Chapter 7 Transformation in English Language Education in the UAE Melanie Taylor Gobert Abstract This chapter explores the need for English as a Second Language in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), what benchmark tests reveal about the level of English amongst Emirati students, the history and development of English language provi- sion in K–12 and in Foundation programs in higher education in the UAE, and the growth of private schools with international curricula in English. The UAE has recently unified the K–12 Ministry of Education (MoE) with the previous Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MoHESR), which was responsible for higher education provided by both private and public tertiary educational institu- tions. The Ministry of Education began major K–12 educational reforms in 2008 because students coming from K–12 public education to higher education institu- tions were inadequately prepared for tertiary studies in the medium of English. This resulted in large amounts of funding for tertiary education being spent on Founda- tion preparatory programs. The MoE has recently developed a new school model, the Emirates School Model (ESM), to address this issue. In the ESM, scientific subjects and English are taught through the medium of English from licensed native English- speaking teachers while subjects such as Arabic and Islamic studies are taught in Arabic. Introduction Prior to the establishment of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Britain controlled much of the area of the present-day Middle East, from Palestine to India, including Iraq and Iran, due to the importance of the trade routes of the British East India Company. The Trucial States, as the UAE was known prior to its establishment, was never granted the status of colony under the British Empire, because it was an extremely poor area prior to the discovery of oil and its importance in the modern world. The history of foreign language teaching in the UAE, especially English as a Foreign or Second Language (EFL/ESL), goes back to the start of UAE Ministry M. T. Gobert (B ) Higher Colleges of Technology, P.O. Box 25035, Abu Dhabi, UAE e-mail: mgobert@hct.ac.ae © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2019 K. Gallagher (ed.), Education in the United Arab Emirates, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7736-5_7 113 Gobert, M.T. (2019) Transformation in English language education in the UAE. In K. Gallagher (Ed.) Education in the United Arab Emirates, pp. 113-126. Springer, Singapore. doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-7736-5_7