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The Place of Writing in First Grade Kuwaiti English Education: A Sociological Case Study.

Elham Mohammed    

A hybridized society, Kuwait meshes Islamic ideologies with western culture. Linguistically, English exists across both foreign language and second language nomenclatures due to globalization and internationalization. Originally consisting of listening, speaking, reading and writing, the English curriculum in Kuwait was reduced in 2002 to focus only on the development of oral English skills, and to exclude writing. Since that time, both Kuwaiti teachers and parents have expressed dissatisfaction with this curriculum on the basis that this model disadvantages their children. In Grade 1, however, the teaching of pre-writing has remained as part of the curriculum.

This research analyses the parameters of English pre-writing in Grade 1 Kuwaiti classrooms, investigates Grade 1 English pre-writing teaching, and gathers insights from parents, teachers and students regarding the appropriateness of the current curriculum. Through interviews and classroom observations, and an analysis of curriculum documents, this case study found that the relationship between oral and written language is more complex than suggested by either the Kuwaiti curriculum reform, or international literature concerning the delayed teaching of writing. Intended curriculum integration across Kuwait subjects is also far more complex than first believed, due to a developmental mismatch between English pre-writing skills and Arabic language capabilities. Findings suggest an alternative approach to teaching writing may be more appropriate and more effective for Grade 1 students in the current Kuwait curriculum context.

Transcript

Interviewer: I’d like to welcome Elham Mohammad, welcome Elham

Elham Mohammad: Thank you

Interviewer:    Firstly can you tell us what your Research is about?

Elham Mohammad: My Research is about the place of writing in the EFL context in the Kuwaiti society and specifically I’m looking at pre-writing skills in the first grade education in public schools and private schools in Kuwait because the curriculum has changed since 2002 and they’ve excluded writing from the main English language curriculum.  I’ve been looking at the pre-writing skills of young children so I’m looking at the first graders if they’re able to write or not at first grade because before 2002 in the Kuwait curriculum there was writing, the four skills were all taught, the listening, speaking, reading and writing but then in 2002 they excluded the writing and reading and made it pre-writing and pre-reading and I just wanted to see, or just describe what was going on in the classrooms and see if those children are able to write or not and see what was going on in the private schools and those children who are 6 year olds, they’re all the same age and were they able to write or not.

Interviewer: So how did you go about conducting this research?

Elham Mohammad: I did a case study, a descriptive case study, it included classroom observations so I had 4 case studies, 2 public schools and 2 private schools, I did classroom observations, each classroom was observed for 15 times and we recorded, there were 24 children selected, 6 from each classroom with their parents and 4 teachers that represent those classrooms.  They were all interviewed so 24 parents, 24 children and 4 teachers were interviewed, 7 structured interviews and also I collected some field notes and also documents, document policies and some of the children’s work too.

Interviewer: And what did you find, what did your results show?

Elham Mohammad: In the case of the policy documents for the curriculum, the Minister of Education there was really two interesting findings, one of them that the language English language curriculum it was concerned mostly with Kuwait with Arab Nationalism and Islamic culture more than the English language itself.  There was a goal that correlates between the English language and other subjects and those children are already at a higher level, developmental level in other subjects and there was a very low expectancy of those children’s work in the English language. So that goal was not fit to be there because what they’re doing in other subjects is at a much higher rate than what they’re doing in English and at the same time that goal requires that those skills they’re learning in English to be transferred to the other subjects and it’s illogical because what they’re learning in English is at a much lower skill rate than the other subjects. And another thing about the past it was constructed on child developmentally and the import of the English language teaching methodology does not fit the Kuwait society context because of globalisation and the influence of the English language in that context itself.  In regard to the children, the classroom observations and the interviews, I noticed that the directionality which is an issue between Arabic and English writing from left to right or right to left a lot of people find it very problematic for 6 year olds or first graders but I found that it is a dilemma really but some children struggle with it while others comprehend it very easily and don’t find problems with it.  Another issue was the relationship between oral and written language, some of those children were not exposed to English before and they were able to spell out words and write and some others who were exposed to English before first grade, were not able to spell or write English so that was another thing and although the public schools curriculum depended on speaking and listening after 6 to 7 months of being exposed to listening and speaking, some of those children did not produce any oral language and their oral skills were not mastered still and it was just a technique of mimicking and drilling, these were the main findings there.

Interviewer: And what are the implications of your research?

Elham Mohammad: The main implications were that further research needs to be done in the field of EFL English as a Foreign Language with young learners, there’s still a very big gap of knowledge in that area especially with writing, reading has taken more I think in the EFL context in general there’s a big gap in that area because most of the research is drawn on second language learning and not only that but it needs to be the social and the culture context of each country has to be considered in that research so this is one of the things I think that more research needs to be done in those areas.  Another implication is the policy needs to be reviewed, revised and to form a homogenous curriculum to fit the Kuwait society and to see the needs of the Kuwait society at this time. Another thing is that there is a need for an ongoing professional development for implementing the policy or the curriculum itself in the public schools in Kuwait.