Primary Education in Saudi Arabia: Private and Public School Standards - Literature review Example

 The extant literature on English as a Second Language (ESL) is quite extensive. It covers diverse fields – from teaching methods, theories and strategies to curriculum development. It also includes culture-specific discourses that provide valuable insights on this research either as background information or supporting evidences on arguments, points, and issues that this paper would be able to raise. For the purpose of this study, however, this paper has confined the review of the corpus of literature to those relating or relevant to a proposal to introduce English in elementary education in Saudi Arabia and in the curriculum development in studying ESL among young learners. The reason is that variables involved in the development process cover those areas that this paper is interested in – the demographics of the young learners (at what age children usually learn English), the teaching content (such as how religion can be integrated in the instruction), teaching methodologies, perceived problems that are unique to Saudi children and their solutions, among others. Literature on the demographics of young learners in Saudi Arabia is quite scarce. This is more so in the field of ESL or what in identifying studies that actually investigated the beginning age of ESL learners in the country. There are researchers, however, who have mentioned some information and pertinent facts regarding this matter in their wider discourse of either English learning in the Middle East or as part of the wider profile of Saudi Arabia. An excellent example is Abir’s (1993) insights on the issue. He stated, for instance, that “the standard of education in the urban centres catering to the Saudis of middle-class background is on the whole relatively low,” and that “memorising is still the backbone of the system, while standard of English… is uneven and often very poor.” (p. 17-18) A review of the profiles of private international schools in the country reveal a far rosier picture, highlighting varying ages for beginners in ESL and excellent schools that teach English or use the language as a medium of instruction. For instance, the Jeddah Prep & Grammar School, which follows the traditional British school, using the UK National curriculum, has students aging from two to 18 years old. (Bingham, p. 435) Beginners are usually assessed according to their English language competency and currently they have more than 600 students coming from both expatriates and Saudis alike. Similar international schools roughly adopt the same standards. Meanwhile, the national average of new learners is glaringly different. Wilson, for example, wrote that based on statistics, Saudi children start learning at a later age but that enrolment is increasing rapidly because of extensive support from the government. (p. 106) In addition public elementary schools are usually late in introducing ESL as opposed to the private schools like in the case of Jeddah Prep & Grammar School, which has been established by British and Dutch expatriates. According to Abdan (2002), elementary students should be introduced to English in elementary school because public elementary school students are presently underexposed to the language since English is not part of the national curriculum. (p. 265-266) The benefits of introducing English to young learners, preferably to be integrated in the elementary education curriculum have been cited and proven by numerous studies. These benefits are explained in various arguments ranging from the social, cultural to psychological. According to Nikolov and the European Centre for Modern Languages (2007), young children can benefit from early language learning in the same way as older pupils do. In their research, they found that majority of teachers have been surprised to find how quickly young children pick-up English. (p. 26) It is for this reason why, in America, immigrants immediately send their children to school to learn English as part of the faster strategy to assimilate in the society. (Welch et al. 2009, p471) The success of this approach is underscored by the psychological/behavioral argument for early ESL learning. New and Cochran explained that the early childhood years is the period by which people acquire their first language(s) as they are developing basic language skills. In addition, children are highly responsive to their social and language environment, hence, childhood is the ideal time to learn a foreign language such as English. (New and Cochran, p. 78) Barton and Smith further supported this by identifying several models in teaching ESL programs to young learners that focuses on meaningful content that capitalizes on the children’s strengths, interests and background. (p55) This is very interesting because in the case of ESL learners in Saudi Arabia, infusing religion to instruction could achieve both ideal and practical ends. It would, for instance, serve to fulfill the Islamic values of learning as one that serves God above all. In addition, it engages the learner more effectively because themes and content are something they are familiar with and could identify. With regards to ESL instruction content, the available literature is comprehensive. Elizabeth Bernhardt (2003) wrote extensively about the experience of minorities in America, which in actuality is not really much different than elsewhere. The issues are the same: first, the teacher is an important variable; secondly, the materials are of equal import; and, finally, second language acquisition is best started at an early age for learners. (p. 113) Additional studies that may be relevant to this study include that of Koda and Zehler’s (2008) who, for their part, examined the Arab ESL learner English acquisition skills and how their findings can be integrated in curriculum or ESL program development. (p119) Gibbons (2006) also devoted his work on investigating several ESL programs that were already developed in the US that cater to Arab minorities and featuring Arab bilingual teachers. (p74) These specific works are collectively important in contextualizing the more general studies and researches that have been previously outlined. Together, the reviewed works offer clear situation, opportunities, problems, strategies and other related variables that could support the objectives of this research. All in all, the review of literature suggests that ESL learning is yet to be implemented in primary education in Saudi Arabia. This explains the gap on the available studies that could have otherwise shed more light on the average age when young learners begin studying English. As this review has cited, the age of first time ESL learners are diverse and could only be classified according to private and public school standards and data. Research and studies, however, are more enlightening with regards to the benefits of early ESL learning. This aspect to the study is quite general and there is just an abundance of models and theories that explain the children’s capability to learn. It is expected that this paper could address the gaps of the previous studies. References Abdan, A 2002, "An exploratory study of teaching English in the Saudi elementary public schools," System, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 253-266. Abir, M 1993, Saudi Arabia: government, society, and the Gulf crisis, Routledge, London. Barton, K and Smith, L 2000, "Themes or Motifs? Aiming for coherence through interdisciplinary outlines," The Reading Teacher. vol. 54, no. 1, pp. 54-63. Bernhardt, E 2003, "Challenges to reading research from a multilingual world." Reading Research Quarterly. vol. 38, no. 1, pp. 112-117. Braine, G 1999, Non-native educators in English language teaching. Routledge, London. Brutt, J and Varghese, M 2004, Bilingualism and language pedagogy. Multilingual Matters, Clevedon. Gibbons, P 2006, Bridging discourses in the ESL classroom: students, teachers and researchers. Continuum International Publishing Group. Koda, K and Zehler, A 2008, Learning to read across languages: cross-linguistic relationships in first- and second-language literacy development. Taylor and Francis, New York. New, R 2007, Early childhood education: an international encyclopedia, Volume 1. Greenwood Publishing Group, Westport, CT. Nikolov, M and the European Centre for Modern Languages 2007, Teaching modern languages to young learners: teachers, curricula and materials, Volume 253. Council of Europe Publishing, Graz. Reese, L, Gallimore, R and Guthrie, D 2005, "Reading Trajectories of Immigrant Latino Students in Transitional Bilingual Programs," Bilingual Research Journal. vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 679-730. Welch, S, Gruhl, J, Comer, J and Rigdon, S 2009, Understanding American Government, Alternate Edition. Cengage Learning, New York. Wilson, R 2004, Economic development in Saudi Arabia. Routledge, London. Read More