In Saudi Arabia, English was first introduced in the late 1920s. The language was considered less relevant by society and therefore faced a lot of resistance. The Arabic community believed that the language would be a great threat to their mother language, customs, religion, and culture. The, therefore,placed little devotion to teaching and learning of the language for more than seven decades. Notably, this was due to the low status of the language within Saudi Arabia. Nevertheless, after the event of 9/11, the society has gained more interest in the language and therefore real shift in teaching as well as learning English is evident within the nation.The Saudi Arabian Government has also invested in English development since the event of 9/11 occurred thus, encouraging its citizens to learn more English. The language has extremely established and is among the influential languages in the country.  The language’s status in Saudi Arabia has highly increased due to its significant development. In addition, there are new trends and perceptions of EFL teaching and learning in the country.

In the Saudi Arabian community, English has been continuously taught as a foreign language until to date. Arguably this can be linked to the fact that the Saudi Arabian education system attaches little importance on teaching and learning the language. Elyas and Picard (2010) indicated that, throughout the history of KSA’s education system, little effort has been added in the teaching of foreign languages such as English. The little effort and reluctance in teaching foreign languages can be associated with various reasons. For instance, the aboriginals fear that the language would affect the Islamic religion. They are also basically concerned with their first language: Arabic. However, the trend in learning and teaching English in KSA has positively shifted thus promoting the status of this foreign language in the country. The ministry of Education in KSA has also clearly outlined the key intentions of teaching and learning English within the region in their official guideline. According to the ministry of education, the main objective of teaching this language to the secondary schools is to ensure that the community can achieve a standard which would allow them to make ready use of materials in English thus enabling them to communicate effectively in both oral and written English (MoE 2002).

Every year more than 11 million pilgrims visit Medina and Mecca. A language is a vital tool of communication. Communicating to the visitors with Arabic would not be effective due to the language barrier. Consequently, English has been found to be the key language to communicate to the pilgrims. Additionally, English would also help spread Islamic religion to non-Arabic speakers since such people can be taught the Islamic values in a language they can understand better(Rahman&Alhaisoni, 2013). Saudi Arabia people are also able to interact with people from other regions such as the West. Through their interaction, they are able to present Islamic principles, interpret Islamic knowledge to advantage the English speakers who are interested in knowing Islam thus eradicating the prevailing mistaken belief about Islam.

Teaching English as a second language is highly challenging, not only to the students but also to the highly trained tutors who have taught ESL/EFL for ten years and also worked as English language supervisors in Educational Departments.  However, the MoE is keenly concerned and has given English the first priority the only foreign language. the ministry has set the following measure to improve the ability of learning and teaching ESL; increased teachers training programs, curriculum development, increased scholarship for students to study abroad, increased opportunities for teachers etc. Language acquisition is also hindered by a number of factors. Learners also face many challenges in the learning process.  For instance, scholars have shown interest to address the factors which hinder teaching and learning of ESL in Saudi Schools thus offering an insight into problems and how they can be addressed.

The subject of teaching and learning English has become a major topic in the past few years. Remarkably, this is because it is not a local but a global concern.People need to work together and interact globally. The language would, therefore, help them to understand, contact and also attain knowledge from external resources. Accordingly, this forms the foundation of the Saudi Arabian move to state the objective of teaching and learning English.

This research will concentrate on the three key pillars on which teaching and learning English is based on. Outstandingly, these pillars include curriculum, teachers, and students. The research will tend to address several questions relating to this issue thus helping to find out the weaknesses in English acquisition.

1. How is English taught by teachers?
2. How do students learn English?

• What is the role of the Educational system in the whole process?

1. Have we ever thought of ways of doing all these: are we doing it the right or the wrong way?

The major problem is that the results are unsatisfying. When one graduate from high school, he/she is well thought-out to have taken 4-5 hours per week in English for more than six years for the duration of his/her high school life.Additionally, in the elementary school, a teaching language is added which is allocate 45 minutes per class. According to researchers, it has been found that most graduates have a low English competence level regardless of the time spent learning the language (Alhawsawi, 2013; Al-Johani, 2009; Rajab, 2013). The same challenge is reflected when the secondary school graduates join universities thus facing a lot of challenges during English classes as well as courses. The low English competence level among the Saudi Arabian students is caused by; teachers over-rely on outdated teaching approaches. For instance, the teachers using Arabic to teach English is an outdated methodology. Another factor contributing to low competence is that the students adopt memorization as a primary learning policy. The students are also less inspired by their teachers and lack of actual world practices. The students tend to think that English is less important in their education system. Some hold a misconception that, the language is aimed at ruining their culture, customs, and primary language. Teacher-based instruction is also another cause for the poor English competence level.The paper provides a detailed discussion of these factors below.

Firstly, the main factor is the Saudi Arabia  English teacher. Notably, this is a significant pillar, and it is important to review their qualifications before they are allowed to the teacher the language. the teacher can be considered as the main resource for the students learning English. therefore, tutors should have exceptional qualifications so as to improve the student’s performance and proficiency level. The state has not set in place a review program to address basic questions on who should teach this critical language. For example, the following should be reviewed Do they (teachers)understand how to teach English using the effective strategies?Did they acquire enough training to be professional?Is the time allocated for English class enough for teaching and learning?

According to Johnson (2003, p.4), the essence of language teaching is as a value. That is, it is moral; just as other teachings; teaching a language is not disinterested or neutral. Remarkably, this implies the language is affected and also affects the morals of a community in question. Similarly, language teaching is also affected by and affects socio-political contexts. Kramsch (1993, p. 29) indicated that ideologies and socio-cultural are not static and deterministic theories that EFL teachers and students take along to the lecture hall and then take away unchanged at the end of the lesson. Thus, it is valuable to inspect how the personalities of teachers and students are molded and how these multiple characters impact the teaching-learning operation in the language class.

 
Do you need high quality Custom Essay Writing Services?