The Impact of the IELTS Writing Test on Postgraduate Students in Kuwait (Published)
International students seeking to further their education in foreign countries require high English language test scores on IELTS or other language assessments to gain admission into a university. These tests have direct impacts, referred to as washback effects, whether positive or negative, on learning and English acquisition, particularly on learning new vocabulary, grammar, and creative writing skills by postgraduate students. While washback concepts have been studied over the years, there is little research regarding the IELTS writing assessment’s washback effects, especially on international students. In this study we adopted a qualitative research technique with interviews and a sample of 10 postgraduate students to analyze the impact of the writing assessment task on English language learning, especially on acquisition of new vocabulary, grammar, and creative writing skills. The study reveals the writing test’s washback effect on the way students learn their second language, showing that it impacts their writing skills, creativity, and new vocabulary acquisition.
Keywords: IELTS, Kuwait, Students, postgraduate, writing test
Measuring the Self-Efficacy of EFL Teachers in Elementary Governmental Schools in Kuwait: Exploring Years of Teaching Experience (Published)
Teachers’ self-efficacy has been identified as an important concept that not only influences the way in which teachers teach, but also students’ learning outcomes. A review of the current literature shows that EFL teachers’ self-efficacy is influenced by many factors, including teaching strategies, professional development training, active mastery experience, teachers’ practical knowledge and language proficiency, as well as the length of teaching experience. The last factor is relevant to the current study. There have been inconclusive findings regarding the effect of years of teaching; while some studies have reported a positive relationship between years of teaching experience and self-efficacy, other studies have reported the opposite. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of this factor on EFL teachers’ self-efficacy in terms of classroom management, students’ engagement and instructional strategies. The study was conducted with 200 EFL female teachers in governmental elementary schools in Kuwait. Data were collected through online surveys and quantitatively analysed using SPSS. The findings suggest that there were no statistically significant differences (at 0.05 level) between the means in the study sample in terms of self-efficacy in student engagement, classroom management and instructional strategies in relation to the years of teaching experience variable. Based on these findings, it is argued that teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs may remain stable once they are formed. Therefore, there is a need for teacher training courses that raise teachers’ awareness of the importance of their self-efficacy.
Keywords: EFL Teachers, Governmental Schools, Kuwait, Self-Efficacy, Teaching Experience
THE USE THE L1 IN THE PRIMARY CLASSROOMS IN KUWAIT (Published)
Drawing on an ethnographic approach, this research aims at exploring how teachers use L1 in the primary classrooms in Kuwait government schools. It reports on the process of generating qualitative data, namely teacher interview to answer the research question. A brief background of the literature on the use of L1 in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom is presented first. Then a rationale for using teacher interview as a qualitative method is discussed. Data analysis and interpretation show how the data from the teacher interview resulted in the same views as that of the literature and research and new ones emerged from the interview that were not in the literature. Finally, it concludes with the researchers’ reflection on the whole process.
Keywords: Kuwait, L1, Primary Classrooms