Saudi teachers to learn how to teach English

BURAIDAH, 10 August — About 60 Saudi English teachers in Qassim are attending a three-day English training program that will start here today.

The program is organized by the Ministry of Education in cooperation with the American Embassy and the British Council.

"The program comes within the framework of the ministry’s plan to develop the skills of English language teachers working in our public schools," said Khedir Al-Qurashi, deputy minister for education, in a circular sent to all educational directorates in the Kingdom.

Similar programs will be conducted in Jeddah, Taif, Arrass, Jizan, Asir, and Najran, he said.

The main topics to be addressed in the program are acquainting Saudi English teachers with modern teaching methods and studying the various obstacles of teaching the English language in Saudi schools. The trainers include Mohammed Al-Mohanna and Robert Burch.

The program includes three plenary sessions and several workshops covering various aspects of teaching English such as communicative activities, learner motivation, lesson planning, student-centered language learning, vocabulary, pronunciation, classroom interaction and educational objectives.

Following the plenary sessions, the participants will form small groups for the workshops, a source from the General Directorate of Education in Qassim told Arab News. " In these workshops, teachers will engage in a number of activities that use individual, pair and group work," he added.

This is the second year the Ministry of Education is organizing such a program in cooperation with US Embassy and the British Council. "The program aims at training more than 600 English teachers and supervisors in a number of educational directorates around the country," said the source.

The ministry is introducing English in the primary stage for the first time from the coming academic year scheduled to begin on Sept. 14.

Meanwhile, the British Council is planning a host of events for the coming academic year for members of its Saudi alumni groups. The council has established three alumni groups in the Kingdom — in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.