Dr. Tizreena Ismail has PhD from the University of Exeter, in English Language Education. She taught rhetoric and composition at the American University of Sharjah. She has also taught English Language and Literature in the English Language Department at University Putra Malaysia. Her areas of interest are on the role of talk in language teaching and literacy, including the role of dialogic talk in the understanding of teaching language and writing pedagogy. Her research also focuses on the identity of EFL learners specifically in the areas of critical issues in literacy development and assessment of EFL learners. She has presented and published papers in the area of writing across the curriculum, language and media, writing identity, and the impact of dialogic pedagogy on learner identity and learner motivation of language students.
In this study I explore how the writer identities of freshman graduates at The American University of Sharjah (AUS) are “labeled’ by the writing program placement tests administered to them by the institution. I discuss how these ascribed ‘labels’ often contrary to existing writer identities inherent in students; result in fixating an unfair ‘remedial writer identity’ upon the students which can lead to a lack of motivation and negativity towards the writing class. The data collected indicates that despite the range of cultural repertoires and multilingual contexts students negotiate between continuously, they are challenged by a ‘deficit writer identity’ at the institutional level, indicating to students that their linguistic capabilities ‘are sub-standard’ and ‘need fixing’. Firstly I present data which shows that writing placement tests ‘label’ the writing abilities of students’ often in contradiction with existing identities in students. Secondly by examining the results of survey and interview data, I argue that such institutionally positioned ‘labels’ indicate to students that their writing is ‘bad’, affecting their learner motivation and writer confidence and creating a ‘negativity’ associated with the writing composition class. Finally, I reflect on the need for pedagogical practices to become more sensitized to the needs of students in order to better understand and address the lack of motivation students seem to possess towards writing classes especially in the Middle Eastern region.
The present research aims to identify the effectiveness of the use of e-textbooks implemented in undergraduate programs at Ajman University from the faculty member’s perspective. The quantitative study applied an analytical descriptive approach on faculty member’s participants (128) from a variety of colleges, in the first academic semester of 2017/2018. The results of the study showed that there is a medium degree of application of e-textbooks and that e-textbooks have an average? medium impact on student achievement. The faculty members agree on the need to develop and improve the features and requirements of e-textbooks that have been applicated. The findings led to recommendations including the implementation of a training program on e-textbooks for the faculty members’ and students focusing on the features, applications and options of e-textbooks.