JEDDAH, 27 August 2005 — The Ministry of Education has introduced a training program for English language supervisors to be conducted by American and British specialists.
The first of its kind ever to be launched by the ministry, the active language-learning program will start today at Dar Al-Fikr private schools. Some 160 trainees from 20 municipalities across the country will attend the five-day course.
The goal of the program, devised by the training and scholarship administration at the Directorate of Education in Jeddah, is to train the English language supervisors on a new approach to teaching English that will focus on the learner as the center of the learning process. The supervisors would then train the teachers.
The training program includes such topics as active learning, communication methods in teaching language, using technology, improving the trainees’ skills in teaching and developing the training strategy for trainees.
“The Ministry of Education aims at causing a paradigm shift and raise the standard of English language teaching in the Kingdom,” said Dr. Fadia Al-Khadra, director of women’s training and scholarship administration in Jeddah. “We are starting with the English language supervisors who would then train the teachers as a top to bottom approach,” she said to Arab News.
The ministry chose two centers for training; one in the Eastern Province which conducted the program last week and the second in Jeddah — where the same training team will conduct the program. The program is offered for the male and female departments of the ministry at the same time.
“American and British trainers were recruited because they are the ones who would have the latest and best in teaching the language. We want to change the current method of teaching where the teacher is the center and the learning process is one way from teacher to student and adopt a more active and learner-centered approach where the student would be expected to discover and ask and search,” said Dr. Al-Khadra.
The final phase of the program will evaluate the effects of the training on the teachers throughout the school year.
“The training would continue at the start of each school semester. I expect that the program would be fully implemented within two years,” said Dr. Al-Khadra.
At the end of each phase of the program, feedback would be collected from the trainees about its benefits as well as strong and weak points in order to further developing the course to suit teachers’ needs.
“The success of the program and the approach can only be assessed after it is implemented in reality so we have to continue evaluating it and improving it,” said Dr. Al-Khadra.
