English abstract
This study investigated post basic education teachers' beliefs and practices of reading instruction. In addition, it examined the influence of the teachers' years of experience in teaching post basic education and the graduation institutions on their beliefs. The study aimed to investigate the following specific questions:
1. What are Omani EFL post basic education teachers' beliefs about reading instruction?
2. What are Omani EFL post basic education teachers' reading instructional practices?
3. How do teachers' reported beliefs compare with their actual practices?
4. Do Omani EFL post basic education teachers beliefs differ in terms of their years of experience and their graduation institutions?
Three instruments were used to answer the research questions: a Teachers' Theoretical Orientations to Reading Instruction (TORI) questionnaire, a classroom observation checklist and semi-structured interviews. The first instrument, the questionnaire, aimed to find out teachers' theoretical orientation, either text-based or competence-based. The study was conducted with the participation of grade 11 and 12 female English teachers in Batinah North and South in the academic year 2016/2017. The study's sample for the questionnaire consisted of 133 teachers (89% of the population) while the sub sample for the observation and semi-structured interviews consisted of 8 teachers who were chosen on a voluntary basis. The participant teachers were from three different schools where each teacher was observed 3 times and interviewed once after the first observation. A number of statistical techniques were used in the study including: means and the standard deviations, frequencies, Pearson correlation coefficient, one way of variance and independent-sample t-tests. The teachers' responses to the semi-structure interview questions were used to support their beliefs and practices regarding reading instruction
The study findings indicated that the teachers have balanced and strong beliefs regarding the two categories of reading instruction which were examined in the study: text-based and competence-based. The findings from the observations revealed that there is inconsistency between teachers' beliefs and practices. Moreover, there was a negative correlation between the beliefs and practices according to the results of Pearson correlation coefficient. Another finding was that there is no significant difference between teachers in term of years of experience in teaching post-basic education classes. However, regarding graduation institutions, there is a statistically significant difference within text-based category between the beliefs of SQU graduates and the graduates of other institutions in favor of other institutions graduates while there is no statistically significant difference in the competence-based category. In the light of the findings, implications for teaching reading in Oman were highlighted and recommendations for training programs were given. Moreover, further suggestions for future research directions were made.
