Problems and Remedies of Teaching English to the UAE Students - Research Proposal Example

? Research problem and Literature Review Table of Contents Background of the problem 3 Research Question 3 Literature Review 4 Proposed Data Collection Method 6 Identification of multiple research approaches that need to be adopted 7 Relative advantages and limitations of alternative research approaches 8 References 10 Background of the problem English teachers in United Arab Emirates (UAE) face huge problems while teaching English to the Arabian students. There are several reasons behind this problem. Lack of basic knowledge in English of the Arabian students can be cited to be the key reason. The Arabian students are taught English as their second language in their schools. Implementation of the definite article and placing it in the appropriate position in the sentences is much difficult for the students in United Arab Emirates. Majority of the school teachers do not pay proper attention to these students to teach them effective and correct English. Due to these reasons the students have to face problems in their higher classes as English is the only medium of teaching in higher studies. On the other hand, the students of UAE look towards their guides and teachers with great hope. According to these students, the teachers are most competent and they will help these students to learn good English within a short period of time. It doubles the responsibility of the English teachers. Therefore, majority of the English teachers become disappointed and fed up. As a result, the English teachers leave the institutions or schools before the completion of their contract. The teachers need to have little patience, significant competency level, intelligence and effective management and leadership skills to handle these kind of situations. It will help the teachers to achieve their personal career goals. Research Question Depending upon the above discussion the research question has been formulated as: “What are the problems and remedies of teaching English to the students of UAE”? Literature Review Teaching second language to the students is not an easy task for the teachers. Second language should be taught efficiently with patience, hard work and self invented methodologies. These will help the teachers to teach second language to the students in effective way. According to Ansari (2012), it is important for the teachers to find out the difficulties and problems faced by the students (Ansari, 2012, p.521). Once the difficulties and problems are found out, the task becomes easy for the teachers to implement appropriate methods, plans and strategies. An intelligent, competent, co-operative and hardworking teacher is necessary for the students in order to learn second language in an appropriate way. According to Rosenthal (2000), when the students start learning the second language or any foreign language, they can face several problems and difficulties due to the lack of language proficiency (Rosenthal, 2000, p.141). At this point of time, only the teachers can rescue them from this critical situation. It is the responsibility of the teacher to understand the problems of the students and solve those problems accordingly through effective processes and methodologies. The teachers frame the course curriculum in an appropriate way so that the students can learn the language effectively and appropriately. It is important for the teachers to select effective reading materials for the students and create a suitable English learning environment in the class room. The students also face several problems, such as socio-cultural problems, writing problems and subject related problems while learning the second language. They also face problems in recognizing the alphabets and pronouncing even simple words. The socio-cultural background of the students generally plays an important role in learning of second language as there are cultural differences among the students. This cultural unawareness confuses the students. At this critical stage, only the teachers can help the students to overcome the situation by effective teaching process. It is the responsibility of the teachers to teach the students appropriately. The teachers can increase the knowledge of students by sharing the culture of the country. This will help the students to understand the style and linguistic nature of that language. The teachers can only make the students familiar with the language. This learning process will help the students to write a short essay on a familiar topic in second language. It will increase the linguistic knowledge of the students. According to Shamim Ali (2011), it is a true fact that learning a second language is time consuming but it is not an impossible task. It is highly enjoyable but the learning conditions need to be highly qualified (Ali, 2011, p.8). It is important that the appointing authority should be careful while appointing an English teacher. The authority needs to be choosy in order to appoint a new English teacher. The EFL learning of students totally depends upon the competency and efficiency of the teachers. The appointing authority should provide the teachers a free environment. This strategy will help the teachers to adopt an effective and advanced teaching style in the class room. If the students fail to accustom with the language within the course duration, it does not mean that the teacher lacks competency. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the managing committee and appointing authority of schools to monitor all the aspects to bring efficiency in both teaching and learning process. It is evident that the EFL teaching is always affected by several socio cultural factors. Several students of UAE are not familiar with the English language. The students only need few marks in order to pass in the English exam. The teachers also teach English as a formality. It is known to all that English is an international language. Therefore, the students are lagging behind from others as they have problems in learning the English language. Proposed Data Collection Method The empirical researches on the problem of teaching English to the students will be explored through this research. The remedies to the problem of teaching English to the students should be suggested by examining the roles and responsibilities of the teachers in meeting the expectations of the students of UAE. The research needs to be conducted with the help of data and information collected from the students and the teachers. The data should be collected for this research should be in the form of primary data or secondary data. The use of secondary data would mean that the research would be conducted as based on the existing data of the previous findings on English language learning by the students. Various information and secondary data available on the issue can be accessed from the official sources of the academic institutions, universities records and the several publications. The online sources of information, books, journals and articles should also be accessed for the purpose of data collection for this research study (Axinn and Pearce, 2006, p.44). Alternative sources of data collection on the area of this research study can be used as primary data. The primary data required for the project can be collected through field works. The primary data can be obtained by visiting several academic institutions and obtaining responses from the participants. The proposed primary data collection methods i.e. obtaining real life data from the field would be accomplished through the process of primary research. The primary data collection methods can use interviewing or survey as different ways for collecting the information required for analysis of the research problem. Identification of multiple research approaches that need to be adopted Based on the data collection methods to be adopted for the research study, multiple approaches can be adopted for analyzing the problems and remedies of English learning by the students of UAE. Using the technique of secondary data collection, the approach for the research analysis would be to validate the existing findings on the problems and remedies of the topic. The reported issues of problems in basic understanding of the English language, learning environment of the schools for English education and the roles and duties carried out by the teachers of English subjects in secondary and primary school levels would help us to validate the problems of the English learning by the students of the Arabic countries. This approach would include studying the background of the students and examining the differences between the Arabian and the English culture and analyse the problems of the research topic. This approach would also help to find out remedies to address the differences between the Arabian culture and the English culture and suggest appropriate techniques and actions to the participants, e.g. students, teachers, administrative authorities of schools and colleges, etc. for smooth learning of English of the students of UAE. The alternative approaches would include use of primary research techniques through the use of primary data. The research approaches that need to be undertaken in this case includes conduct of interviews, surveys for carrying out primary research on the research topic (Panneerselvam, 2004, p.38). This should be accomplished with the field investigations and collecting data from the participant in the field. By field, the academic colleges and the institutions have been referred. A set of questions on the research topic can be prepared and the students of UAE and the teachers of English language are selected on a sample basis for their responses. The responses of the students of UAE and the English teachers need to be recorded and analyzed to examine the nature of difficulties for both the students and teachers in the learning of English language. The expectations of the students towards the teachers should also be qualitatively analyzed in order to suggest ways of solving the problem. This approach would then be able to suggest remedies to the participants and ensure smooth learning of English for the students. A similar approach needs to be undertaken for conducting a primary research on the topic with the help of surveys. A questionnaire with open ended questions should be framed and surveys need to be conducted by random or systematic sampling of the participants (Sapsford and Jupp, 2006, p.50). The information collected from the survey needs to be used for necessary analysis, findings and recommendation on the research topic. Relative advantages and limitations of alternative research approaches There are relative advantages and limitations of the alternative research approaches that need to be adopted for the research study. The alternative approaches of conducting an interview or a survey have the advantages of collecting data directly from the participants (Kristianslund, 1995, p.77). The participants are no one but the students themselves who face the problem of learning and communicating in English. The participants also include the teachers and the academic administrators who face the expectations of the students for learning English in a higher class. Thus the feedback and responses taken directly from the students are valuable and reliable inputs for the purpose of research analysis. This process would therefore carry the advantage of providing accurate information on the research topic. Apart from the expectations of the students, the frustration and disappointment of the teachers in teaching of English to the students of UAE are also revealed through the alternate approach of primary research. The secondary research approach may not be much effective in providing the most appropriate information. The disadvantages of the alternative approaches of primary research through interview or survey accrue due to the sample size considered for data collection. The data collected from the sample is just a representation of the population of the participants. Therefore, there are possibilities of deviation from the mean response of the population of target participants. This aspect poses limitations of the alternative approaches as compared to the secondary research which uses existing information and data on the research topic and is required to be analyzed and validated during the research study. References Ali, S., 2011. Improving Access to Second Language Vocabulary and Comprehension Using Bilingual Dictionaries. Berlin: GRIN Verlag. Ansari, A., 2012. Teaching of English to Arab Students: Problems and Remedies. [PDF]. Available at: . [Accessed on June 26, 2013]. Axinn, W. G. and Pearce, L. D. 2006. Mixed Method Data Collection Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kristianslund, I. 1995. Research methods in business studies: a practical guide. New York: Prentice Hall. Panneerselvam, R. 2004. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. New Delhi: PHI Learning Pvt Ltd. Rosenthal, J., 2000. Handbook of Undergraduate Second Language Education. London: Routledge. Sapsford, R. and Jupp, V. 2006. Data Collection and Analysis. London: Sage. Read More