Teaching risky text-topics in reading-writing courses in a culturally-conservative context : views of Omani English majors

Abstract EN

Instructors and authors of extbooks in reading-writing English generally avoid text-topics which deal with such issues as politics, religion, 'terrorism', permissive male-female relationships, homosexuality and so forth.

These texts are henceforth referred to as risky text-topics.

The central reason for this avoidance in the case of teachers is the desire to protect their hard-to-find jobs, and in the case of publishers, to sell their textbooks in the EFL market world-wide.

These reasons are understandable from the commercial and the personal standpoints.

Nevertheless, the avoidance and the absence of serious topics such as these from textbooks and course books contributes, at least partially, to the lack of interest and the lack of engagement in class activities which are widely observed in EFL classes1.

Furthermore, such avoidance is likely to limit the students’ opportunities to become acquainted with a substantial amount of vocabulary which is crucial both for successful communication in English and for understanding issues of major concern for English-speaking societies.

This study was conducted to explore if, when, and why risky text-topics such as these can be utilized in EFL reading-writing classes for adult English majors at colleges and universities in a culturally and a religiously conservative context such as The Sultanate of Oman.

The paper examines views on the use of this type of text-topics among students at the Department of English at Rustaq College for Applied Sciences, which is one of the six public colleges in Oman offering the bachelor degree in English language and literature for students who plan to become teachers of English at public schools.

Based on the results, the paper provides recommendations for utilising this type of text-topics for more productive reading-writing courses.