The Features of Effective English Teachers as Viewed by English Language Teachers and High School Students in Saudi Arabia (Published)
This paper aimed to study the features of effective English teachers as viewed by English language teachers and high school students in Saudi Arabia. The study consists of 17 English language teachers and 17 secondary school students, all from Saudi Arabia. The study depended on the descriptive approach to evaluate English teachers language proficiency, pedagogical knowledge and socio-affective features. The results asserts that the teachers advocated socio-affective skills, English proficiency, and pedagogical knowledge in order of importance, whereas the students advocated English proficiency, socio-affective skills, and pedagogical knowledge. The results show that the features of effective English teachers within the language proficiency are reading, writing and comprehension proficiency. For pedagogical knowledge, the research indicates the significant of preparing the lesson and using various teaching aids. Finally, the socio-affective features of English language effective teachers are “listening to the students” and “to be fair with all students”.
Keywords: English Teachers, High School, Language, Saudi Arabia, Student
LEARNING ENGLISH IN SAUDI ARABIA: A SOCIO- CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE (Published)
This study aims at investigating the cultural factors which predispose Saudi students towards learning English in Saudi Arabia from the point of view of Saudi teachers and students. The researcher attempts to examine these factors from Islamic social perspectives by raising questions that examine how positive these factors are and how they encourage and motivate students to learn English language. These cultural factors are : Islam, national identity, globalization, westernization, Saudi teenagers’ attitudes and beliefs, motivation, travelling, social websites, knowing the purpose of learning, need for communication, native speakers’ teachers, and the learning of Arabic language by native speakers of English .The qualitative descriptive research method was used. Two data-gathering tools were used for data collection: a questionnaire and an interview. The total number of the subjects was 226 participants. The analysis of the collected data shows that the most influencing factors upon learning English in Saudi Arabia are traveling abroad to learn English, knowing the purpose of learning English and Saudi teenagers’ beliefs and attitudes . The least influencing factors upon learning English in Saudi Arabia are Islam and westernization.
Keywords: English Language Learning, Islamic Culture, Saudi Arabia, Western Culture