Culturally Responsive Teaching and Bilingual Students’ Literacy Skills in the Middle East

Abstract

The Middle East is a region where educational programs are shifting from single language instruction to dual languages instructions. While working in many schools in the region, I witnessed many children at the elementary level who spoke fluent English, but when it comes to reading they are not equipped with the proper literacy skills to write or read a complete sentence correctly . offer many solutions to this problem, mostly emphasizing on equipping teachers with cultural awareness skills to help diverse students build and develop their literacy skills in their second language, that is in this case, English. Most of Arab countries, specifically in the Arabian Gulf area, recruit native English-speaking teachers to teach English. However the question raised is how much these teachers are aware of the culture of the Arab students? This question initiates school administrators and stakeholders consider hiring foreign teachers that possess an awareness of the culture of their students. This is the main purpose of this paper is to present what the literature indicates regarding teachers with culture awareness skills. It investigates the characteristics of teachers that are culturally responsive and how these characteristics have a positive impact on developing English literacy skills in Arab students. It is a platform for new researches in the Middle East regarding the students' acquisition of well-developed English literacy skills. Introduction Bilingual education is a common educational approach that is emerging throughout the world, specifically the Middle East and the Arab Gulf area. According to Al Saghayer (2014), we are living in the globalization era and the world economy is driven by the powers of knowledge, information and technology. The ability to understand and speak a different language is an important tool for international relations and for the development of science and technology (Al Saghayer, 2014). This is one of the most important reasons that forced on the Arab countries to reform their educational programs and enhance the English Language. Hence, this approach sets many challenges to educators, policy makers, parents and students. In order to constitute a clear image of this type of bilingual education in the Arab world, we should define it, specify the students who study such programs and describe the characteristics of the instructors that engage in implementing this approach. We should also strive to have a clear recognition of the components of bilingual education to ensure the success of language, reading and academic achievement in bilingual learners. Being an educator, I had the chance to work as a teacher and an administrator in Lebanon, UAE and KSA. The schools were national or international schools adopting national, American , British, or International baccalaureate program. In all these schools, the students are considered bilingual students because the schedule is almost equally divided between the English and the Arabic language (see table1). Thus, the language of Instruction is Arabic when teaching the following disciplines: Arabic language, Arabic grammar, religion and social studies. It is English when studying English language, math and sciences. Extracurricular activities are administered in Arabic or English. According to Baker (2007), the schools follow the bilingual educational or approach, where the students are defined as bilingual students and instructed in both languages depending on the subject matter.