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Teaching during times of change: On being a 

Georgian TESOL Educator in Cairo 
By Dr. Lori Fredericks 

American University of Cairo 
Cairo, Egypt 

lfredricks@aucegypt.edu  
 
 
 

This reflective article describes ESL teacher training in Cairo, Egypt during 
the past five years. The author details her experiences with her MA students 
during the revolution and the military coup. She further explores how this 
journey has been influenced by her prior work in Tajikistan and Atlanta, 
Georgia and the parallels that exists across these contexts. 
 
Keywords:  applied linguistics, esl 

 
Cairo, Egypt is an exciting and intense work environment for professionals in 

any field. For English language teachers and faculty in Applied Linguistics, 

Cairo is a dynamic capital that poses a wealth of opportunities and some 

interesting challenges. In a city with a metropolitan population of 

approximately 12,000,000 (UNdata, 2014) and an ever increasing number of 

English language institutions and programs, educators often comment that 

“everyone seems to want to learn English.” In fact, visitors are frequently 

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surprised to find that English is quite widely used in varying degrees by 

everyone from taxi drivers to doormen, from professors to journalists. Native-

like English is more common amongst upper class students (for whom English 

can be a dominant or even first language), sometimes at the expense of their 

Arabic literacy (Benkharafa, 2013). Though the role of English in Egypt is 

historically and socially complex, most view English language education as a 

tool for advancement in a variety of fields. As an American educator in Cairo, I 

have also found that through English language instruction, teachers can 

encourage productive analytical discourse about the current political climate.  

Within the last few years, major political shifts have prompted 

educators at every level to become more flexible and to find new ways of 

integrating discourses of social and political change into their English 

language curricula. Cairo is not only the largest city in the Middle East, in 

recent years, it has also been in the world’s media spotlight for major political 

changes such as the 2011 revolution and the 2013 military coup. Now more 

than ever, students here have a heightened awareness of activism through 

social media (Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, for instance), the visual arts (often 

including performance art or graffiti murals in multiple languages), and face-

to-face engagement with each other and visitors from abroad (Lennon 2014). 

In the midst of this excitement, university faculty have been fortunate to work 

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with adult learners who have been witnesses to and frequently agents of 

innovations and political change.  

Since joining The American University in Cairo Department of Applied 

Linguistics faculty in 2009, I have had the pleasure of training ESL teachers 

from a range of backgrounds including graduate students from Egypt, Canada, 

Nigeria, Turkey, Hungary, and the United States. As an assistant professor for 

the TESOL MA program, I have found that our diverse backgrounds provide 

fruitful discussions on cross-cultural and political issues that are relevant to 

both the local context and working abroad. The MA courses I teach (Discourse 

Analysis, Pragmatics, Second Language Acquisition, and Second Language 

Reading & Writing: Theory and Practice) integrate theoretical debates with 

practical concerns in our everyday teaching and learning contexts.  

Many of my MA students are fellows, which means that they teach 

incoming students in the Intensive English Program. Others are teachers of 

adults, adolescents and children in public and private institutions in Cairo, 

Alexandria, Mansoura and elsewhere in Egypt. As currently employed 

educators, they can integrate concepts and activities from their MA courses in 

an immediate way and share the results with their peers. Like MA programs in 

the US, some are very experienced while others are novices, and some 

contend with a transition to the lifestyle and cultures of Egypt. The eclectic 

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nature of our community leads to beneficial discussions about differing 

cultural norms, values and ways of teaching and learning.  

In our discussions, I try to dispel the common, ill-conceived view of an 

American utopian system of education that is far superior to and more 

equitable than any other while simultaneously sharing many of the merits of 

that system. We also discuss the challenges in Egyptian public schools, which 

are generally far removed from our privileged position at a private institution 

and that, as in the US, mark our place within the hierarchy of social classes. 

While my students themselves do not represent the most affluent 

communities (unlike our undergraduates), they also do not represent the 

poorest sectors of Cairo but have taught in a variety of settings that are the 

basis for interesting comparisons. My ultimate aim is for us to have fun and 

maintain a high level of respect for one another while exploring our 

commonalities and differences. It is my hope that my students and their 

students will see this process of stimulating debate and discussion as ongoing 

throughout their careers.  

My prior work experience in the multicultural settings of Atlanta, 

Georgia and Dushanbe, Tajikistan had prepared me well for my current 

context. Earlier in my career, I had taught as an ESL teacher and teacher 

trainer at several institutions in Georgia including Georgia State University 

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(my alma mater), Georgia Tech, the Savannah College of Art and Design, and 

Georgia Perimeter College. Like in Dushanbe schools and colleges, students in 

Georgian ESL programs are often multilingual and represent a variety of 

cultural and religious backgrounds. Through our discussions about writing, 

literature, cultural norms and so on, my students and I have been 

continuously reminded that there are multiple ways to view and respond to a 

problem and that listening to the views and experiences of others can enrich 

our own perspectives.  

In each of these contexts; however, these rich discussions can be 

temporarily or perhaps even permanently obstructed by roadblocks like our 

own biases, particular political or religious alliances, or feelings of cultural, 

racial, or gender-based, superiority. During the revolution in Egypt, for 

example, my students were a mix of those who supported and were not in 

favor of the goals of the revolution, and some, understandably, changed their 

views over time. The subsequent elections and other major events that 

followed posed additional challenges including many incidents of violence and 

disagreements about the legitimacy of the outcomes of the elections. It was, 

and still is, not possible to ignore the events of the time –to attend classes 

adhering to preset curricula, and it became clear to us that this was also 

clearly not preferable. At the same time, I have been impressed by the 

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students’ ability to maintain a high level of respect for one another. There 

were and are moments of tension but these are ultimately dealt with in a 

professional manner and are worth the effort it takes to talk through matters 

that are relevant and important to our world.  

As an educator who has spent the past several years teaching in my 

home country and abroad, I have benefitted from an increased awareness of 

parallels between the contexts, meaning that we all struggle with these types 

of concerns but can grow from attempting to tackle them as a community. 

Experienced educators know that there will always be challenges. Some will 

be more material like a lack of updated materials or regular electricity. Some 

will be more philosophical, like handling a debate about the best system of 

government and how religion may or may not play a role in the realms of 

government or education. Yet in each of these contexts, from Atlanta to Cairo, 

the value of critical debate and facilitating critical thinking has always proved 

worth the effort.  

  

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References 

Benkharafa, M.  (2013).  The present situation of the Arabic language and the  

Arab world commitment to Arabization. Theory and Practice in  

Language Studies, 3(2), 201-208. 

Egypt. UNdata.  (2014).  Retrieved September 13, 2014.  

 http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=egypt 

Lennon, J.  (2014).  Assembling a revolution: Graffiti, Cairo and the Arab spring.  

Cultural Studies Review, 20(1), 237. 

 

 

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http://data.un.org/CountryProfile.aspx?crName=egypt

