Traning Center

This paper maintains that Iraq’s identity is at least partly determined by the multiplicity of its religions and sects. Also, the paper proposes that this multiplicity can be a source of sociocultural richness and a potential engine for its socio-political unity if religious minorities can maintain their unique communal identities within a tolerant integrated political system.
However, current conditions reveal a situation whereby minority religious groups are induced to be aware of their minority status by the laws of the land, including the constitution, despite official claims of tolerance towards these minorities. The standing policy of the state mandates that Islam is the official and the only religion that can (and must) be taught and the grades students get in Islamic Education subject are considered an asset for Muslim students in public schools with some exception in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Minority students are free not to attend religion classes. Their churches and temples are places where they can be (freely!) taught to the young, but without any public obligation or support involved in the process of doing so. Hence, minority children are made (by law) to feel not only different but virtually discriminated against.
This paper demonstrably suggests that such outcome is bound to leave serious fissures in the fabric of society and make the lack of socio-religious integrity a major impediment of national unity and political of the state. Minorities, therefore, can possibly be functionally reduced to second class citizens in a supposedly democratizing state.
This paper will end by proposing reforms to the educational system whereby minority students, and therefore, minority communities, will develop attitudes and nurture values that are in the spirit of equality, justice, and human rights as such. Such reforms will be in the essence of democratic governance without infringing on the civil and/or political rights of the citizenry as a whole. Indeed, such reforms will enhance unity in society and the state. Such will be the salvation of a system that is destined to remain seriously lacking without solving the problem of religious minorities in Iraq.

This paper looks at the process of designing English for Specific Purposes (ESP) program for learners of homogeneous disciplines within Mosul Technical College of Management, Mosul Technical Institute and similar Iraqi educational institutions. It stresses the importance of the identification of a 'common core' of English language needs among the program participants, as well as teaching a diverse range of discourses and genres to meet their 'specific' needs. It is argued in this study that the consideration of 'common core' and 'specific' needs in course design for program participants from homogeneous backgrounds can greatly enhance their English language competence. Thus the ultimate aim of this paper is to suggest a blueprint of a program that takes these considerations into account and be the basis for programs in different genres.

This paper gives a brief review of how a shift in emphasis from formal rules of language to what it is that makes language appropriate in a given situation, has given rise to an interest in languages for particular purposes. The origins, emergence and definitions of ESP together with factors and considerations affecting ESP curriculum and course designs and how an ESP program designer looks at the specific purposes of learners have been also discussed here. Finally materials developments, aim of the syllabus, course objectives and course outlines have been explained.

This paper maintains that foreign language teaching does not only involve linguistic competence/performance and verbal communication but also it is much to do with intercultural awareness and intercultural skills: understanding how an identity and a culture are socially constructed and the abilities of discovery of ‘the other’ (Pędich, Draghicescu, Issaiass and Šabec, 2003, p. 7). Also the goals behind learning a foreign language are not only a matter of acquiring that language but also helping learners acquire knowledge, culture, values and education that can be utilized in their life beyond the classroom , link them to their lives and take them back into their community ; it aims at developing learners as intercultural speakers or mediators who are equipped with cultural background so that they can use the language efficiently in socially and culturally appropriate ways and who are able to “engage with complexity and multiple identities and to avoid the stereotyping which accompanies perceiving someone through a single identity” (Byram, Gribkova and Starkey, 2002, p. 5). Language education should also aim at "producing men who possess both culture and expert knowledge“(Whitehead, 1929, p. 1). In addition, learning and using languages is about citizenship and democracy (Guilherme, 2002); it is about “people coping with contexts of diversity and with mutable needs and aims” (Ara´ujo e S´a and S´ılvia Melo, 2007, p. 7). The aim of this paper is to shed light on how Language Awareness (LA), Intercultural Awareness (IA) and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) can help learners transfer culture, knowledge, values and education beyond the classroom to influence their way of thinking and consequently their view of life on the basis that a language educational system should inspire a student to understand, explore and think about the world around him/her through and besides learning that language. This paper also calls for a significant attention to intercultural communication in Foreign Language Teaching (FLT) and it stresses its increasingly important role in FLT in order to develop students’ intercultural communicative awareness and competence.
Keywords: applied linguistics; culture and language teaching; communicative language teaching; intercultural awareness; intercultural communicative competence.
Introduction