Interview Transcript

Interviewer: Hanan Rashwan

Interviewee: Nagwa Kassabgy

Date: March 13, 2017

Place: The American University in Cairo, Department of English Language Instruction

College: The American University in Cairo, Department of Journalism and Mass Communication

Professor: Kim Fox

Date Completed: March 13, 2017

12 March 2017 Interview Transcript

Persons present:
Hanan Rashwan - Interviewer
Professor Nagwa Kassabgy - Interviewee

Rashwan: Hi, Im Hanan Rashwan. I'm here with Professor Nagwa Kassabgy, can you please
tell me a littlea little more about yourself?

Kassabgy: I'm chair of the Department of English Language instruction, and I teach this lovely
Linguistics course, Linguistics 2210. It's a community-based learning course, and you know
about it, you were one of my best students by the way.

Rashwan: Thank you so much.

Kassabgy: And I also teach in the core curriculum. I teach a seminar course. And I teach of
course within ELI.

Rashwan: Okay, and this linguistics course is directly related to the AUC literacy program,
right?

Kassabgy: That's right.

Rashwan: Can you tell me more about that?

Kassabgy: Because it's a community-based learning course, we need to have a community

partner. Because the idea behind community-based learning is that the students go out into the
community and they serve, and by serving they are learning.
So our community partner is Human Resources, Office of Human Resources at AUC.

Rashwan: Okay.

Kassabgy: So the literacy program is with them, and we, in the academic area, teach the course
Linguistics 2210. The course is called Principles and Practice of Teaching English.
You do peer teaching. Theres a chapter that you have to teach us, remember? And you actually
teach, in a real life situation, the AUC workers. The custodians, the housekeepers, the cleaners,
the gardeners, the drivers, the security guards, all the people who work at AUC, and they're very
motivated. They want to learn English. So you're learning in class how to teach English, and you
are learning how to do it by actually teaching them in real-life

Rashwan: hands-on experience.

Kassabgy: That's right, hands-on experience, experiential learning

Rashwan: So I have a question, if the workers don't speak English, how is it that the students are
able to communicate with them in the classroom in order to teach them?

Kassabgy: Yeah, they have to discover, you learn by discovering. So they have to discover, what
is the best way to approach the situation? The teaching a foreign language to people who cannot
speak it. But by the way, Hanan, they're not totally zero level. Because they are like immersed in
this context where around them there's a lot of English. So we give them a placement test, or I
should say HR give them a placement test, that was written by English teachers and they place
them in the different levels. And it's like, there are zero beginners, but they pick up and they pick
up very fast because they're very motivated.

Rashwan: What is the concept of learning styles in detail? And how do you, as well as your
students, implement learning styles throughout the course?

Kassabgy: I think every teacher needs to be aware of this - different learners have different
learning styles. So some learners are visual, they need to see in order to learn. Some learners are
auditory, it's fine if they just listen, and this is how they learn. Other learners are kinesthetic, so
they have to be doing something in order to learn. So a good teacher will kind of assess or find
out the different learning styles of her students, and address or cater for all of them simply by
teaching in a variety of ways. So if the teacher comes in teaching in the same way every class,
its boring, it's monotonous and she's not really giving individual attention to the different
learners.
We talk about it at the beginning of my course and then the students actually go out there and
find out what are the different styles of these learners.

Rashwan: Okay and at the end of every semester there is an award ceremony, correct? Can you
tell me about that?

Kassabgy: Its a beautiful ceremony! You have no idea how touching, how fantastic it is. So, we,
the instructors who teach LING 2210, the LING 2210 students, and the workers go to the
ceremony, we're invited.
President Lisa Anderson used to attend every single one of them for many semesters. Plus Brian
MacDougall and other importantVIPs in the university and of course, people from HR. And
what happens is, the president speaks. Other people from HR speak. My students, the linguistics
students, speak about the experience. The workers themselves speak about the experience. And
one of them insists on speaking in English. And then they are awarded. The workers are awarded
certificates for completing the course. And my students are awarded certificates for-

Rashwan: teaching
Kassabgy: participating and for teaching

Rashwan: Excellent.

Kassabgy: the course.

Rashwan: Okay so

Kassabgy: And Hanan, you know, one important thing is, my students give up two hours of their
assembly hours every week to do the service. And they're very happy to do it.
There are reflection papers. The first one focuses on their academic enhancement, if they are
achieving the learning outcomes of course by doing this. The second one is about their sense of
community engagement. And the third one is about their personal growth. And its a joy to read
their reflections, Hanan. It's a joy.

Rashwan: Im sure. Alright, thank you so much for your time and thank you

Kassabgy: One final point is...

Rashwan: Yes!

Kassabgy: One thing I worry about: After theyve been through this, how effective is it when
they leave us?

Rashwan: Well Ipersonallythe course changed my entire thinking. Just because of the
experience, because it's soso rewarding to seesee their satisfaction, their personal growth,
their confidence change.

Kassabgy: Its lovely to hear this. It's lovely to hear this.

Rashwan: Thank you so much, Professor.