No description available.

No description available.

The Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education (MoE) has implemented new policies and reform programs for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. Creating a set of guidelines may provide a solution to guide EFL teachers through implementing technology to teach EFL skills in their classroom. Using a developmental study, comprised of three phases (analysis, design and development, and evaluation and revision), research-based instructional strategies were operationalized using a set of guidelines instruction to guide EFL teachers to integrate technology in their EFL classroom. Using a comprehensive literature review and evaluation by expert reviewers and users, guidelines were designed and evaluated to provide EFL teachers with instructional strategies and supporting technology solutions to implement in their EFL classrooms. This study describes the development process of the guidelines, the expert review and users, and the validation and usability of the final product in the Saudi context. / PHD / The Saudi Arabia Ministry of Education (MoE) has implemented new policies and reform programs for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers to integrate technology in their classrooms. Creating a set of guidelines may provide a solution to guide EFL teachers through using technology to teach EFL skills in their classroom. Using a developmental study, consisted of three phases (analysis, design and development, and evaluation and revision), guidelines instruction was developed to guide EFL teachers in using technology in their EFL classroom. Using a comprehensive literature review and evaluation by expert reviewers and users, guidelines were designed and evaluated to provide EFL teachers with instructional strategies and supporting technology solutions to use in their EFL classrooms. This study describes the development process of the guidelines, the expert review and users, and the validation and usability of the final product in the Saudi context.

This study has been undertaken using an interpretive methodology in order to examine the socially constructed views of Saudi EFL teachers and their decision-making with regards to the appropriate cultural models for EFL textbooks in Saudi public schools. The study also examines the factors affecting the teachers’ views and how they apply their beliefs in their classrooms. In addition, the study will also examine if the Saudi EFL teachers have any concerns about what they have been through and examined and accordingly investigates how they address their pedagogical decision-making in the classroom. Moreover, this study is interested in looking at EFL teachers as local teachers teaching a global language. In view of the exploratory nature of this study and its context-specificity, the naturalistic orientation of interpretive and social constructivism as an epistemological stance were selected. The research design employed a concurrent mixed methods design using an adapted version of Cresswell (1996). In this study, the participants were Saudi Arabian EFL teachers from one city in Saudi Arabia teaching in all of the three public education levels (primary, intermediate and secondary). The data collected were both qualitative (interviews and open-ended questionnaires) and quantitative (close-ended questionnaires). For the interviews, 14 male and female teachers equally interviewed, whereas for the questionnaires 280 male and female participated. The data collection of both data qualitative and quantitative occurred at the same time during my field journey in 2009 in Saudi Arabia. I used the SPSS descriptive statistics for the analysing the quantitative data and used exploratory content analysis for the qualitative data. The study findings revealed that the Saudi EFL teachers were not satisfied with the cultural content currently promoted in the Textbooks as they inappropriately contradict the local cultural values. Thus, they believe that for a better cultural content, the textbooks should therefore include a mixture of different cultures that do not mismatch with the local. And as they are controlled by some educational and social factors, they are limited to practice what they think is appropriate to apply in the classroom, therefore, their decision-making in this regards to some extent are to be controlled. In addition, the findings of the current study revealed that the Saudi EFL teachers show their openness to other cultures based on their glocal position as local Saudis teaching a global language. The conclusion of the study has some suggestion and implications to improve the cultural content of the EFL textbooks as well as implications for the EFL teachers in general and their practices and decision-making with regards to the textbook. Furthermore, the study proposed a model for the appropriate EFL textbooks for each educational level and can be applied locally in the Saudi context and globally for other similar context around the world.

The instructional strategies implemented by the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in an international technical college in Saudi Arabia did not prepare students at an intermediate level of proficiency on the Common European Framework of Reference. As a result, more than 77% of the first-year students were not progressing to the specialized diploma studies in the second and third years of their learning journey. Thus, the purpose of this exploratory case study was to better understand the instructional strategies adopted by instructors and the barriers to students developing their English skills. Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD) served as a framework of the study because it is aligned with the purpose and it emphasizes the context of instructional strategies in understanding how knowledge and learning are constructed. Multiple sources of data and interviews with 8 participants were used to investigate the research problem. Data were analyzed using thematic coding based on the conceptual framework followed by open coding to discover any emerging themes. Data analysis revealed that the observed teachers did not implement the student-centered instructional strategies discussed in Vygotsky's conceptual framework or ZPD-informed strategies. By designing a professional development program to train teachers on student-centered instructional strategies such as feedback, scaffolding, and student engagement, the results of this study can be used to lead to positive social change by educating teachers on strategies to help students develop better English skills.

The present study aimed at investigating the video-enhanced reflections of Iranian EFL teachers. It also made an attempt to cast light on the differences between male and female teachers’ video-enhanced self-reflections of their own teaching process. Moreover, the role of experience in changing their video-enhanced reflection was explored. Applying instruments like video-recording, reflection checklists and semi-structured interviews, this study implemented a mixed-method approach with a triangulation design focusing on both quantitative and qualitative data. The findings of the study demonstrate that the video-enhanced reflections of Iranian EFL teachers mostly pivot around issues consisting of innovative teaching strategies, classroom management, learners’ characteristics, classroom interactions, teacher talk, organization of the lessons, technology resources and visual aids. Results also show that the above-mentioned reflections are both experience and gender-sensitive.

The present study aimed at investigating the video-enhanced reflections of Iranian EFL teachers. It also made an attempt to cast light on the differences between male and female teachers’ video-enhanced self-reflections of their own teaching process. Moreover, the role of experience in changing their video-enhanced reflection was explored. Applying instruments like video-recording, reflection checklists and semi-structured interviews, this study implemented a mixed-method approach with a triangulation design focusing on both quantitative and qualitative data. The findings of the study demonstrate that the video-enhanced reflections of Iranian EFL teachers mostly pivot around issues consisting of innovative teaching strategies, classroom management, learners’ characteristics, classroom interactions, teacher talk, organization of the lessons, technology resources and visual aids. Results also show that the above-mentioned reflections are both experience and gender-sensitive.

Reading English literature can help learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to develop their reading ability as well as other language skills. Reading can also have other benefits for EFL students such as learning about the target language’s culture or an English variety in written form. This present study investigates what types of literature are used in Swedish upper secondary school, the EFL teachers’ attitudes towards short stories compared to simplified novels/graded readers and their preferred assessment methods associated with literature teaching. The majority of the teachers that took part in this survey have a positive attitude towards short stories and use them in their EFL classes. The results also show that after the students have completed reading a short story, most of the teachers that participated in this survey preferred to combine examination methods such as a group discussion with a written test.The title of this paper comes from one of the informants’ comments when asked if she would rather use a short story or a graded reader in her English class. This informant had used graded readers in her English language classroom, but she and everyone that took part in this survey chose short stories over graded readers.

The purpose of this interpretive qualitative case study was to explore how possible selves of four pre-service EFL teachers changed during their last 10 months at university and what factors were involved in developing and changing their possible selves. The concept of possible selves is a future-oriented self-concept that involves one's motivation to move toward one's ideal future selves and move away from one's feared selves. Ought-to selves are also believed to work as motivators. The main data sources included two written possible selves stories from each participant, four sets of semi-structured interviews, short e-mail messages with emoticons, and official practicum reports. Through a narrative analysis of these data, I found that participants' rather general possible teacher selves changed to more realistic, elaborated ones after they had experienced practicums. These revised possible selves were not always in the direction of more positive, more ideal selves, but also toward feared and ought-to teacher selves. The data analysis also revealed that the participants found a large gap between their actual L2 selves and ought-to L2 selves, and consequently they developed feared L2 selves who would likely get embarrassed in front of others because of their poor English speaking ability. However, they took no action to prevent their feared L2 selves because becoming fluent in English was possibly seen as a temporally distant unreachable goal that did not merit an investment of time and energy. The study also found that interpersonal relationships with parents, teachers in the past, cooperating teachers during practicum, students at school, and peers were important factors contributing to participants' developing and changing possible selves. I end with suggestions that policy makers, universities, teacher educators, and supervising teachers of student teachers seriously consider issues that will help improve English education in Japan as well as lead to better teacher education programs to prepare EFL pre-service teachers for the rather harsh conditions in the teaching profession in Japan. / Teaching & Learning

This study aims to outline, describe, and analyse, using interviews, phenomenology and Marxism, the manner in which EFL teachers in Sweden have experienced the methodological impacts and the ideological implications of the 2011 syllabus reforms. By means of phenomenological reduction, this study aims to accurately represent the life-world of the Swedish EFL professional. Doing so yields insight into the connections between ideology, syllabi, teaching methodologies, and the manner in which these are experienced. The study is based on a text analysis of the 2011 syllabus grounded in Marxist philosophy and four interviews with teachers active in southern Sweden. The design of the interviews was drawn from the phenomenological approach, meaning that the teachers were asked to describe and conceptualise freely. In this manner the phenomena will occur as they are, enabling the researcher to describe without intruding, and extrapolate without interrupting. The interviews revealed the syllabus to be a document with which EFL professionals have little quarrel. Its communicative approach was well-received by the teachers, but by no means overwhelmingly revolutionary. Its openness and interpretative aspects were positive and negative, as it created both freedoms and risks in terms of content and assessment. In ideological terms, the syllabus represented a skill-value relation, where skills and knowledge are subject to criteria of usefulness and marketability within the learners’ future work life.