Overview of the Thesis

This thesis is divided into nine chapters which are summarised below:

Chapter 1 provides the background to the study. Here, I have included an overview of the educational reform process taking place in Qatar and the role of teachers within it. I present a statement of the main research problem. In addition, I show how I came to address the nature and the scope of the study. I provide a definition of terms, and indicate how this study aims to contribute to research on the professional development of teachers. I have also outlined my personal motivation for the study and set out the aims of the study and the research questions guiding the empirical work.

Chapter 2 looks more closely at educational change in Qatar in terms of Education for a New Era. It traces the educational background of Qatar from the early beginnings, and then describes contemporary education in Qatar including the recent K-12 school reform in Qatar. After this, I further explore the model for the new reform by outlining the organisational structure of the Supreme Education Council and its two main school-related institutes: the Education Institute, and the Evaluation Institute and their respective offices. Looking at the structure of the Supreme Education Council is significant, because in the way it was organised, this body posits an almost

adversarial internal framework, where the Education Institute establishes Qatar’s Independent Schools and provides their operating framework, and the Evaluation Institute conducts studies and reviews of learner attainment and carries out other educational accountability measures i.e. broadly speaking the latter ‘inspects’ and reports on the outcomes and decisions of the former. Chapter 3 considers the process of educational change, the factors which influence change as a universal process in society more generally, and in education in particular, the process of change, the complexity of change processes, and the actual implementation of change. It also discusses the ingredients of success in educational change. Moreover, this chapter explores several change models, and concludes that the success of change at the classroom level is based on change in teachers. The focus here is on the Concerns Based Adoption Model (CBAM) suggested by Hall and Hord (2001). This model is considered to be appropriate in explaining the findings of the study and will be described in detail in Chapter 3.

Chapter 4 reviews definitions of professional development, how and where this occurs in the context of educational reform and stresses the necessity of studying professional development. It then discusses some of the specific professional development needs of women ESL teachers in Qatar’s Independent Schools as well as the current professional development approach.

Chapter 5 is about second language teacher education, gender and the teaching profession and content-based instruction. It discusses content and pedagogy in second language teacher education and the differences between training and development. It highlights teachers’ three main roles from Kumaravadivelu’s perspective (2003). It ends with how women ESL teachers view their roles and the specific needs they have in second language teaching context.

Chapter 6 explains the research design and the research procedures used, noting that the methodology contains quantitative and qualitative elements, with an emphasis on a mixed- method approach. I describe the approach I took to the design of a questionnaire to gather responses from women ESL teachers and to data gathering. I also show how I carried out semi- structured interviews with a sub-set of women ESL teachers. The chapter gives a rationale for the research questions. It also discusses research ethics and considers the strengths and weakness of the study. The final section outlines the approach adopted in data analysis.

Chapter 7 presents the results of the teachers’ survey with reference to the general background of the women ESL teachers in my sample, taking account of the impact of workload and other factors. It also discusses their views on change which is central to reform and their views on teaching materials and teaching strategies. In addition, it considers the different roles assumed by these women ESL teachers.

Chapter 8 presents the findings with regard to the views of women ESL teachers on professional development and the assessment of their needs. Teachers’ expectations about professional development are analysed here, as well as their views on the professional development activities provided by the Supreme Education Council, the support delivered by change facilitators, and their concerns with regard to their current work.

Chapter 9 comprises a summary and discussion of the findings of the study. The summary is organised around the research questions of this study. The chapter ends with suggestions and recommendations for policy-makers and other stakeholders.

2.1 Introduction

It is generally felt that in most applied research, those involved need understandings about the contexts in which the research takes place. Understanding context also means that researchers should be in a better position to make judgements using informed rather than speculative interpretations of findings (Creswell, 2005).

This chapter first provides a broad overview of the characteristic of the State of Qatar, and secondly addresses the beginnings of education in Qatar, and its subsequent development. This paves the way for a discussion about Qatar’s education reform model, Education for a New Era. This provides readers with a synopsis of contemporary Qatar, education reform, and the context in which women ESL teachers in this study work.

As I pointed out in Chapter 1, a key dimension of the educational reform ushered in through Education for a New Era is the requirement that both English and Arabic, should be used for teaching and learning in the new Independent Schools, with the former being used not only for teaching English, but also for mathematics and science: this language policy shift appears to be a validation of the emergence of English as the primary medium of communication world-wide. It further suggests how important English is in Qatar’s emergence on the world stage.

CHAPTER 2