| dc.description.abstract | This research is an exploratory study that investigated teachers’ roles in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum within a Foundation Year Programme (FYP), at an English Language Institute (ELI) in one of the public universities in Saudi Arabia. The study focused on teachers’ roles in three different stages of the curriculum: development, implementation and evaluation. The participants of the study were twenty-two expatriate and Saudi EFL teachers, male and female, with experience in teaching in the FYP. The study adopted an interpretive approach to address the issues under investigation. Three research questions were raised to address the teachers’ roles in each area separately. Data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with teachers. Based on interpretative principles, data were analysed in the form of explanation and interpretation of the participants’ views about their roles in the investigated stages of curriculum.
The findings indicated that EFL teachers had limited roles in the curriculum development process as they participated in only two different curriculum development tasks: the pre-use course book selection and the students’ language needs analysis. In the implementation stage, teachers were more active as they reported that they had the freedom to develop and use their own supplementary teaching materials in addition to having the freedom to adopt the teaching methodology they felt was appropriate for their students. In the evaluation stage, the teachers reported different levels of involvement in the evaluation of certain curriculum elements selected by the ELI administration, namely, course books, pacing guide, tests, the module system and students’ portfolios. Finally, teachers offered various suggestions for engaging them more actively in the curriculum decision-making process in the three stages of curriculum.
The study made some recommendations for improving teachers’ roles in the development, implementation and evaluation stages of the curriculum for future consideration. | en_GB |
