24 October 2008
MUSCAT -- Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), being a premier higher education institution, acknowledges the global frontiers of knowledge and scholarship. One of the overarching features of the SQU community is its immense diversity.
The teaching and research departments of the university are populated by people from almost every nook and corner of the globe. Take, for example the Language Centre (LC) of the university, which comprises 210 faculty members who hail from the six continents (all except Antarctica!).
The centre is also affectionately called a mini UN by those who are familiar with its cosmopolitan work culture.
A distinctive feature of human civilisation is language. Human languages are complex systems that have evolved over centuries.
The six-billion human population, astoundingly, is linked through 6,000 or so languages. In an increasingly globalised world, not only linguists and anthropologists have realised the significance of languages but also those who are concerned with cultural diversity, especially the role of English as an international language.
The SQU Language Centre is probably the biggest language teaching institution in the Sultanate, which provides English language instruction to all university students, who currently number 14,000 men and women.
The centre, in fact, serves as the gateway to the academic programmes at the university by training newly enrolled students in English language skills and academic discourse.
Additionally, the centre offers a number of subsidiary services such as professional development, academic research, annual international conference and training in workplace English.
The Language Centre faculty represents cultures from 28 countries, which is an ethno-cultural diversity of amazing proportions.
This diversity is a rare learning opportunity both for the faculty and the students.
"Working in the LC provides excellent opportunities to meet teachers from different parts of the world in the comfort of the LC and to welcome and celebrate diversity," recounts Martha Graham from Mexico.
Upali Siriwardane, a native of Sri Lanka, feels that "the cultural diversity is what adds brilliant hues to the LC, and makes it a perfect place where creativity and productivity are vibrant. It's a place full of life and pleasant smiles with various cultural touches and intricacies." In a similar vein, Ibtihaj Mohammed Al Harthy, an Omani faculty member, captures the cross-cultural scope of the LC: "A multicultural environment is inspiring. Being exposed to people from different cultures with various types of thinking has helped me to be more creative and productive -- it has added a lot to my personal and professional experience."
The pluralistic LC community, in a way, epitomises the global village metaphor, and the centre provides a congenial atmosphere for the university students in which they can broaden their international cultural exposure and understanding. Linguistically, the LC community also represents "World Englishes."
In the globalised world, English has attained the status of a major link language. The English language, consequently, has various manifestations or varieties, which fulfil communicative functions from Canada to Singapore and New Zealand to Russia. Cultural and linguistic diversity is a plain fact and its realisation is a precondition for the sustenance of our cherished global civilisation.
MUSCAT -- Sultan Qaboos University (SQU), being a premier higher education institution, acknowledges the global frontiers of knowledge and scholarship. One of the overarching features of the SQU community is its immense diversity.
The teaching and research departments of the university are populated by people from almost every nook and corner of the globe. Take, for example the Language Centre (LC) of the university, which comprises 210 faculty members who hail from the six continents (all except Antarctica!).
The centre is also affectionately called a mini UN by those who are familiar with its cosmopolitan work culture.
A distinctive feature of human civilisation is language. Human languages are complex systems that have evolved over centuries.
The six-billion human population, astoundingly, is linked through 6,000 or so languages. In an increasingly globalised world, not only linguists and anthropologists have realised the significance of languages but also those who are concerned with cultural diversity, especially the role of English as an international language.
The SQU Language Centre is probably the biggest language teaching institution in the Sultanate, which provides English language instruction to all university students, who currently number 14,000 men and women.
The centre, in fact, serves as the gateway to the academic programmes at the university by training newly enrolled students in English language skills and academic discourse.
Additionally, the centre offers a number of subsidiary services such as professional development, academic research, annual international conference and training in workplace English.
The Language Centre faculty represents cultures from 28 countries, which is an ethno-cultural diversity of amazing proportions.
This diversity is a rare learning opportunity both for the faculty and the students.
"Working in the LC provides excellent opportunities to meet teachers from different parts of the world in the comfort of the LC and to welcome and celebrate diversity," recounts Martha Graham from Mexico.
Upali Siriwardane, a native of Sri Lanka, feels that "the cultural diversity is what adds brilliant hues to the LC, and makes it a perfect place where creativity and productivity are vibrant. It's a place full of life and pleasant smiles with various cultural touches and intricacies." In a similar vein, Ibtihaj Mohammed Al Harthy, an Omani faculty member, captures the cross-cultural scope of the LC: "A multicultural environment is inspiring. Being exposed to people from different cultures with various types of thinking has helped me to be more creative and productive -- it has added a lot to my personal and professional experience."
The pluralistic LC community, in a way, epitomises the global village metaphor, and the centre provides a congenial atmosphere for the university students in which they can broaden their international cultural exposure and understanding. Linguistically, the LC community also represents "World Englishes."
In the globalised world, English has attained the status of a major link language. The English language, consequently, has various manifestations or varieties, which fulfil communicative functions from Canada to Singapore and New Zealand to Russia. Cultural and linguistic diversity is a plain fact and its realisation is a precondition for the sustenance of our cherished global civilisation.
By Shahid Abrar Awan
© Times of Oman 2008
