Designing a Continuing Professional Development Programme for Enhancing the Teaching Skills of Teachers of the Arabic Language

Abstract

The literature shows that there are limitations in continuing professional development (CPD) programmes that prevent teachers of the Arabic language (TALs) at elementary schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) from benefitting fully from these programmes to enhance their teaching skills. To resolve this problem, this study was undertaken, utilising the principles of andragogy as the theoretical framework and employing evaluation research as a methodology. The methodology consisted of four phases. The first (exploratory) phase involved administering a needs analysis questionnaire to 39 male TALs to identify the teaching skills they required, then conducting semi-structured interviews with six male TALs (who would also participate in the second, third and fourth phases), to elicit their views on the characteristics of effective CPD that would help to improve their teaching skills. The outcomes of this exploratory phase were considered in constructing the development phase, in which two experts took part, and the execution phase, which established the procedures for planning and implementing the CPD programme. Finally, the evaluation phase identified the requirements that the CPD programme must meet in order to improve the target group’s teaching skills in the next stage of its design. It concluded that the CPD programme designed for this study was capable of addressing the stated problem. Based upon the outcomes of the above four phases, the study resulted in the design of a relevant CPD programme to improve TALs’ teaching skills and one that was suitable in the context of CPD in the KSA.