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Teaching the world to sing - cross-cultural considerations
Weiler, Sherri
Weiler, Sherri
Description
Abstract
In 2016, I accepted a position teaching voice at the American University of Sharjah (AUS) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Sharjah is known as the "cultural and educational emirate," while nearby Dubai strives to be known as the "commercial, or business emirate." AUS has a higher percentage of international students than any other world-ranked institution, according to an analysis of the UK-based Times Higher Education data. Some 84% of the university's student body is made up of international students, who come from nearly 100 different countries including but not limited to India, the United States, Canada, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Africa, Pakistan, Southeast Asia, and the UAE. Every lesson I teach, every learning interaction in or out of the classroom, is encountered and shared through these multicultural lenses. This amazing experience has challenged me to reduce my teaching to the most universally accessible concepts I can find; consequently, I have created a way to reformulate my tried and- true-in-the-US methods to encompass the diversity of the students I now teach.