Abstract

This study explores the growing status of English in Tunisian educational language plans over the last two decades. It relies on a content analysis of two English curricula published by the Ministry of Education in 2006 and 2019 and interviews with two teacher advisors who have been involved in the implementation of the new curricular plans for more than seven years. The content analysis confirmed that the teaching/learning process described in the two curricula has grown more complex in terms of language content and teaching strategies, namely in relation to language skills, grammar structures, and communicative functions. The interviews with the teacher advisors, however, showed that the transition to the new status of English in school curricula remained incomplete as the Ministry failed to recruit skilled English teachers for all primary schools and to provide the current teachers with professional-growth opportunities that meet their diverse needs.

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