Fidelity to and satisfaction with prescribed curriculum in an Arab educational context: ESL teachers' perspective

ABSTRACT

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.

KEYWORDS:

• Curriculum design
• curriculum implementation
• teacher attitude
• ESL
• higher education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Maha Ellili-Cherif

Maha Ellili-Cherif is an assistant professor of curriculum and instructions at the College of Education, Qatar University. She has been involved in several research projects on literacy, and curriculum design and evaluation in ESL and EFL contexts in North Africa and the Arab Gulf region.

Hala Mohamed Hadba

Hala Mohamed Hadba holds an MA in TESOL from Exeter University, UK. She is currently a test administrator for Qatar University Testing Center. She has been involved in designing students' placement and progress tests, strategic planning and faculty portfolio appraisals.