Effective strategies for teaching English as a foreign language to elementary students in Jordan

This study aimed at clarifying three main points: First, exploring the effective English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching strategies that teachers use in the classroom. Second, identifying the challenges that EFL teachers face in elementary schools in Jordan. Third, providing a number of suggestions and recommendations to the Ministry of Education of Jordan to address those challenges. The main prompts for the study are stated in the following questions: What strategies do teachers in Jordan use to teach EFL students? What challenges/barriers do EFL teachers face when teaching students in Jordan? What can be done to remove or lessen the barriers/challenges? To accomplish the purpose of the study, a mixed methods research design approach was utilized to analyze the data derived from the interviews and the questionnaire. The following instruments were used in this study: The Facebook Messenger app to conduct the online semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire. The total sample of the study was comprised of 71 EFL teachers in Jordan – a total of 67 responded to the questionnaire and 4 participated in an interview sample. This study found that EFL teachers in Jordan managed to use high quality traditional teaching strategies in the classroom in light of the resource constraints by the Ministry of Education; however, the use of technological teaching strategies was very rare among those in the sample. Despite the lack of the desired level of support, the EFL teachers all felt a sense of duty to find innovative solutions to the challenges they face in order to teach their students.