SAUDI ARABIAN SCHOOL'S ENGLISH CURRICULUM

ANALYSIS OF THE SAUDI ARABIAN SCHOOL'S ENGLISH CURRICULUM

01 What are the major assumptions about the nature of knowledge, learning, and classroom social relationships?

"Language," says Catherine Walsh (1987), "is a sociocultural phenomenon." "Individuals can only be understood in terms of their specific sociohistorical setting... Children come to school with this speaking consciousness already well developed... It is through language that individuals learn to act as members of society... It is the development of speech along with ways of thinking, feeling, and acting that are culturally embedded and socially determined that constitutes language in its most essential sense" (Walsh, 1987, p. 197). M.A.K. Halliday (1975) notes that the semantic system--the system of meanings--which a child constructs develops concurrently with his social system, thus forming a unitary system (p.55).

In this perspective, it is neither scientifically correct nor pedagogically sound to separate knowledge, learning, and socialization conceptually and operationally.

Language learning, in its first stages, clearly does not resort to formal syntactical and lexical conceptualization. Nor is it formally taught this way. Carole Urzu� (1980) says it thus: "Linguistic behavior has its origins in a general social communication system to which a formal lexicon and grammar are ultimately added" (p.40). This is where the young child differs markedly from the o

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target-language world in which the students express interest--whether it be Shakespeare or Bob Dylan, high-technology or jeans, Western-style democracy or crime and environmental pollution. The current curriculum ignores the actual interests of the learners and therefore hinders potential learning. The Teacher's Book states as follows: "Each unit teaches one main structure and one or two less important ones; each is based on a single topic. These topics are mostly Saudi, Arab or Muslim. The aim of this is: ( to motivate pupils ( to help the pupils understand the texts more easily because of the lack of cultural barriers ( to enable pupils to develop a pride in Arab history and achievements". One may wonder how teaching "mostly Saudi, Arab and Muslim" topics provides a "lack of cultural barriers". One may wonder whether to "develop a pride in Arab history and achievements" is the purpose of teaching a foreign language. One may wonder whether to teach "one main structure and one or two less important ones" per unit is pedagogically sound or, rather, pedagogically in tune with scientific development in learning theories and pedagogical practices in the last two or three decades. One does not need to adopt wh

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