Challenges of teaching English in the Arab world: Why can’t EFL programs deliver as expected?

Fareh, Shehdeh

doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.559

Cited by 138 publications

(160 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…This expression indicates that the students are not proficient in English language even after studying the subject for many years. It goes to the credit of Fareh (2010) to bring to light some of the challenges of English as Foreign Language (EFL) programme in the Arab world, Saudi Arabia included; these are briefly mentioned below:…”

Section: Survey Of Current Literature: a Bird's Eye Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems of English Language Acquisition in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory-cum-remedial Study

Al-Nasser¹

2015

TPLS

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Abstract-'An international language belongs to its users, not to the countries whose national languages have become internationalized' (Edge 1992). With an ever increasing number of L2 users it is time we rewrote the description of the place of English among world languages. All types of interactions, more particularly between nations, are through English, for a reason no other than the fact that it is the only language in which non native users can possibly communicate. It is the language of science, technology and business apart from being significant in political or diplomatic dialogues. English Language has come to be owned by all people in the world of work. Saudi Arabia is no exception. Almost a hundred years on Saudi schools, colleges and universities teach English with primary and genuine concern. Still, just like non-native learners in other nonEnglish speaking countries, Saudi learners also confront many problems in their English Language acquisition. This study is a humble effort to bring out the major barriers and problems that Saudi students face while learning English; it proposes remedial measures for the said barriers and problems. In this study, the researcher has tried to focus on the teaching methodologies and learning atmosphere prevalent in Saudi English classrooms.

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Section: Survey Of Current Literature: a Bird's Eye Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Problems of English Language Acquisition in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory-cum-remedial Study

Al-Nasser¹

2015

TPLS

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“…Ecological factors lead to the near failure of EFL as a communicative tool in the globalized world (Fareh, 2010;Rahman and Alhaisoni, 2013;Shah et al, 2013). Teaching/learning EFL in Saudi governmental schools and universities is done like any other subject and the value of communication is just ignored.…”

Section: Discussion and Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They emphasize that KAU/EFL teachers may act against their perceptions and beliefs of best practice to adhere to contextual imperatives. The different socio-cultural and institutional constraints redirect and reframe teachers" methodologies (Fareh, 2010;Rahman and Alhaisoni, 2013). They mention that in Saudi EFL classes, teaching practices are compromised by constraints enforced by institutional authorities.…”

Section: The Kau/eli Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, another perspective that has to be addressed when analyzing teaching/ learning EFL at KAU/ELI in Saudi Arabia is the background socio-cultural, educational and ecological contexts and the very expectations of all the agents involved in this context and how these expectations evolve lead to a better understand of teaching/learning as affirmed internationally in (Li, 1998;Zeng and Murphy, 2007;Peng and Woodrow, 2010;Yang, 2010;Stelma and Fay, 2014) and in (Fareh, 2010;Rahman and Alhaisoni, 2013) and Shah et al (2013) in the Saudi context.…”

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confidence: 99%

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EFL Teachers Response to the Ecological Expectations of the Teaching Context at a Saudi University

Youssef

Shukri

2018

International Journal of Education and Practice

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Article HistoryThis paper presents the analysis of a case study on EFL experienced teachers in the English Language Institute of King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The aim of the study is to investigate if the expectations of the environment affects the intentional activity and the agency of the teachers in their classrooms. The focal area of the study is to identify ways intentional classroom activity of the teachers have changed according to the expectations of the different agents within the mentioned EFL ecological context despite the contradiction of this change with the teachers" cognition coming from their earlier education and practical experience. As for the research method, it is a case study where two semi-structured interviews were conducted with two experienced teachers. The results of these interviews demonstrate a positive correlation between the contextual expectations of the educational institution environment with all its constituents and the agency/the intentional activity of the teachers even if this intentional activity contradicts with the teachers" former knowledge and practice. Further studies using varied research tools is required to investigate into how teachers" practice is influenced by the expectations of the educational ecological setting. Contribution/Originality:This study is one of very few studies which have investigated the relationship between the contextual expectations of the educational institution environment in Saudi Arabia with all its constituents and the agency/the intentional activity of the teachers even if this intentional activity contradicts with the teachers" former cognition and practice.

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“…However, across the Arab world and other EFL contexts in Far East Asia, the main culprit behind defective classroom practices and degenerative outdated teaching methodologies are ineffective PD agenda (Cheng, 2004;Fareh, 2010). Therefore, any PD program that cannot explicitly develop teachers' classroom practices and methodologies will fail to promote a reform agenda and cause a psychological shift in teachers' teaching perceptions.…”

Section: Classroom Practicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shaping Professional Identity Through Professional Development: A Retrospective Study of TESOL Professionals

Ahmad¹,

Fatmawati²,

Nubli³

et al. 2018

IJEL

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In an educational milieu student learning outcomes are directly related to teacher professional identity (TPI) i.e. improvement in the TPI will bear a direct positive effect on the learners' academic achievements. Current study focuses on the development of TPI of English as a Foreign Language Teacher at English Language Institute (ELI) of a Saudi Arabian university through an in-service Cambridge English Teachers (CET) Professional Development (PD) program (CET-PD). Five determinants of TPI -Knowledge of Teaching Context (KCT), Collegial Collaboration (CC), Teaching Practices (TPs), Teacher Self-Efficacy (TSE), and Teacher Agency (TA)were studied before and after the PD program. Retrospective pretest-posttest research design was employed for addressing the research question: whereas responses on the five determinants were elicited from 120 participants through a self-administered questionnaire before and after the CET-PD program. Due to non-normality of data, a non-parametric statistic test-Wilcoxon signed Rank test was employed to analyze the collected data using SPSS. Results of the study revealed that three determinants of TPI -KCT, TSE, and TPs exhibited larger differences; whereas, for CC the differences were moderate and for TA the differences were minimal. By and large, due to in-service CET-PD program TPI exhibited improvement. The results of the study will be beneficial for teacher trainers to focus more on the teachers' awareness of the learners' and institutional contextual knowledge in a culture embedded in conservative norms. This study is a part of the quantitative phase of an ongoing Ph.D. project which employs mixed method convergent design.

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Challenges of teaching English in the Arab world: Why can’t EFL programs deliver as expected?

Cited by 138 publications

References 3 publications

Problems of English Language Acquisition in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory-cum-remedial Study

Problems of English Language Acquisition in Saudi Arabia: An Exploratory-cum-remedial Study

EFL Teachers Response to the Ecological Expectations of the Teaching Context at a Saudi University

Shaping Professional Identity Through Professional Development: A Retrospective Study of TESOL Professionals

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