A Qualitative Account of Iraqi EFL Teachers' Perspectives of English as a Medium of Instruction at Secondary Schools

Subject Areas :

Sameerah Salman Abdulrasool ¹ , Javad Gholami ²

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Received: 2024-06-30 Accepted : 2024-08-30 Published : 2024-07-29

Keywords: English-Medium Instruction (EMI), teachers’ perspectives, Iraqi context, secondary schools,

Abstract :

Internationalization and globalization have gained popularity during the past 20 years in a variety of educational settings. English-Medium Instruction (EMI) has been one of the primary strategies for addressing these developments. Iraqi secondary schools appear to be falling behind in the face of these worldwide trends. Secondary schools are using Arabic as their practically universal language of teaching. Still, only a few numbers of studies have investigated the possible use of EMI and instructors' perspectives regarding its usage. This study adopted a mixed-methods approach to examine the current state of EMI in the Iraqi setting, providing more insight into the rising application of EMI. To learn more about the attitudes of 150 teachers concerning EMI, pertinent questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to gather the required data. The quantitative results demonstrated that educators' opinions of EMI were overwhelmingly favorable. Most instructors supported both bilingual education and EMI, despite being aware of the detrimental effects of EMI on common official languages and the opposition to its implementation. The participants' views about and preferences for EMI were significantly influenced by their educational background, English ability, and their academic degree. The qualitative analysis's findings showed that although EMI classes provided participants with many benefits, they also faced significant difficulties, the primary reason of which was their poor English ability. The findings also indicated that most of participants blamed administrators for the difficulties in the EMI courses..

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