Oral History: An Unpredictably Effective Strategy for Teaching ESL to Saudi Arabian Students

Abstract

For more than thirty years, collecting oral histories has been recognized as an effective teaching strategy in the West. Although it is rare in Gulf Cooperative Council (GCC) countries, the authors adopted it to bridge knowledge gaps they observed in their Saudi Arabian students. The reclamation of familial stories and tribal information using oral history methodologies reconnected students to their past while facilitating a unique learning experience. This paper describes how an oral history project was created for undergraduate students in Saudi Arabia to help them move beyond the hard science approach supported in the Arabian world to one that embraces a narrative based methodology. Historically, oral histories – an important pillar of Arabian society - were used to transfer significant tribal information, customs, traditions and stories from one generation to the next. Since the discovery of oil, the kingdom has undergone dramatic societal and lifestyle transformations resulting in the loss of some traditions, namely oral history. Consequently, younger generations know very little about their Arabian heritage. The fundamental goal for this project was to improve the students’ comprehension of humanities and social science courses by reconnecting them to their past using oral history methods.

Using Graphic Oral History Texts to Operationalize the TEIL Paradigm and Multimodality in the Malaysian English Language Classroom

“…The study reported many pedagogical benefits of writing family oral histories in the EFL writing classroom and concluded that oral history is an excellent way to spark students' interest and to teach them academic writing. Furthermore, a recent study was conducted in Saudi Arabia (Strachan & Winkel, 2020) to investigate the development of an oral project for undergraduate EFL students in a Saudi private university. The project aimed at reconnecting the undergraduates to their familial heritage while providing them with a distinctive educational experience.…”

A história oral como estratégia didática no ensino de português língua de herança

“…If they were in fact used, the authors argue that this would challenge the well-known models of learning deficits and language use, which tend to perceive heritage learners as having a domain not yet, at least, good enough. Still, the truth is that much work in this regard has also already been done, in terms, therefore, of using oral history both in the language class in general and in the heritage language class more in particular, and as it can also be seen by the various and recent publications that have seen the light of day (ALLEN;MONTOYA;ORTEGA, 2018;BOON, POLINSKY, 2015;FOULIS, 2018;LIGON et al, 2009;MILLER;KOSTKA, 2015;NARAYANASAMY et al, 2019;STRACHAN;WINKEL, 2020). And this interest naturally demonstrates the indisputable relevance of recognizing and paying tribute to the (always) unique origins of each student.…”

TESL In-Service Teachers' Experiences When Evaluating an Oral History Workbook

“…According to Strachan and Winkel (2020), oral history has become a vital instrument in academic circles in collecting first-hand experience. Anthropologists and historiographers, specifically, have utilized oral narratives for a considerable length of time as an instrument for examination and information assortment whereby first-individual records widen the extent of a request as they cast a focus on an individual or lived experience, providing nuanced understandings of lifeways and occasions over a significant time span.…”