The Didactic Issues of the Algerian English Teachers’ Initial and in-Service Training Courses: between Institutional objectives and Teachers’ Expectations

Abstract

The present thesis fits into the field of the exploratory research on the didactic issues of the initial and in-service training courses of the teachers of English as a foreign language in the Algerian context: between institutional objectives and the teachers’ expectations. It focuses on future teachers’ initial and in-service training courses as they are required by the employer and as they are carried out by the training institute especially in the wake of the implementation of the new reforms aiming to introduce a new, interdisciplinary approach, viz Competency-based Approach, as a medium of instruction. It should be noted that the teachers training, albeit firmly asserted to be the centerpiece of the process, seems to be customarily relegated to last priority and placed downstream of the whole reform process. Relying on the collected data from the various tools used for the purpose, namely the questionnaires (five in all), which are the linchpin of our investigation along with the interviews (two in all) and the initial training curricula structure analysis, the research sheds enough light on the gap between the prescriptive and the descriptive trainings. The findings of the investigation also disclose that teachers’ perceptions of the theoretical principles of the new approach remain too vague and their mastery is ever more elusive to have an impact on the teaching practices in situ. The contemporary society is in a perpetual metamorphosis and that of education is likewise. The changes and reforms, we are witnessing these days, are dictated solely by the desire to do well in the context of globalisation. Nevertheless, the reforms undertaken in the Algerian educational system cannot achieve their goals unless they are conducted in a thoughtful, intelligent, methodical and rational manner. In a swiftly changing society, training of professional teachers turns out to be an urgent need. These professional teachers have to develop reflective practice, an overriding posture, because the ability to innovate, negotiate and regulate their practice necessarily involves a reflection on experience, favouring the construction of new knowledge.