Teaching teachers in Egypt creates dilemmas for MCC workers

Mennonite Central Committee
Saturday, 15 July 2000

CAIRO, Egypt -- A special Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) ceremony here recently marked the graduation of nine Egyptian teachers from an intensive six-day teacher training course.

"The students come from teaching and non-teaching backgrounds," said Lois Unrau, an MCC volunteer in Cairo. "They have the common goal of teaching English in church-sponsored programs." MCC teachers taught the course at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Cairo.

Most MCC volunteers in Cairo teach English to adults at Coptic (Egyptian) Church facilities. The church programs are held in the evenings and most people attending work full time and then study at night.

"The course is a way of meeting MCC's goal of supporting the local church," said Unrau. English is important to the Coptic Church. Egyptians who know English have better job opportunities and the local church sees it as a way of improving the economic well-being of its members. Some Coptic churches also offer English instruction as an outreach to the local community--attracting both Christians and Muslims.

MCC English language experts often struggle with the tendency to be seen as the English program itself. This runs contrary to another common MCC goal, to help community-based programs grow and separate when the programs are mature enough to flourish on their own.

In keeping with this philosophy, staff at the Cairo MCC office invited church partners to sponsor volunteers for some hands-on experience in teaching from a Western perspective.

"Basically what this meant was that those churches where MCC teachers are helping in the evening English language programs, could select some of their volunteer teaching staff and send them to this training course," explained Unrau. "These would of course be their top-level teachers who may already have had more years of experience than their MCC colleagues. Many of these people have full-time jobs and then come to the church to do some Christian service in the evening."

The course created a dilemma for members of the MCC team. "How could we possibly teach people who already know English grammar backwards and forwards?" asked Unrau. The tone of the classes needed to be that of humility and sharing. Instead of being teachers, they would become facilitators and idea-givers.

Mornings were filled with workshops and seminars focusing on communication techniques, classroom management methods and a variety of innovative teaching concepts. Participants were encouraged to be creative. In the afternoons the students took the lead and tried out some of the new techniques they had learned. After each teaching practice session, small groups gathered to discuss what had been done and to give feedback.

In the end, those involved agreed it had been worthwhile and some expressed hopes of another such event in the future.

For more information, or to contact Mennonite Central Committee, see their website at: www.mcc.org