Challenges In Teaching Second Language

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Teaching second language is one of the challenging tasks (Philp, Oliver, & Mackey, 2008). It does not challenge students only, but it also challenges teachers as well. Previous studies on second language acquisition have established that English teachers face a number of challenges as they teach English to students (Tsai, Ernest, & Talley, 2010). They have also established that first language usually affects the acquisition of second language (Sarafianou, &Gavriilidou, 2015). Although the challenges that English teachers face differ from one region to the other, some regions face more challenges than others (Aljuhaish, 2015). The difference of the challenges can be attributed to alphabetical order of the first language as well as students’ motivation to learn the second language. Al-Nasser claims that Saudi students face significant challenges learning English because of both alphabetical order of Arabic language and the negative attitude towards English (Al-Nasser, 2015). The challenges that students face directly affect English teachers.

Normally, private schools expose their students to English earlier than public schools. Some of them even start teaching students English as early as preschool levels whereas others start right at the first grade. In contrast, majority of the public schools start teaching English to young learners from fourth grade onwards (Alrashidi, & Phan, 2015). While this is the case, majority of the private schools