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Fidelity to and satisfaction with prescribed curriculum in an Arab educational context: ESL teachers' perspective
Author(s) -
Ellili-Cherif Maha,
Hadba Hala Mohamed
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
the curriculum journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.843
H-Index - 36
eISSN - 1469-3704
pISSN - 0958-5176
DOI - 10.1080/09585176.2016.1240885
Subject(s) - curriculum , context (archaeology) , curriculum mapping , perspective (graphical) , discretion , quality (philosophy) , pedagogy , curriculum theory , mathematics education , psychology , medical education , sociology , curriculum development , political science , medicine , computer science , geography , philosophy , epistemology , artificial intelligence , archaeology , law
Educational institutions in the Arab Gulf are requiring rapid changes to enhance English language learning to keep up with globalization and economic growth. This urges the need for investigating policy changes such as effectiveness in curriculum orientations and their impact on the actual process of teaching in order to gauge how educational institutions are performing. This paper reports the findings of a survey study on curriculum enactment in the English Language Foundation Program of a higher education institution in the Arab Gulf region. Data collection methods included a survey and interview with teachers investigating their opinions about the curriculum, how much support it offers teachers to reach the objectives of the course, and whether/to what extent as well as the reasons why they feel they need to modify the curriculum at the implementation level. Results showed that most teachers exercised discretion in using the prescribed curriculum materials due to individual contextual factors. Results also indicated that either when implementing the prescribed or modified materials, most participants highlighted the importance of using reliable quality resource materials that can help teachers as well as students to enhance the learning process. Findings have implications for English as a second language curriculum design in Arab higher educational contexts.