Abstract
This Master´s thesis is about what characterizes the meeting between a language teacher and a Middle Eastern woman. As the meeting between language teachers and women from the Middle East may be characterized by conceptions and uncertainties for both parties due to cultural differences, which may influence the ability of Middle Eastern women to learn the Danish language. Therefore, we find it relevant to clarify what challenges exist in the meeting between language teachers and women from the Middle East. With the thesis we will investigate what experiences language teachers and women from the Middle East have in the meeting in Danish lessons. In order to investigate the experience of the language teachers and Middle Eastern women, we have chosen a hermeneutic approach. In addition, we have chosen this thesis to be based on a qualitative design, where we collect the data with a semi-structured interview guide. Data were collected at three different Danish language schools, where we interviewed five language teachers who have experience to teach Danish to women from the Middle East. In addition, we interviewed four women from Middle Eastern to gain insight into their experiences of meeting with language teachers. The theories we used to analyze language teachers and Middle Eastern women´s statements are Marianne Skyttes' research on culture and cultural understandings and Erving Goffman's stigma theory. The overall conclusion of this thesis shows that the language teachers try to do a good job of helping the women learn the Danish language, but the language barrier and the cultural difference affect the experience of the meeting. Likewise, Middle Eastern women explaining that language teachers try to understand them, but they still experience some challenges due of the cultural difference that emerges when both parties meet. Some of them mention that they feel that the language teachers are looking down on them and that language teachers do not understand women's challenges when it comes to learn Danish. Despite some of the women's experiences of feeling different and invisible, we can also depict from women's stories that women look down on language teachers due to the cultural differences. Furthermore, we can conclude that language teachers can subconsciously stigmatize and categorize women based on their culture and nationality due the challenges that appears when meeting the Middle East woman. However we also gained an insight into how language teachers, despite the challenges try to help and understand women. In addition, we gained knowledge about how language teachers try to improve communication and understanding in their work by asking the Middle East women´s background and by showing interest in what the women are telling and tried to teach women Danish based on what the women need to get better to speak Danish. The results of the study shows that despite the good cooperation of language teachers and attempts to understand Middle Eastern women, that culture fills so much that it is difficult to meet the individual woman from the social context the woman is in and instead leads the language teachers to meet the woman with cultural conditions. Therefore, we believe that this thesis can provide a basis for some reflection, a debate and perhaps suggestions on how to improve and deal with the complexity of meeting with Middle Eastern women in practice.