Training of teachers of English as a second language at the secondary level.

النوع : Mémoire

The importance assumed by English as an international lingua franca and a requisite tool for access to scientific information and technological innovation has made it necessary for the ministries of education in many countries to implement programs of English instruction within the national educational system. This has actually led to the critical shortage of qualified teachers of English in Lebanon and the problem of adequately preparing new indigenous teachers of English to meet the demand. During the past decade, rapid changes have taken place in applied linguistics and in education, which have had profound implications for the teaching of English as a second language. The traditional content of ESL programs and materials has been rendered obsolete by these changes, and the goals and methods of ESL instruction have been seriously called into question. The assumptions regarding the nature of language and language learning upon which ESL methodology was founded have been in a large part discredited, and special ESL classes in the public schools have been determined to be educationally unsound in many instances. There is an urgent need to formulate a new set of goals, methods, and concepts for ESL instruction if it is to remain viable and make its potential contribution to Lebanese education. The present work draws on recent developments in language pedagogy, and on my own classroom experiences in teaching non-English speaking students, in order to suggest practical procedures and strategies for implementing the most current techniques and up-to-date methodologies, which are called for. This study attempts to determine the importance of having ESL/EFL teachers in Lebanon attend in-service training workshops as a path for specialized/professional development and continued growth. Moreover, it aims at providing a clearer definition of the role of in-service training in Lebanon. On the practical level, the results of the study establish the importance of such professional workshops in the field. The study evaluates the ESL teaching situation in Lebanon in both private and public schools through the use of a questionnaire. It measures teachers’ attitudes towards the training courses they have already attended and determines whether they are in need of in-service training courses to upgrade their professional competence by transferring the knowledge to be acquired in the workshops to their classrooms.