Iraq One - Text
Subject is male, born and raised in the holy city of Karbala. He worked in Baghdad as a teacher, and studied in the USA. He studied English literature in Iraq. He taught English in Iraq. Took an M.A. at Eastern Illinois University. Date of recording: unknown. Running time: 00:03:00.
TRANSCRIPTION OF UNSCRIPTED SPEECH
I was born in Iraq in a city called CaraBelle. Is a religious center for the Shia in Iraq. The majority of the Iraqi people are Shia people and CaraBelle is a center for that. It's a really just a city and I grew up in there. And then I finished my, uh, education, including high school, in CaraBelle and then went to Baghdad for my undergraduate education in English. And then I worked in Baghdad in [uh] as a teacher and also as a director of [uh] the office of the minister of higher education. And then I, uh… I got a scholarship, I came to the United States to study. Well in Iraq they they teach English, uh, I think beginning from level four or five in the primary school or elementary school. English as a subject. [uh] But I studied English [uh] when I went to the University of ____ at the English department. I studied things, literature, but uh, mainstream courses and and the novel, the drama, uh, mostly of Britain. Grammar of the English language and linguistics and so on. And then I taught English after that. I taught, uh, at the military college for two years in Iraq before coming here. And also I was a lecturer of the English language at a high school for girls. I spend about one year and a half, uh, in Illinois. I went to Eastern Illinois University and did the master's degree in English and also did some courses, undergraduate courses, in theatre: acting, directing, and so on. I didn't have that background so I had to make it up. And then I moved to Lawrence, uh, Kansas to for the PhD and another MA in theatre, and when I finished that I went to Florida. [laughs] This is where I live now.
UNSCRIPTED SPEECH TRANSCRIBED BY ELIZABETH TERREL, ASSOCIATE EDITOR FOR TRANSCRIPTIONS, May 21, 2008.