I know, I know. My first course attempt should be less difficult to achieve. Using two languages significantly decreases my target audience. But hear me out. First of all: Hi! My name is Betule (Buh-tool) and I've been told that I'm good at explaining things though text. I might not be so great on camera, but that's a risk I'm going to take. One way to find out, right? I'm bilingual, from Saudi Arabia. My background is in medicine and research. I want to create a course that teaches people how to look at medical research, evaluate the strength of studies, and come to an appropriate conclusion independently of the paper's original researchers. This includes: explaining the difference between observational studies, experimental studies, and systematic reviews. explaining why experimental studies can suggest causation while observational studies generally can't. telling the story of the medical research industry: how it began with independent researchers following their passions and how it reached our current financially-driven state. I hope it's going to fun. I'm going to add little anecdotes where they fit, like Andrew Wakefield's story. This course is aimed at people who are completely ignorant of research methodology and just put their faith in the research industry -- exactly like I was before pursuing my master's degree. --- As for the target audience: I guess my main goal is to get the most out of this experience. Improving my teaching skills, making money, getting a reputation/adding to my CV. I'm not sure which language is the best way to get the best results. English: to reach the entire world If I explained it fully in English, I don't think I'd reach Saudi people at all. When operating entirely in English, it's hard for me to judge if my language is comprehensible to ESL speakers. I can get very boring very quickly as I try to avoid idioms, references, jokes that I know native Arabs won't understand. But I also want to be entertaining to first-world English speakers, and that won't work if I water everything down. So, English for the entire world is ruled out. I suppose I could break English into two parts: - English for native speakers and other fluent speakers who grew up online and have identity crises - English for people who learned it for their career but do not enjoy consuming American media Arabic: to reach a large or small portion of the Middle East It is customary in Saudi colleges and universities to present the course material in English but to explain it verbally in Arabic*. In this case, course material is written in simple English. The verbal explanations, however, can vary: - Using extremely clear Arabic - Using my regional accent Using my regional accent (Hijazi) would be less comprehensible but a lot more fun, maybe just because it reminds me of college where most of the professors were Egyptian. They used their regional accents! But they are better understood because Egyptian TV and music are popular. Hijazi TV and music barely exists, even for us. No matter what approach I end up going with, I am definitely not writing course material in Arabic (yet). I'll have to get paid up front to do that 😂. So with the written material in English, I have 4 different options for the verbal/video material, but I think it's more like a spectrum: I think I should go with simplified English or more general Arabic. What do you think? And after all that, what do I categorize the course as?! @ Udemy, can we see a way to mark courses as bilingual? I know there's a market for it. __________________ *This applies to medical colleges, probably architectural as well. Definitely not law.
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