Date of Award

11-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Education (MEd)

Department

Curriculum & Instruction

First Advisor

Sadiq Ismail

Second Advisor

Negmeldin Alsheikh

Third Advisor

Mohamad Shaban

Abstract

Education in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has received great interest withrespect to the best practices of twenty first century teaching and learning. The aim has been to adapt worldwide used methods in education. As a result Abu Dhabi Educational Council (ADEC) attracted English native speakers of language to support ADEC’s vision. The focus of this thesis is ADEC kindergarten English teachers’ perceptions of teaching listening strategies used to help English as foreign language (EFL) learners in practicing listening activities. The main purpose is to identify the tools and approaches involved in delivering these strategies and the forms of assessment in children’s listening comprehension, along with determining possible challenges and obstacles facing kindergarten teachers while applying these strategies in their classrooms. A structured questionnaire was used as an instrument in collecting the required data from a target sample of participants. The questions of the survey were proposed and grouped in line with the research questions and the objectives of this study for investigating the types of listening strategies in use and possible factors limiting the applications of these strategies. The collected questionnaire was (Q=198) KG English teachers in Al-Ain Educational Zone. The results generated revealed that the best strategies commonly used by kindergarten teachers in listening were incorporated songs and clapping as attention-getting signals, in addition to performing body movements as a reaction to simple instructions that were given by the teacher. Commonly used assessments by teachers were mainly observations of children to check their listening comprehension and their level of following instructions and answering questions related to a listening activity. Finally, the results demonstrated that those kindergarten students who had not previously been exposed to English communication experience (hearing, listening, speaking, etc.) during pre-kindergarten schooling faced difficulties in listening activities and that a lack of parents support and not having a teaching assistant to help with the cultural gap between the English native teachers and their kindergarten students were also significant.

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