Teachers' attitudes towards the
new English curriculum in Kurdistan Region/Iraq
Prepared
by/
Brwa R. Sharif
Near East University
Department of English Language Teaching
Supervised by/
Dr. Çise Çavuşoğlu
Teachers' attitudes towards the
new English curriculum in Kurdistan Region/Iraq
Introduction & Background of the Study
Although English language has been a worldwide language and everyone needs
that for communicating around the world, but students in Kurdistan Region/Iraq were
not able to speak in English besides studying (old English curriculum which was
taught since 1972) at primary and secondary schools. Nowadays speaking a
foreign language especially English is very important, because English all over
the world is spoken, therefore students in Kurdistan Region/Iraq should learn
English language specifically speaking skill because they need speaking to
communicate, interact, and also give and receive information, because of these
matters a new curriculum of English language (which is called Sunrise) has been
created for primary and secondary schools concerning writing, reading,
listening, and speaking.
Sunrise for Kurdistan is a complete English course written
especially for primary and secondary school students. The course has a
communicative approach, integrating listening, speaking, reading and writing,
with a clear focus on grammar structures. It achieves development of English
through a fun approach to learning, using motivational topic-based units,
adventure stories that introduce new language, and a variety of activities
including role plays and guided writing tasks. (Sunrise
for Kurdistan)
As a teacher I have experienced in the schools most of the teachers used
old traditional grammarian rules as a means of teaching since 1972, and it was
deductive teaching they only focused teaching grammar. Therefore a new curriculum for English
as a whole has been designed which is called (Sunrise) and it starts from grade
1 to 12, and it consists all the skills reading, writing, listening, and
speaking. Finally, this study focuses on teachers’ attitudes towards ‘Sunrise’.
Statement of
the Problem & Significance of the Study
Curriculum in Kurdistan
Region/Iraq was not good enough to teach English, because it was created more
than forty years ago, and it has not fulfilled the new generations’ needs
concerning speaking and listening. As a result of that matter, fortunately Ministry
of Education in Kurdistan Region has changed the old English book into a new
one concerning content and all the skills. So now the curriculum consists
(Sunrise) from level 1-12, so the students should study new English curriculum
(Sunrise) from the first grade to twelfth grade.
Changing
curriculum, I think, is good especially to develop educational issues in
Kurdistan Region. Teachers focused on grammar and written texts, so that the
students got high marks regardless speaking and listening. As a result teachers
had used the grammar teaching rules in the old English curriculum (Old English
curriculum was taught before 2005 in Kurdistan Region), so they are expected to
use the same approach as they were used to.
When the research is done, I will
suggest an implication for the Ministry of Education about the new English
curriculum to be considered for the result.
Research question
1. What are teachers’ attitudes towards the new English curriculum?
2. What are teachers’ attitudes towards the new English curriculum
concerning age?
3. What are teachers’ attitudes towards the new English curriculum
concerning sex?
Aims
The aim of this study is to find out
teachers’ attitudes towards the new English curriculum. It is to find out their
attitudes towards that changing of curriculum concerning age and sex, because teachers’ attitudes can be crucial in determining the success and
failure of an innovation (Brown and McIntyre 1982, Richardson 1991, as cited in
Lee, 2000)
Literature
review
Education
is the most important thing for the country’s future. And the heart of
education is curriculum as it is the content of learning and its organization,
the acquisition of learning and the assessment techniques (Karatzia-Stavlioti
& Alahiotis, 2007). According to Huberman (1973), change in education may
occur in three ways: hardware, that is, additions to school equipment, such as
new classrooms, teaching machines, books or playgrounds; software, usually in
the content and range of the curriculum, or in the methods of delivery and
reception; and as a subcategory of software, which is interpersonal relations, changes
in the roles and relationships between teachers and students, between teachers
and administrators or teachers and teachers. However in Kurdistan Region we can
say that the change is in the curriculum but somehow it is also in
interpersonal relations as well.
School curriculum is something that
should be changed systematically, which is one of the ideas of twentieth
century’s contributions to education (Kilpatrick, 2009), because if it is
sudden change it will create negative attitudes among teachers and students.
When curriculum change considered, there is a deliberate attempt to introduce
one or more components of the curriculum which are different or new (Everard
& Morris, 1996; Markee, 1997). Curriculum change is a subset of educational
change (Lovat & Smith, 2003). So the change in curriculum is to improve
side effects on the previous curriculum.
Every change is interpreted by
others based on their attitudes (Newstrom & Davis, 1997). The term of
attitude can be defined as what people think, feel, and do. According to social
psychologists, attitudes consist of three dimensions: (1) cognitive, (2)
affective and (3) behavioral (Van der Zander, 1984, cited in KurĢunoğlu, 2006).
Teachers’ attitudes can be crucial in determining the success and failure of an
innovation (Brown and McIntyre 1982, Richardson 1991, as cited in Lee, 2000), therefore the curriculum designers
should pay teachers’ attention.
Methodology
For this study I will use mixed methods design. And some techniques such
as surveys and interviews will be used to collect data. The participants will
include English teachers (males and females) in primary and secondary schools
in Kurdistan Region/Iraq. I will use questionnaires as a survey study and some
materials for interviews such as tape recorders and video recorders. Finally
for analysing the data collected I will use the SPSS program concerning
statistics and descriptive analysis.
Limitations
In my study I will
focus on teachers (females and males), but not their students and supervisors.
And in the study I will include Sulaimani Province in Kurdistan Region to find
out the results.
Timeline
|
Schedule
|
Duration of
the thesis
|
|
|
Literature
Review and writing the research report.
Preparation of data collecting tools.
Administering the questionnaires and
recording the interviews.
Analyzing the data.
Finalizing the thesis.
|
Start
|
End
|
|
Has been
started
July 2013
October. 2013
December.
2013
January. 2014
|
October. 2013
December.
2013
January. 2014
March. 2014
|
|
Reference
Everard, K. B., & Morris, G.
(1996). Effective school management. London: Paul Chapman Publishing
Ltd.
Huberman, A. M. (1973). Understanding change in
education: An introduction. Experiments and innovations in education(4).
Karatzia-Stavlioti, E., & Alahiotis, S.
(2007). Evaluation of a cross-thematic curricular innovation: Teachers
attitudes and the flexible zone. The International Journal of Learning, 14(3),
267-275.
Kilpatrick, J. (2009). The mathematics teacher
and curriculum change. PNA, 3(3), 107-121.
KurĢunoğlu, A. (2006). İlköğretim okulu
öğretmenlerinin örgütsel değişmeye karşı tutumları. Pamukkale University.
Denizli, Turkey: Unpublished M. Sc. thesis.
Lee, J. C.-K. (2000). Teacher receptivity to
curriculum change in the implementation stage: the case of environmental
education in Hong Kong. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 32(1), 95-115.
Lovat, T. J., & Smith, D. L. (2003). Action
on reflection. Sydney, Australia: Social Science Press.
Mak, B. (2011). An exploration of
speaking-in-class anxiety with Chinese ESL learners. System, 39,
202-214.
Sunrise for Kurdistan. (n.d.). (Macmillan Education) Retrieved from
SunriseKurdistan.com: http://www.sunrisekurdistan.com/
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