Date of Award
2014
Rights
Access is available to all users
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA) in English: Teaching English as a Second Language
Department
English
First Advisor
Dr. LaVona Reeves
Second Advisor
Dr. Tracey McHenry
Third Advisor
Prof. Mary Parker
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Albalawi, Sultan, "Using Media to Teach Grammar in Context and UNESCO Values: A Case Study of Two English Teachers and Students from Saudi Arabia" (2014). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 258.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/258
Included in
Bilingual, Multilingual, and Multicultural Education Commons, English Language and Literature Commons
Comments
This thesis recommends ways of teaching both high school and college level learners from ages 16-90 in Saudi Arabia. The goal is to help teachers understand how they can teach grammar through the use of various media—both in the classroom and for homework. It justifies and models how media can help learners understand grammar rules while learning life lessons and clarifying values (Reeves, 2011) as stated by UNESCO. This is a qualitative case study of two English teachers—one Egyptian and on South African teaching in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA)—and two students—one English major studying English in KSA and one biology major studying in the United States. Subjects were asked about the use of media to teach grammar and were given a media lesson to respond to in an interview or by email. Elements of critical ethnography and constructivist grounded theory are incorporated in a mixed methods approach. Sample lessons are included to demonstrate teaching grammar through media to provide a meaningful, whole language approach to engage language learners and increase motivation to learn English. Materials are offered to supplement the traditional teacher-centered, textbook-based approaches currently used in KSA. The researcher also reflects on his own language learning in KSA—middle school through university as an English major— and in the United States as a graduate student in English.