EFL Teachers' Perspectives and Practices in Implementing Core Values as a Key Factor in Shaping Exit Profile Competencies in Algerian Middle Schools:

Abstract

Core values play a vital role in shaping students’ character and guiding their social, moral, and civic development. They are central to the concept of the exit profile which outlines competencies and attitudes that students are expected to embody upon completing a cycle of education. In recent years, the Algerian educational reform supports value-based teaching, and emphasises the integration of core values into the English curriculum. This study attempts to investigate EFL middle school teachers’ perspectives toward integrating core values in their teaching to examines their educational practices. It highlights the importance of integrating core values to foster students’ personal and academic development. By exploring teachers’ willingness, understanding, and methods of fostering these values, the research addresses the specific challenges and responsibilities faced by Algerian middle school EFL teachers in nurturing core values. Hence, a mixed research method which consisted of an online questionnaire for middle school EFL teachers and an interview for a middle school English inspector was adopted. The questionnaire was administered via Google forms to70 middle school EFL teachers across the districts of Guelma, while the interview was conducted with middle school English inspector. The result of the analyses of teachers’ questionnaire and the inspector interview shows that Algerian middle school EFL teachers indeed have positive attitude toward the integration of core values and they integrate them in their lessons intentionally and intuitively, but some of them face obstacles concerning explicit guidance, they lack clear teaching material and effective assessment tools.