What Arab Students Say about Their Linguistic and Educational Experiences in Canadian Universities (original) (raw)

Learning and Cultural Experiences of Arab Muslim Graduate Students in a Canadian University

The purpose of the present study is to explore the experiences of Arab Muslim graduate students in the University of Alberta (U of A) regarding cultural differences and adjustment, language difficulties, supervision, differences of study system, and funding. Semi­structured interviews were conducted with five Arab Muslim graduate students from Egypt, Libya, Oman, Iraq and Kuwait. The findings of the study reveal that although students experience some difficulties adjusting to Canadian society, adjustment is made easier through their interaction with local Muslim communities and organizations such as mosques. In addition, respondents indicate the multicultural nature of Canadian society is an asset that helps them o­n and off­ campus. Moreover, the presence of Arab Muslim students at the U of A may help in correcting the image of Islam as a religion, distorted in the west, through interaction both academically and socially with other students. The study recommends greater cooperation between the university and Muslim cultural and religious organizations within Canadian society.

CULTURE SHOCK OF INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN CANADA

This research project is dedicated to the six international students who participated in the focus group interview. Without sharing their stories with me, this project would not have been possible. Thank you very much.

The Canadian Context: Monolingual Education in an “Officially” Multilingual Country

Reading, 2011

This article will examine the sociopolitical language contexts that exist in institutions of Canadian post-secondary education, through investigating how government policies affect the consumption and teaching of language in writing classrooms. A survey of Canadian multiculturalist policy, multilingualism, and post-secondary education in terms of multilingual immigrant student populations will describe steps the federal government has taken to promote linguistic pluralism. Questionnaire and interview analysis will describe how Canadian students see language and multiculturalism interacting in the academic work they do in the context of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, and will illustrate how language diversity is not cultivated in Canadian post-secondary classrooms.

A Challenge for Canadian Universities: Bilingual Students

The Canadian Modern Language Review, 1987

health sciences, history THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW utpjournals.press/chr Offering a comprehensive analysis on the events that have shaped Canada, CHR publishes articles that examine Canadian history from both a multicultural and multidisciplinary perspective.

Studying in Canada: Experiences of Female Graduate Students from Saudi Arabia

Journal of International Students, 2018

This paper presents findings from a study which explored experiences of Saudi Arabian female graduate students studying in Canada. The data for this descriptive qualitative study was collected through semi-structured interviews with ten students undertaking graduate studies in universities across 5 Canadian provinces. The findings of this study suggest that female graduate students from Saudi Arabia face unique challenges related to adaptation to a new education environment and to managing cultural expectations of Saudi and Canadian communities. Studying and living in Canada affected our participants’ personal values and changed the way they viewed themselves, their culture and community.

Cultivating our mosaic : understanding the language choices of Canadian immigrant students

This dissertation examines the competing views of multilingualism that shape U.S. and Canadian post-secondary literacy education. Drawing on education, English studies, globalization theory, applied linguistics, translation studies, multiculturalism, and second-language studies, this project engages in a study of multilingual students from writing courses at a Canadian university. The analysis focuses on the relationships between Canadian multilingualism and current U.S. scholarship surrounding English monolingualism in terms of eradicationism, language segregation, and language interaction. The findings challenge previous research and popular opinion, as well as Canadian government policy, all of which tend to designate Canadian classrooms and society as definitively accepting of cultural and linguistic diversity. Instead, this project positions Canadian writing classrooms as aligned with eradicationist ideologies, which is a noteworthy contrast to growing calls by composition scholars for teaching trans lingual composition. The data collected situates Canadian students (like U.S. students) as extremely ethno-linguistically diverse; however, in Canada, this diversity continues to be confined to home communities. This research offers a critical assessment of how U.S. and Canadian postsecondary institutions can employ multilingualism as a resource, suggesting ways in III which linguistic diversity can position students to excel in cultural exchange and political dialogue. Through drawing upon the ways a selection of U.S. compositionists have been successful in their employment of student multilingualism as a pedagogical resource, this project responds to gaps in international multilingual scholarship and validates the introduction of multicultural-multilingual initiatives into Canadian writing classrooms. This work calls on composition researchers and instructors, particularly those in Canada, to redefine writing pedagogy and curricula in order to consider how institutions that boast high levels of cultural and linguistic diversity can proactively address and make use of multilingualism. IV

Education and linguistic boundaries in Quebec: Student representations and pedagogical reflections from a critical perspective

Relations between francophones and anglophones in Québec City reflect historical struggles and changing power relations between the groups. Using a constructivist and interactionist approach to identity and ethnicity, we examine the role of English language schools in intergroup relations. We present findings from two qualitative studies conducted with youth who attended English language schools in Québec City, showing how the school system contributes to the (re)production of linguistic boundaries. The boundaries evident between language groups, as illustrated in student drawings and memories, reflect complex power relations between the groups. Taking into account these power relations and with reference to previous initiatives for addressing intergroup relations, we propose a pedagogical approach that incorporates the tools of critical pedagogy to improve intergroup relations in social contexts such as Québec City. Pedagogical activities using this critical approach would lead stu...

The Instrumentality of Integrativeness: A Case Study of ESL  Saudi Students in Canada

Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literatures, 2020

This study looks into the orientations and attitudes of ESL Saudi students enrolled in the Intensive English Program (IEP) at the University of Manitoba (U of M), Canada. Little research has tackled the orientations and attitudes of Arab ESL students in a native-speaking context. The researchers expect that living in the native social, cultural context of Canada will create more positive attitudes towards Canadians, their culture and society, as well as higher integrative orientation on part of Saudi students. The subjects of this study were 17 Saudi students (11 males and 6 females). An attitudinal questionnaire was used to elicit the participants' attitudes towards Canadians and the Canadian culture as well as the participants' motivation for learning ESL. The data analysis revealed strong favorable attitudes towards Canadians as well as towards their culture. This positiveness was attributed to the native environment in which the learning process is taking place. Moreover, Saudi students exhibited a combination of both integrative and instrumental motivation to learn the target language.