His Excellency the Acting Vice Minister of Education, Dr. Saad bin Saud Al Fahaid, launched the "Teaching English for Young Learners" program remotely today, in partnership with the United States Embassy in the Kingdom, in the presence of His Excellency the Deputy Chief of the American Mission in the Kingdom, Denison Offutt.
Dr. Al Fahaid expressed, in his speech on this occasion, his thanks and appreciation to the members of the US Embassy in the Kingdom and its representatives for their concern in the program and for their efforts to contribute to presenting it in the hoped and expected way through George Mason University, USA.
Dr. Al Fahaid said that the existing partnership between the Ministry of Education and the US Embassy in the fields of education would contribute to strengthening friendship and exchanging experiences between the two sides. He pointed to the concern of the Ministry of Education in teaching and learning the English language as it is a global language of science and economics. He added, “Its learning is considered supportive to achieve the pillars of the Kingdom's Vision 2030 towards a vibrant society, a prosperous economy, and an ambitious country, as well as the Ministry's keenness on the continuous follow-up to achieve the goals of including English language teaching in the early grades of the primary stage”.
For his part, the US Deputy Ambassador expressed his happiness with the partnership with the Ministry of Education to work on achieving the objectives of this program, stressing its role in strengthening the initiative of the Ministry of Education to teach English in the early grades of the primary stage.
The program aims to benefit from the international expertise of the specialists in the field of teaching English to young learners and to support the Ministry's approach to teaching English in the early grades of the primary stage.
The program is implemented through George Mason University in two phases. The first phase targets 200 English language supervisors to raise the level of their performance and provide them with the best educational practices and modern scientific strategies for teaching English to young learners. The second phase targets to transfer the experiences of the program’s trainees to the educational field by training 5,000 English language teachers in the early classes of the primary stage.
The program is distinguished by granting the trainees a certificate from the American Mason University and the American Cultural Mission to Saudi Arabia, in addition to accrediting 30 training hours for them as part of the educational professional development hours. Nomination for the program requires proficiency in the English language, possessing training skills to transfer the experiences and skills gained from this program, and achieving 70% of the minimum requirements for obtaining a certificate of success.
The inauguration of the program was attended by the Deputy of the Ministry for General Education, Dr. Mohammad bin Saud Al-Meqbil, the Director-General of Scholarships, Ms. Badriya Al-Ghanem, and the heads of English language departments in the Kingdom, in addition to the program’s supervision team.
