communication skills. The focus is on how language is used in real-world communication. Each lesson in Enjoying English closes by encouraging students to use English both inside and outside the classroom. Students are advised to take control of their language development and are given suggestions for conversation starters.

Our students love the topics and are pleased with the focus on conversation. These materials are particularly suitable for use in conservative cultures like the Middle East. I especially appreciate the sections on American history and culture because the readings are informative and act as a springboard for discussion sessions in the classroom. If you are interested in more information about New Bridges, you can read more about the books online and download sample lessons from our Web site: www.go2melik.org/NewBridgesTextbooks.lsp. (Ordering information is in the lower middle column of the web page. Complete, professionally printed books can be purchased, too.)

Our goal is for the five levels of the New Bridges series to become a complete EFL series ranging from false beginner to advanced. It is targeted at those who have not had previous instruction from native English speakers. So far we have published level 2, 3, and 4 student books and teacher's editions. The audio recordings are in the process of being made for those books. Books for levels 1 and 5 are in the process of being written, and the audio recordings for those books will follow shortly thereafter. If we are financially able, in 2008 we would like to have an additional two books (levels 6 and 7) written that would take the learner to a precollegiate level of English.

An English Literacy Book
I have also been working on a literacy book (i.e., level 0) that could be adapted to other languages. The goal of the literacy book is to teach early reading and writing skills and simple English conversation to high schoolers or adults who are literate in their mother tongue but who are not literate in English. Although the materials are not yet complete, we used them with good success in our summer 2007 class. The materials are a greatly simplified version of New Bridges Book 2, and the vocabulary and many of the conversation sentences and phrases are translated into the mother tongue of the students in a Roman script. The goal of the literacy book is to teach the students to read and write in a Roman script of their own language and then to transfer those skills to reading, writing, and speaking English. We use "experience stories" in the mother tongue and in English as the heart of the lesson and then transition into the English conversation lesson. The literacy book is not being published as a regular part of the New Bridges curriculum because it must be adapted to the mother tongue of the target students. If you are interested in using the literacy book with your students, please write me for more information.

Conclusion
Living and working in the Middle East is a challenge I really enjoy. I love doing a job that involves getting to know people from another culture, problem solving (such as for our English program), and working with Westerners who have the same heart that I have, or who are just in the process of discovering what it means to be involved in the development of another country and people. The society and cities of Northern Iraq are rapidly changing, thanks to the measures of safety brought on by the American and Kurdish military forces, and it's exciting to be a part of the change during a time when people are interested in having our influence.

Cherie Rempel is the senior editor of New Bridges and the director of an English program in Northern Iraq. She lives in Springfield, Virginia, and works in Northern Iraq during the summer months. In her spare time she enjoys reading, hiking, baking, sewing, and traveling.

SLW & CALL October 2007 Volume 11 Number 3: Table of Contents