While the gears of change turn slowly in Saudi Arabia, they do turn. Saudi Gazette/Okaz report that efforts to teach English in state schools, starting at the fourth grade, will come into effect. Soon… two years from now.
When I was last assigned to Saudi Arabia in 2003, the effort was to introduce English language instruction at the sixth grade. It was a contentious issue, with many decrying the ‘foreignization’ of young Saudis. Now, English is being taught in the fifth grade. Moving two grades in ten years is not a negligible advance – it takes far more than just willing it to be so. Teachers must be trained or hired from abroad; textbooks must be written; all the supplemental materials must be created or bought.
English language classes to be rolled out in schools
Kingdom-wide as planned: Official
Abdullah Obaidallah Al-Ghamdi \ Okaz/Saudi GazetteJEDDAH – English language classes for 4th grade public school students will be formalized within two years and rolled out to all of the Kingdom’s schools, said Naif Al-Roumi, Undersecretary for Development and Planning at the Ministry of Education.
Previously, students began learning English language in the 5th grade, however, after much criticism, the ministry launched a pilot program to introduce English language classes a year earlier. A total of 4,182 boys and girls in schools all over the Kingdom took part in the pilot program this past academic year.
Al-Roumi said the program had been a success and categorically denied that the ministry had shelved plans to introduce English language classes to 4th graders.
…
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
August:23:2012 - 16:55
I’m not sure what tangible change this will have…but I hope that it does do something good. I’m sure there is a demand for it from parents with the way the world is trending.
Any easing of restrictions, I suppose is good news.
Slight contrary to that in a conference I attended in 2007 on teaching English in Saudi Arabia “Challenges and Opportunities” a guest speaker, the former Minister of Education, had said that he “wished” that students could start learning English earlier, as early as elementary grades, and then he also expressed the “wish” that this would not be necessary but then reluctantly admitted that the hard reality of English’s place in the world (source of a great amount of the research, literature etc.,)
August:24:2012 - 03:42
Bahrain was introducing children to English in the fifth grade when I arrived in 87. Years later they changed it to first grade after realizing leaving it until fifth grade was probably too late for many. However, my 23 years of experience and 5 kids in govt schools has shown me that the caliber of material and less than qualified teachers has to improved the standard of English learned. Bahrainis are still graduating with substandard English skills in too high of numbers to put it all down to laziness on their part to learn…though for some I’m sure that’s the case.
Saudi needs to focus on quality as well as when to start teaching it for it to pay off.
August:24:2012 - 03:46
*has to improve to improve standard of English learned….neither of which has changed in years.
August:24:2012 - 07:56
At the university, I had students who thought their English was exceptional and were very upset when their grades weren’t matching that grandiose delusion. Part of it is laziness. I’ll admit that each institution has its own “type” of student and I cannot stereotype for all. The rest is quite complicated and requires an entire discourse in itself. I would say to my students, “I have no doubt you are exceptional but until you show me evidence of such I will grade you upon what I observe.”
That observation upon which I would assess my students included PRODUCTION…which depending on the educational insitution I was at, it was either somewhat encouraged or highly discouraged(As for the latter, for some odd reason that I cannot quite put my finger on the reasoning).
Oh, I think I got it now. Thinking people can be dangerous or shall I say can be a “challenge” to the idiotic “status quo” establishment.
Let’s be honest…”Don’t ask why just do or die.”
August:24:2012 - 09:26
[...] At Long Last [...]
August:24:2012 - 09:30
[...] At Long Last [...]
August:24:2012 - 09:33
[...] At Long Last [...]