د. اكبر علي علي
Position : Chairman - English Department
Email : akbarali@dau.edu.sa
Phone : 011-4949234
Fax :
Summary of his biography :
Dr Akbar Ali has grown and developed as an English Language and Communication teacher since 2007 when he began teaching at an English Medium Convent School in India His teaching philosophy is a manifestation of all that he has learned from his students of different disciplines and majors his versatile colleagues and his MA PhD and TKT Teaching Knowledge Test studies in English Teaching English has been his passion since he did his Masters in English He has worked very hard over the past 10 years to get to the teaching position where he is now He always tries his level best to learn from his mistakes and to continue his professional development well beyond his MA PhD and TKT
His regular classroom teaching and multidisciplinary approach have truly changed a great deal over the past 10 years When he first walked into the classroom in 2007 the traditional method was still the popular method He started his career as a Post Graduate English Teacher by teaching English Prose Poetry Grammar and Communication to High School and Intermediate level students The positive feedback of his students was hugely motivating and a matter of pleasure for him That was true to a large extent especially for the motivated and curious High School and Intermediate students However upon entering tertiary level in 2008 he quickly learned and understood the significance of ‘context based teaching and learning He learned how different the needs and leaning approaches of Undergraduate Students are from that of the students of High School and Intermediate What works in one situation does not necessarily work in another
Between January 2008 and November 2013 he used different teaching methodologies including Communicative Language Teaching with the help of modern language teaching equipment such as Projector AudioVisual System and Round Table Discussions He spent these years teaching Professional and Technical Communication Remedial English Language Interview Skills Leadership Skills and Group Discussion Skills to students of Engineering Medicine Nursing Home Science Hotel Management and Business
Through experiment and curiosity to improve he developed his own interesting learnercentric and productive teaching technique He learned how to manage a class of 5060 undergraduate students After his two years at the previous college he was fully able to successfully elicit check and correct his students His instructional scaffolding helped and still helps his students to reduce their negative emotions and selfperceptions that they may experience when they get frustrated intimidated or discouraged while attempting a difficult task without the assistance direction or understanding they need to complete it
What makes his students better ‘encouraged ‘motivated and ‘curious is his effective use of the following approach a balance of the 4 skills through input listening reading and output speaking writing teaching ‘grammar as the best way to clarify meaning and finally ‘using English to learn English through individual assignments peer activities group tasks in class testing activities projects and presentations He now teaches extensive reading listening grammar presentation and vocabulary discussion as very useful types of input and extensive writing speaking doing grammar exercises and using vocabulary as valuable forms of output The input he uses for his students motivate them to understand the context selftest key vocabulary do exercises make inferences know key language points critically think use their knowledge of the world about a topic and finally produce the target language
His technique of bridging the gap between his students everyday life and classroom activities helps students learn faster He uses different types of stories and situations to provide input and initiate discussions He constantly searches the internet for different activities or videos to make his lessons more interesting and useful He strongly believes that whatever his learners experience as input either listening or reading or watching usually leads to an output exercise either written or oral He always tries his level best to make his students fully able to demonstrate or present whatever they learn in his class Such presentations are either in pairs small groups in front of the whole class or outside the classroom Keeping in view the importance of pair work he always encourages his students to share their knowledge with one another Pair work and collaboration help language learners brainstorm new ideas which gradually guide them to achieve their goals He always keeps himself active and vigilant in his classes in order to see that all his students contribute something to the overall achievement of course objectives and learning outcomes When the whole class is engaged the graph of learning automatically goes up and helps the learners to bit by bit build on what they already know
In short he contributes his sincere efforts education skill set and long teaching experience to produce wellmannered learned and successful future leaders in different academic disciplines and varied fields of profession
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