Saudi Parents’ Attitudes And Ideologies Towards The Teaching Of English As A Foreign Language To First Grade Students

Abstract

The Ministry of Education in Saudi Arabia has recently updated the foreign language education policy (FLEP) lowering EFL exposure to first grade students. Such FLEP involves multiple stakeholders including school officials, teachers, and parents. The present study explores Saudi parents’ and children’s attitudes and ideologies towards the new state policy. Knowing parents expectations and attitudes could diminish the challenges that could arise along way and ultimately assist in the success of FLEP. A mixed method approach was embraced as 113 parents responded to a questionnaire and 6 participants volunteered to be part of semi-structured interviews. Only parents who had first grade children were eligible for the study. The questionnaire included twelve items that falls under five categories. Multiple tests and analysis were employed including factor analysis was repeated measure ANOVA. The semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom and were transcribed and verified by participants. An inductive thematic analysis were used to elicit parents attitudes and insight towards the FLEP. The quantitative results revealed three emerging factors 1) teaching quality, 2) language ideologies and identities, 3) usefulness of English and indicated a significant difference among participants’ responses across the three factors. Results showed that Saudi parents mostly hold positive attitudes towards the recent initiated policy. The qualitative thematic data analysis revealed five emerging themes. The findings mostly aligned with quantitative results and thoroughly explained parents beliefs towards the recent FLEP. This study adds to theexisting body of research on FLEP and advance it by offering evidence of the significant role of parents’ beliefs and attitudes as considering them could raise the potential of having effective and successful FLEP.