Arabic language teacher professional development (original) (raw)
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Second Language Acquisition In The UAE: Refocusing Attention On Teacher Professional Development
Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2017
Numerous education reform initiatives of the decade have not improved student performance as was initially hoped in the United Arab Emirates. This has been borne out by the results of international assessments. After studying English throughout their K-12 years, school leavers are, in many instances, unable to speak or write coherently in English. This naturally raises questions about the skills and qualifications of teachers. It certainly appears there is a major issue confronting English education and education reform in the United Arab Emirates.One reason is that scant attention has been paid to what really transpireson a daily basisin the classroom. This paper refocuses attention on the classroom, specifically on how efficient professional development can change teachers' classroom behaviours in ways that lead to demonstrable improvement in student performance. One of the paper's principal observations is that continuousprofessional development programs are generally better than individual seminars and workshops which are one-time events. The paper concludes by showing that perhaps a combination of online professional development and face-to-face trainingwill help,by giving teachers opportunities to practice what they learn over relatively extended periods of time, and offering a level of convenience that conventional professional development does not.
2009
This study examines teachers' practices for developing early primary stage (6-9 year-old) pupils' reading in Arabic in the northern region of Jordan using a 25-item self-assessment checklist and a semi-structured interview. The subjects reported that their practices stem more from extrinsic motivation (e.g. responding to calls for enabling children to take part in literary competitions) than from intrinsic motivation (e.g. a personal interest in reading). The findings showed that 22 items of the Checklist scored moderate to little degrees of practice, which was further confirmed by the results of the interview. Besides, although there were no statistically significant differences among the subjects' reports of their practices which may be attributed to the effect of gender and academic qualification, statistically significant differences were found due to teaching experience, having studied literacy-related coursework in pre-service preparation, and having a personal int...
Professional Development in Education
Research over the last 15 years has reported that for professional development to be effective, in terms of changing teachers' knowledge and/or instructional strategies, it needs to be conducted taking into consideration the following factors: teachers' existing knowledge, experience and attitudes towards the professional development, school administrative factors, opportunities for classroom-based follow-up and gathering data concerning student achievement to measure the impact or effectiveness of the professional development. These factors were all carefully considered when creating, planning and implementing the professional development model for this study. The results indicate that an evidence-based professional development model which included a workshop, classroom observations and coaching significantly improved participants' instructional practice over the course of one year while implementing Let's Decode, a semi-scripted, explicit and direct approach to teaching phonological awareness and systematic decoding instruction when teaching beginning reading.
Arabic Language Teachers in the State of Michigan: Views of Their Professional Needs
Open Journal of Modern Linguistics, 2014
A full-day summer conference directed by this investigator took place in Dearborn city under the umbrella of Western Michigan University for professional development of Arabic teachers serving public, private, and academic charter schools in Michigan. The theoretical framework for conducting the conference was focused on the issue of teaching strategies as well as the needs assessment of teachers for improving their professional development. A group of fifty teachers volunteered to participate in the conference and were asked to complete a twelve-item questionnaire designed to provide their professional profile and their preference in developing professional development. Their professional profile included years of Arabic teaching experience in the United States, teaching level (elementary school, middle school, or high school), teaching certificate, academic credentials, and type of school (public, private, or charter school). The findings indicated that among the ten sub-items related to the professional development skills of the teachers, "Implementing differentiated language instruction" was rated by the participating teachers as the most important components of their professional development skills; followed in order by "Integrating technology and Arabic instruction"; "Using effective learner-centered teaching strategies"; "Using and maintaining Arabic language"; "Implementing a standards-based curriculum"; "Developing curriculum and thematic units"; "Implementing performance assessment methods"; "Conducting constructive action research in Arabic instruction"; "Conducting the Oral Proficiency Interview"; and "Learning how to be a certified Arabic language teacher in Michigan". In response to the questions regarding the role of Council in supporting Arabic teachers, the participating teachers made a number of constructive suggestions to help improve the quality of teaching Arabic with special focus on facilitating appropriate teaching materials and other instructional tools as a part of curriculum development.
Arabic Language Teacher Education Chapter 12.pdf
Quality teacher preparation programs have been shown to greatly impact student learning outcomes as studies often refer to the importance of quality teacher education as a key factor in learning. Linguistic realities in the Arab world reflect a bleak situation where Arabic language teachers remain largely poorly prepared and deprived of sustained and meaningful professional development. This situation is manifested in students’ results on international standardized Arabic language proficiency tests. This chapter describes current practices in teacher Arabic language teacher education and cites student Arabic language learning outcomes as demonstrated on the 2011 PIRLS test. The chapter covers research done on the importance of effective teacher education including quality of preservice admissions, and field experiences associated with those programs.
Lublin Studies in Modern Languages and Literature
This study examines the potential effect of Shaping the Way We Teach English, a teacher professional development program, on Jordanian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ instructional practices. The participants of the study are 20 Jordanian EFL teachers selected from 14 public schools in North Ghour Directorate of Education in the first semester of the academic year 2018/2019. Observations of the participants, along the seven domains of classroom management, language, teaching strategies, learning strategies, assessment strategies, authentic materials, and reflection, were conducted before and after the treatment to determine whether or not the treatment has an effect on the participants’ instructional practices. Descriptive statistics were used to compare the participants’ performance before and after the treatment. The findings revealed that the participants gained on all seven domains of the observation checklist, with statistically significant differences found (at ...
An investigation into the professional development of English teachers in Syrian secondary schools
2018
Despite continued interest and research into teacher professional development (TPD), as an important topic within English language teaching, the researcher identified some areas where there is much still to reveal. These include: teachers' customary engagement with different TPD activities aside from when a researcher imposes some TPD activity on them for a study (normal TPD practices); whether teachers are aware of the notion of TPD, and, if so, what they think it is; what TPD activities they would ideally like to follow: and what they and other stakeholders in a particular context see as the effects of TPD on teaching (beliefs about TPD). I interviewed twenty secondary school teachers of English in provincial Syria, of varying backgrounds (e.g. years of experience, training, rural or urban teaching location) and eighteen other stakeholders with a range of relevant roles in the same context (e.g. head teachers, trainers, ministry officials). The data was analysed thematically a...