Challenges Facing the Algerian Educational System in Teaching English as a Foreign Language

The main objective of teaching foreign languages in general and English in particular is to enable communication in all its forms by developing learners’ competencies and skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing. For this reason, many methods and approaches have been adopted by the Algerian Educational System to look for effectiveness, and to put at ease the two main poles engaged in the teaching and learning process: the teacher and the learner.

This paper presents an account of the challenges facing EFL with reference to the country’s current educational profile. It delineates the EFL curriculum by focusing on its objectives and the skills necessary for carrying out successful communication. It also highlights a set of challenges linked to the teaching and learning process and the roles of both teachers and learners in the Algerian secondary schools especially after the implementation of the Competency-Based Approach (CBA).

The study aims at examining the effectiveness of this approach and teachers’ training. It aims also at getting feedback from EFL teachers since they are the real applicators of CBA in the classroom. Therefore, a questionnaire will be administered to EFL teachers in the secondary education to investigate the inadequacies and the difficulties they are facing.

Finally, the paper will conclude with some pedagogical recommendations for better implementing the Competency-Based Approach and for creating an appropriate environment for the teaching/learning process.