Abstract:

Libya has recently experienced fundamental political and social changes. After the 2011 revolution, Libya is a changed and changing society, and major reforms are expected to take place longer term within the country’s ideological, social and economic structures. Education is one of the main areas for development. In recent years, it has been realised that the teacher is key to any educational change. School restructuring and improvements, the composition and development of curricula, assessment and revised teaching methods are likely to be of little value if teachers are not taken into account (Hargreaves, 2000). This study aims:To map Libyan teachers' beliefs and perceptions about teaching English as a second language in terms of teaching methodologies and professionalism, to identify the teaching and learning methods employed by Libyan teachers and to determine in what way these methods are aligned with the aims and objectives of the current English curriculum, to identify what teacher professionalism means in the context of a developing and changing society such as Libya, and to provide insights and make recommendations for future initiatives in Libya regarding English language teacher training and professional development.

Nine Libyan schools in three populated areas in the south of Libya will be involved in this study. These areas are chosen because they have a range of schools, also because they are accessible and safe.15 English teachers will be involved at various times in this study. The mixture could enable rich and comparable data. Taking the research aims and questions into consideration has led the researcher to adopt a qualitative approach to this research, because it will provide a deep understanding and comprehensive evidence for studying and investigating teachers' beliefs and perceptions as well as their classroom practices when implementing the current curriculum (Dawson, 2002; Creswell et at, 2003). In other words, the characteristics of this approach match this research purposes, as it will generate rich data that could provide better understanding of the research issue (Bryman, 2008 and Blaxter, 2001). The interpretive paradigm will be used as it deals with people’s different interpretations and understandings of what is happening (Matthews and Ross, 2010). The interpretive paradigm holds that people see the world in different ways due to the differences in their beliefs, perceptions and interpretations. However, although it will be a qualitative interpretive study, there will be some quantitative data in order to provide background data about teachers through the use of questionnaires. Questionnaires, semi- structured classroom observations and semi-structured interviews will be used to collect data in order to get a more detailed picture of the study. The rationale behind the use of those tools together is to overcome any limitations that may emerge from the use of one tool alone, also that together they could provide rich data and better understanding about teachers; beliefs, perceptions and their classroom practices (Oliver, 2000). Document analysis will also be used in order to examine some samples of the current curriculum documents used in Libya because this could help the researcher to make valid comparisons about what teachers do and say with what they are supposed to do in relation to curricular and pedagogical alignment.

Keywords:

Teacher, professional development, methods of teaching, curriculum alignment.