Evaluating the “Sunrise” Curriculum for Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the Kurdistan Region in Iraq

Abstract

The school system of the Kurdistan region has adopted the new programme called “Sunrise” since 2005. This new programme needs to be evaluated and assessed in order to ensure that the curriculum is effective for promoting the learner’s English skills. The evaluation process in this study will focus on Levels 10 and11 in Secondary schools in the centre of Erbil, the capital of Kurdistan Region. The study will be conducted by adopting Concept Input Process and Practice model that was created by Daniel Stufflebeam (2003) to be a standard model for curriculum evaluation. This model includes four main components: 1. Context: the social situations in which the curriculum is implemented. 2. Input: the human, material and financial input into the education system. 3. Process: the whole processes of teaching and learning. 4. Product or output which refers to the graduate quality (the skillful learners). This study also is conducted by employing the new perspective for quality improvement in teaching and learning processes which is called Total Quality Standards in the process of evaluation, questionnaires for English language teachers and students, as well as written tests for students. Then through the application of SPSS programme, the data was analyzed and the results were decided.