Phonological Capacities of Jordanian EFL Teachersinsight on Training Needs and Impact on Instruction

Resumen

Elkouz, Ahlam Ali. (2022). Phonological Capacities of Jordanian EFL Teachers: Insight on Training Needs and Impact on Instruction. The objective of the study was to further understand the situation of teaching English pronunciation in Jordanian classrooms as it has a major impact on speaking skills of students and affects their employability in the future. Four instruments were used in total to gather data to answer the research questions proposed in the thesis. The researcher reached out to 372 EFL teachers to fill a questionnaire with 32 items concerning their capacities in teaching English, the EFL curriculum they teach, the methods and techniques they use in teaching pronunciation and speaking and the perspective they have towards their students. The researcher conducted semi structured interviews with 6 English language supervisors to verify and add to data gathered through the questionnaire. It was important to measure the English language competence of teachers through a detailed analysis of 4 online video recorded classes (addressing 8th graders) to understand the impact of their capacity on the academic achievement of their students obtained through the analysis of student scores in a Jordanian national test that included 21,478 eighth graders from all public schools of the country. The analyzed videos categorized the competence of teachers according to the CEFR scale and triangulated that with data elicited from the questionnaire, the perspective of supervisors and the results of students in national tests. Triangulation of data ensured that multiple perspectives concerning the topic investigated were aligned, findings were corroborated and any weaknesses in the data from one source is compensated for by the strength of data from another, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of the problem and increasing the validity and reliability of the results. Mixed methodology of data analysis was implemented to study the phenomenon of interest. The study combined quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques to comprehensively understand the problem. The researcher used interviews with supervisors and video-recorded online classes as strategies to collect qualitative data while used teacher questionnaire and the scores of students in a national test as strategies to collect quantitative data. The researcher relied on the descriptive analytical method to examine the primary data collected from 372 EFL teachers. A set of inferential statistical measures were applied to analyze quantitative data gathered by the questionnaire, which served to correlate the findings with the outcomes of the literature review of peer reviewed journals. The results were then compared with best practices of other countries which were successful in the introduction and implementation of teaching of English pronunciation. The aim behind this is to extract successful institutional practices that could be introduced and contextualized to developing countries with various socioeconomic constraints such as Jordan. The research adopts the Communicative Language Teaching approach as its theoretical framework. It addresses teachers’ attitudes towards methodologies and approaches of teaching oral skills and pronunciation in EFL classes as a dependent variable, while moderate variables includes: 1) Gender, 2) Academic Qualification of teachers, 3) Experience 4) University Specialization 5) Geographical Distribution and 6) Type of University from which the teacher has graduated. A descriptive analytical method was utilized to rate the eminence of the study. Diversification of instruments used, samples, methodologies of data analysis and geographical contexts serve to provide a comprehensive, inclusive and realistic reflection of the current situation of teaching English language pronunciation in Jordan. Findings indicated that teachers in the sample were at A2 or B1 phonological capacity according to the CEFR phonological scale. Teachers’ limited capacities had a direct impact on the achievement of their students, as a representative sample of 8th graders of the all the schools of the country achieved less in speaking tests than in reading and writing. Teachers indicated need for further capacity building on the teaching of pronunciation through the questionnaire, which agrees with the findings of the interviews with supervisors, who indicated the limited capacity of teachers in pedagogy as well as in the knowledge of language in subject.