| dc.description.abstract | The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a country that heavily invests in education. This investment is reflected in many ways, including opening new state universities in what the government calls remote cities to improve the accessibility to higher education in the 2,150,000- km2 kingdom. What comes as a surprise is that in KSA remote education has been unexplored despite the increasing number of universities there and the rising trend of reverse migration of the population (moving from large cities to remote ones).
Based on this background, this interpretive study aimed to reveal the unrevealed about teaching EFL at remotely located universities in KSA. Using written accounts and semi-structured interviews with 19 teachers, the study sought to explore how the teachers perceive their professional experiences and identities at their universities.
The overarching conclusion from the inductive thematic analysis of the data is that contextual factors, mainly the institutional environment and the economic and sociocultural particularities of remote cities, play a vital role in shaping the teachers’ meaning making of their experiences and their identities. The study found teaching EFL in remote universities loaded with challenges. The participants are challenged by emotions associated with their remote job, such as the lack of motivation, burnouts, and misconceptions about rural students. Another array of challenges emerges from their institutional environment and policies, such as poor infrastructure and resources, professional isolation, and micromanagement practices. Furthermore, living within a remote community is another source of challenges, including the lack of privacy, social isolation, and feelings of unacceptance. Thrown in the middle of nowhere, the participants are faced with low-quality healthcare, distance from services, and lack of entertainment. Nonetheless, teaching in remote universities is not a pure challenge as the participants receive financial benefits, improve their personal and professional skills, enjoy pure nature, and live a slow-paced life.
Revealing the impact of their context on how they view themselves as professionals, the participants perceive their identities as constructed by their professional characteristics (senses of success, appreciation, and commitment), by their professional roles both to their students and in the institution, and by their professional and communal connections. The several identity conflicts which the participants experience due to clashes between who they wish to be and who they are allowed to be in their universities provide deep insights into the nature of EFL teaching in remote universities.
These findings offer several recommendations to the Ministry of Education and to the remote universities to improve higher education in the kingdom, which is a primary goal of the kingdom’s 2030 Vision. | en_GB |
