The Role of SNCL in Improving the Professional Performance of School English Language Teachers

Abstract

The study aimed to find an answer to the main question which is ‘what is the role of Sudan National Center for Languages (Hence forth SNCL) in enhancing English Language professional performance for basic and secondary school teachers. Four sub-questions had aroused from this main question: what is the current situation in SNCL that helps improve school teachers’ English language proficiency? To what extent do current training courses in SNCL help improving school teachers’ English language proficiency? To what extents are SNCL trainers qualified enough to lead teacher training programs? What are the challenges that have negative impact on SNCL’s role to improve English language teachers’ professional performance at schools? The two researchers adopted a descriptive and analytic approach to collect data and make the analysis. The researchers designed and distributed a questionnaire to 60 students teachers of batch 39(TEFL Diploma) from Khartoum locality and other states of the country. This is in addition to analyzing the result of the entry test to the Diploma, batch 39(2015) and compared it with their results at the end of the final semester. The analysis of the questionnaire (SPSS), the comparison between the two mentioned results and the revision of the contents of the diploma by an international expert (2015) helped in finding answers to the research questions. The research came out with clear findings such as: School teachers had low level of proficiency in teaching English as a foreign language when they first joined the diploma. Their standard in professional English language teaching improved during the first and second semester. SNCL plays a considerable role in improving students’ teachers’ proficiency in Teaching English as a foreign language. The study came out with concrete recommendations such as: more research is needed to tap on the area of having one unified training manual which could be used by all approved teacher training centers and work in harmony with pre- service training institutes.