English Teachers’ Perceptions on Using Arabic in English Language Teaching in Al-Ain in United Arab Emirates

This study investigated the use of Arabic in teaching English as a foreign language from the perspectives of English language teachers in the context of Al-Ain public schools in United Arab Emirates. The QUAN-QUAL model (triangulation) was employed in which the quantitative and qualitative data were concurrently collected throughout the study. The target population was the teachers of English from Al-Ain public schools. The researcher applied the proportional stratified sampling. The subgroups were the population of teachers divided by teaching cycle which made a sample of 100 participants. The study utilized three data collection instruments; a questionnaire distributed to 100 participants, semi-structured interviews conducted with 15 participants and classroom observations with 2 teachers purposively chosen based on their responses in the interviews.The findings supported the judicious use of Arabic in some situations in English language teaching (ELT) and revealed that using Arabic can raise students' participation and prevent time being wasted on tortuous explanation and instruction. The results also highlighted that using Arabic can facilitate English learning by being an aid to creating an affective learning environment as a facilitator of students' comprehension. Additionally, it was found that once Arabic is not overused and its use is modified to the context of each class, it could be seen as an efficient tool in the ELT classroom, especially for teaching grammar and explaining abstract words. Thus, it was found that Arabic can be proportionally a classroom resource in some cases, but the potential drawbacks must be always considered in case of the over-reliance on Arabic in English language.It is recommended that the results of the study are considered by the curriculum developers and policy makers. The researcher also proposed that further studies should be undertaken on larger scales to develop more understanding of teachers' attitudes towards using Arabic in EFL classrooms in the Emirati context. Additionally, there may be a need to conduct experimental studies in order to evaluate the actual role of Arabic in these situations, which is likely to make an important contribution to the development of a systematic way of using Arabic to the end of effective English language teaching and learning.