Teachers’ Perceptions of the Teaching of English to Non-English Undergraduates at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences in Rabat

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

This paper is part of a larger project which examines the teaching of English to non-English majors at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, Rabat. Starting from the official objectives set on Law 01.00, the implementation of these objectives at the level of the Cahier des Normes Pédagogiques Nationales (Book of Pedagogical Guidelines), to the teachers’ practices in the classroom, the teaching of English to non-English majors suffers of many shortcomings: definition of clear objectives, content and teaching methodology, human resources, logistics, and the degree of readiness and motivation of the students themselves. This paper deals with the human resources aspect of the problem, namely the teachers themselves, the way they conceive of their mission, how prepared they are to accomplish it, and their perceptions of the challenges before them. Current teachers of English to non-English majors have been asked to fill in a questionnaire devised to this end. Results show that while the surveyed teachers’ attitude towards their teaching of English is in general moderately positive, they see the students’ readiness and behavior as major obstacles to an effective teaching. Their opinion of the content is evenly split between positive and negative.