English Textbooks and the Objectives of ELT in Saudi Arabia: Gaps and Rationale

Abstract

The paper investigates whether the Saudi state organizes the dynamic between the factors active above and below its level as Blommaert’s (2005) “switchboard” in terms of Saudi English Language Education Policies (SELEP). To this end, it explores the general objectives of teaching English in Saudi Arabia and examines the cultural elements used in the school-level Saudi English textbooks across the country. The paper finds that SELEP could successfully organize the dynamic between the “national” objectives—objectives that are meant to gain Saudi citizens’ consent for learning/teaching English and the “transnational” objectives—objectives that are meant to enable the state to interact successfully with the other states of the world system (Wallerstein 2006). However, in practice, the textbooks produced or selected under the supervision of the Saudi Ministry of Education during the last 33 years are found to be extremely biased either towards the “national” or towards the “transnational” objectives. Therefore, there were and there have been some gaps between SELEP and the textbooks. The paper detects certain reasons behind the dissimilarities between the textbooks published prior to 2013 and the objectives, but fails to find out a single compelling reason why the gaps are not bridged in the books published thereafter.