Unearthing Hinduism

I'm writing this after a breathtaking visit to Arizona's Grand Canyon. To many Native American tribes the Grand Canyon is a sacred place: site of numerous origin myths from the Havasupai to the Zuni; hushed repose of the Hopi dead. If I were forced to choose a religion, that’s the kind of religion I could go for. The Grand Canyon confers statures on a religion, outclassing the petty smallness of the Abrahamics, the three squabbling cults which, through historical accident, still afflict the world. Richard Dawkins, The Science In The Soul

Since I'm versed in the old beliefs, myths, and religions of the ancient Tunisia, in addition to my fondness for ancient pagan temples of the antiquities, I can only agree with Richard Dawkins every time I visit a place in Asia where the old beliefs are still alive. India, Nepal, the Island of Bali, and some parts of Asia bravely resisted the spread of Islam and Christianity into their lands and preserved the oldest religions and cults. For these peoples and the rest of the ancient world the land and the nature were the origins of myths, custom and traditions, and laws. Bringing  a new cult, pantheons, and tradition weren't considered a replacement of the existing ones. Both new comers and indigenous assimilated their pantheons into the encountered new ones; Roman used to adopt the gods of the conquered lands: ISIS (not the Islamic state haha) is Egyptian, Saturn looks like Semitic Baal and Ceres is Greek.    

Roughly 95% of world’s Hindus live in India and Nepal. That’s natural! Hinduism is a compilation of traditions and philosophies practiced in India, or the land beyond the Indus valley. This term was first used by Greeks and Persians to describe the peoples that used to live beyond Indus river, it flows through actual Pakistan. The term "Hindu" became familiar  in the 18th and 19th centuries when British scholars started using it to describe distinctive Indian practices. The term excludes Muslims, Christians, and Sikhs. 

In the beginning of the first millennium, Hindu traders introduced their gods and beliefs to Southeast Asia the same way Phoenician traders had introduced their gods to North Africa 10 centuries earlier. Southeast Asian Hinduism, like its North African counterparts after the arrival of the Phoenicians from actual Lebanon, is a syncretism between local beliefs and traditions that had existed before the arrival of Hindu traders from the Indian Sub-continent.  

Like all synchronized religions, Southeast Asia has its own version of Hinduism: same gods but  different names and why not stories. It reminds us of ancient Greeks, Romans, and Phoenicians when they introduce their gods to other Mediterranean peoples: same function, features but different names and stories. As matter of fact, Greek historians used to assimilate the gods of the different civilizations into theirs: the Greek god Zeus became Jupiter, the Phoenician God Eshmun became the Greek Aesculapius, and so on.

I witnessed Southeastern Hinduism when I visited Malaysia and Indonesia. Despite being Muslim majority countries with 60% and 95% respectively, Malaysia and Indonesia have an important Hindu community. In Malaysia the Hindu community is made of Indian expats, while in Indonesia Hindus are indigenous.

The most famous Hindu site in Malaysia is The Batu Caves in the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur. It was there where I started encountering the oldest religious practices on earth; more than 5000 years old, older than Judaism based on archaeological record. The site hosts the tallest statue of the lord Murugan, the Hindu God of war. By the way, it was easy to recognize that he is a god of war since he holds a spear like his peers Mars and Ares of the Roman and the Greek mythology. 

Finally, I can't hide my fondness for the Island of Bali in Indonesia. Its street processions drive me crazy: this is how many modern painters, without witnessing a Hindu procession, imagined ancient gods and goddesses processions in the ancient world. 

Lord Hanuman, The Hindu Monkey God

Hanuman Temple. Batu Caves

Balinese Hinduism

Balinese Hinduism

Balinese Hinduism

Balinese Hinduism

Ganesha, Hindu Elephant god. Batu Caves

Lord Murugan, Hindu God of War. 43m high

Balinese Hinduism

Balinese Hinduism

Balinese Hinduism

Balinese Hinduism

Balinse Hinduism

Richard Dawkins: The Scientist Storyteller

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.

Richard Dawkins is an English ethologist, evolutionary biologists and author of bestselling books. He was a senior lecturer at the University of Oxford until his retirement in 2008. 

The God Delusion, published in 2006 

Richard was born in 1941 in West Africa (actual Kenya), where his father, John Dawkins, was pursuing his career as a botanist at the agricultural department of the Colonial Services until 1949. 

He earned his master's and doctorate degrees in zoology from the University of Oxford and started a career as a lecturer in 1966. He lectured at the University of California Berkeley from 1968 to 1970 and at Oxford until his retirement in 2008.

Richard was (and he’s still) annoyed at the way people are judging and misunderstanding the theory of evolution. He decided to publish his first book  The Selfish Genes in 1976, in which he explained the concept of genes and introduced a new term called memes: the cultural equivalent of genes. If the genes use the bodies of living things to further their survival, memes are following the same patterns of genes by propagating and mutating from mind to mind.

In his following books, Richard has been debunking the myths of creation by showing the contradictions between facts and beliefs. By analyzing and studying fossils records of different species, he has been proving that evolution has been taking place gradually since three or four billion years. He also emphasizes that homo sapiens, modern humans, and chimpanzees are cousins; they are both descendants of an ape that went extinct millions of years ago.   

In addition to his talent as a biologist and zoologist, Richard has a broad knowledge of history, archaeology and mythologies. As a matter of fact, he always stresses that the Old Testament plagiarized ancient civilizations myths and legends about creation and natural disasters. Example, in his book The Magic Of Reality, he perfectly described how the Noah’s ark is a distorted copy of an old Mesopotamian myth: the epic Gilgamesh. Utnapishtim, an old man(centuries old), told Gilgamesh that he was warned by a God that a great flood is coming and ordered him to build and ark and take the seeds of all leaving creatures. In the same book, he beautifully described the beliefs and myths of native American, some African tribes and Aboriginal Australians.

In his best selling book the God Delusion, he took us back in time to the year 325 AD when the Roman Constantine  converted to Christianity, forced Christians to adopt the trinity, accepted four gospels only and ordered to burn the rest.

                              

Assignment 4: Lessons from the Classroom

Strengths

The feedbacks I get from both my tutors and peers are fundamental to help me improve with the way I teach and for my self-evaluation.

The first strength witnessed by both tutors and peers is the good rapport that I establish with learners. A good rapport with learners means higher motivation for learners, more comfort that they can answer more confidently and with a higher degree of frankness. In addition the good rapport enhances respect and facilitates the communication between teachers and learners.

Second, during my teaching practices I showed an improvement in class management such as dividing them into groups and pairs; using material especially data show.

In my first teaching practice, I didn’t use the data show and I exclusively relied on chesting, it’s from the second teaching practice that I mastered its use.

Third, my peers and tutors acknowledge my cultural awareness when I choose the warm up and lead in. I usually start my lessons with topics they are familiar with and able to speak about them. For example in teaching practice 2 I started the lesson with projecting photos of famous shops in Turkey and asked about their shopping habits; in teaching practice 5 I used the photo of a famous Turkish chef and made them talk about his success story and compared with the success story of the chef in their reading activity.  

Learners loved the lead in activities and were so engaged. They shared their shopping habits in teaching practice 2; in teaching practice 5 learners spoke with zeal and enthusiasm about the chef because they know the secrets behind his success story.   

Finally after each teaching practice I become less stressed and more confident. For me it’s all about practicing.

Developmental Needs and Action Points

Of course there is a lot of work to be done in order to improve my teaching abilities. First, my main challenge is to comply with teaching procedure, lesson stages, such as lead in, prediction, highlighting the target language and free and controlled practice. Actually lesson planning  has to have a shape that changes from one lesson’s main focus to another; receptive skills lessons (reading and listening) have a different shape from productive skills (speaking and writing). Language that includes grammar, lexis and functional language have different lesson shapes as well; either you rely on a text or a listening track to present the language, or testing learners before and after the lesson.  It’s very challenging for non-experienced trainee.

Second, despite the improvement, I often fail to do a proper feedback and diversify its techniques after every assigned activity to learners. I often make it longer, example in teaching practice 7 I gave a long feedback by doing a detailed reading of the ten questions of the reading for detail.

In teaching practice 6, I confused between listening and lexis, that means vocabulary and language. It was treated as a listening lesson not lexis. marking the word stress and syllables on the whiteboard along with drilling and phonetic transcriptions were totally absent during the teaching practice. Fortunately I rectified in the following teaching practice and I’ll rectify in the eighth teaching practice, that its main focus is grammar, and make it a to standard lesson.

I also need to work more and more on my lesson planning, vocabulary analysis and grammar and functional analysis. I confess that it’s a major weakness that needs improvement.

Summary

During the course I have learned a lot about English teaching. It’s a different teaching approach for both experienced and non-experienced teachers. For example, it’s very recommended to make the lessons more and more student centered rather than teacher centered. Learners are now very familiar with foreign languages that using topics they are interested in may facilitates their interactions with the lesson and teacher and makes the lesson more interesting.

Finally, it’s very useful to observe my peers during their practice and my tutors during their demo lessons. It helps learn new teaching techniques and styles.

Plans for Post-Course Development

First I will practice every technique and method I learned during the training. Not only in English teaching but also in teaching Arabic and French.

Second I will enroll in every conference, workshop, training and courses related to English teaching. It’s the most efficient way to stay updated with new methods and trends. Luckily it’s the era of internet, open resources and materials are very abundant on internet.

Finally, I will sign up for a DELTA course or any equivalent advanced qualification in addition to a master’s degree program in English literature, history and linguistic.