The document discusses several issues with the English language program at NITI and provides suggestions for improvement. Specifically, it notes that NITI lacks an English curriculum tailored to job skills and has teaching faculty without proper qualifications or commitment to quality. Recommendations include appointing an experienced language principal, developing job-specific curricula based on corporate needs, improving teaching quality through certification programs, and requiring teachers to demonstrate written mastery and commitment to NITI's mission. The overall goal is to better align English instruction with technical training to prepare trainees for their professions.

1. Dear Dr. A,
I was very glad to see you again as I was leaving NITI today and continue our discussion about
what might be improved at NITI especially as it impinges on the role IIL is currently playing here.
The major challenge and opportunity is to address the delivery of English study for non-native
Saudi Trainees and it falls into the following areas:
1) The English curriculum
2) Identifying why each trainee is there and articulating that clearly and unequivocally so
there is complete buy in and commitment on their part.
3) Suitability of teaching faculty
4) Lack of leadership which has total commitment to issues of quality and quality standards.
First the English language curriculum: NITI doesn’t have one. Instead it has books that are
intended for university foundation courses but which have virtually no applicability to English for
Special Purposes (ESP) entailed in numerous job categories in different technical industries and
technical fields which NITI seeks to serve. Further, these books have errors which trainees usually
spot. (This is quality issue in itself which receives little attention and generates less concern on the
part of the current language vendor.)
Also, the pacing schedule allows coverage of material on an ephemeral level, but leaves little room
for real lesson planning which has depth as well as breadth. Worse, because assessments are also
done by the language provider there is little opportunity to create tutelage that allows trainees to
approach exams with confidence and the expectation of success. Neither are the trainees given
access to the exams once taken nor specific feedback on what needs to be improved or retaught.
Even worse, though, is that at this point in time too many trainees enter skills workshops unable
to speak, read, write and comprehend English on a rudimentary level. Consequently, when given
skills curriculum that is populated with technical terms pertinent to that skill they have trouble
receiving and producing written and spoken language that allows transformation of that
information into job specific knowledge which will either become the threshold – or sadly in some
cases a barrier – to entering their technical profession. (This is also a possible cause for the
deportment issues many trainees have in the workshops.)
Numerous but fruitless attempts over the past few months to ascertain the job specifications and
matching person specification in the different cohorts at NITI where this writer has taught, indicate
that the various corporate clients either don’t have them or are unwilling to share them
Consequently, if a Trainee is assigned to a cohort of future field operators how can the Trainer
know how to put pressure in his tutelage on the terms, concepts and processes such as level, flow,
pressure and temperature or focus on detailed and persuasive argument in a cohort of clerical
Trainees being trained to digest, correct and transmit others’ language?
This is not, though, an appeal for English language Trainers to become experts in those technical
fields. It is, rather, a consideration of their having the ability to know what parts of general English
can best platform job specifics which will be encountered in the skills workshops. Across the board,

2. this entails the need for the ability to deliver accurate description, analyze problems and evaluate
alternative solutions. This is where argument and critical thinking come to the fore and why
English language Trainers need to populate their tutelage with concepts of efficiency, being on the
time, exactness, accuracy and work ethic. After all, each trainee is a cost and once he is at work he
will be expected to deliver value that minimizes cost and maximizes his employer’s value added
proposition at the heart of the latter’s competitiveness.
This is an entrepreneurial mindset that few of the Trainers I have met at NITI are willing to
consider. The majority see themselves as just ESL teachers delivering an assigned curriculum with
no ramifications outside the ESL pedagogical space. Further, most have no use for a quality
assurance regimen that ensures consistency across the teaching cohort. This is sadly obvious in
some Trainers refusing to wear the stipulated NITI work attire.
Of greater concern, though, is teacher quality which points to ineffective hiring practices. This, as
well as all of the foregoing, indicates a need to have an interview process that discloses whether
the prospective teacher/trainer has a clear value proposition for his teaching, understands the
mentoring dimension of the work here that is just as important as his tutelage and is committed to
personal Kaizen, i.e. his own quest to continually up his teaching game. Further, does the teacher
have the education, training and experience teaching in vocational work space where English
knowledge in the abstract is subordinated to the ability to enable trainees to generalize language
effectively, accurately and efficiently in the latter’s professional skill? Sadly, some of the current
Trainers also have flawed spoken English. It is not uncommon currently to hear expression of the
simple past through use of the past participle. To whit: “I seen he done it.” In addition, when math
and science teachers are asked to teach English, one sees them spending inordinate amounts of
time preparing what are after all rudimentary language lessons because they lack the requisite
training and classroom experience. This brings me to my final point: Lack of leadership.
Currently there is no clearly visible educational leader that understands and has mastered all of the
foregoing and is able to engineer teaching staff construction, staff development as well foster
inception of appropriate curriculum development including, as necessary, writing the latter from
the ground up. And once that is done, continually inspiring and guiding both the technical and
language teaching cohorts to contribute cooperatively to NITI’s commitment to its Mission:
To provide best-in-class technical training to prepare a skilled and competent workforce for the
hydrocarbon related industries through accredited benchmarked programs and on-the-job
training.
Suggested action steps:
1. Appoint a qualified and experienced language principal who will contribute to the
elimination of the barriers between the language and technical sides of NITI and refocus
the former to a role of enabling and serving the latter.
2. Have corporate clients provide and/or write job and persons specification for jobs that
training at NITI is meant to address.

3. 3. Write a curriculum that is able to serve these specific, published job specifications and
concomitant person specifications for designated job skills that allows Trainers to populate
their praxis with the content and critical thinking leading to all Trainees embracing and
actuating NITI’s Mission in each.
4. Provide workshops on In Kingdom Total Value Added (IKTVA), Six Sigma (fat and lean),
ISO 900X, Quality Management Systems (QMS) and Total Quality Management (TQM),
and allow/enable English Language Trainers to obtain certification in same as well as sit
in on Skills workshops
5. Require all prospective – even existing – Trainers to write a personal and professional value
proposition to gauge their commitment to quality and to NITI’s mission as well as
demonstrate mastery of written discourse.
Thank you for considering my ideas. Would like very much to be a contributor and/or presenter at
your workshop(s) next week.
Wendel Maunula
M.A.T. English with Honors