Teaching English Intensively by NESTs in the Saudi EFL Setting: Status and Implications (Published)
Intensive EFL programs become the current mainstream in the Saudi educational system in most undergraduate tracks. They are aimed at compensating students’ previous lack of exposure to English. These programs are chiefly staffed by NESTs. The policy makers believe that native-English instruction is an ideal teaching model that can offer authentic English in the EFL classrooms. There is, however, a dearth of the conducted research studies that examine such a trend. This paper endeavors to assess NESTs’ teaching performance based on a list of teaching competencies at Jeddah’s intensive English program. The data are qualitatively collected via an observation checklist of seven NESTs. The main findings reveal that NESTs significantly perform high in almost 60% of these competencies. Also, there are no significant differences between the median ranks of NESTs in all the teaching competencies according to these variables: nationality, experience and qualification. This paper recommends that the ideal EFL instruction requires NESTs to be aquatinted with a wide range of technical, contextual and cultural competencies along with their nativeness.
Keywords: Competence, EFL, Intensive, NEST, Teaching
Evaluation of EFL Students’ Reading Proficiency in the College of Technological Studies in Kuwait (Published)
The research is an evaluation of the English language program implemented in the College of Technological Studies (CTS) in Kuwait. It tried to measure the improvement of the students’ reading proficiency upon completing the mandatory EFL courses (Eng. 101 and ESP course 170) which are mandatory courses offered by the program to all students joining the college. The research instrument consisted of three reading passages which move from the easier to the more difficult. A sample of 155 students (72 males and 83 females) was randomly chosen from the population of all the students in the CTS who successfully completed the two mandatory English courses offered by the English program. Participants were required to read the passages and answer the questions on each passage. Results showed that the participants’ performance in all three passages was far below expectation as the number of participants who gave correct answers in all three passages is below fifty percent. These results suggest that the English program implemented in the CTS does not equip the students with the required reading skills that enable them to read and comprehend the simplest reading passages. With these results, the paper recommends that the English program needs to be subjected to rigorous evaluation in order to pinpoint the weaknesses.This evaluation should reconsider the curriculum implemented and the teaching methods used in teaching the reading skills.
Keywords: EFL, Evaluation, college of technological studies
English Language Learning in Adulthood: Perceptions of female adult learners (Published)
Adult learning in an EFL context is one of the most current issues researched in education. Just as the importance of learning a language is growing by the minute, the number of adult learners is enhancing too. The current study investigates the motivation of EFL adult Learners to go back to higher education, their preferred learning styles, and difficulties faced by them. The study consisted of 132 female participants from the College of Basic Education, who answered a 45 statements questionnaire. The answers were analysed quantitatively through SPSS to find the means, frequencies, and significance in correlation with several independent variables. It has been found that female adult learners have mixed intrinsic and extrinsic motives towards learning EFL, and while learning styles varied, institutional barriers such as poor facilities, strict regulations and traditional teaching practice appear to be the greatest difficulties to learners. The study is concluded with several suggestions that aim to provide effective adult EFL learning.
Keywords: Barriers, EFL, Learning strategies, PLS, adult-learner, motivations
Mediating Cross-Cultural Barriers in English as a Foreign Language Classroom: A Pilot Study on Teachers (Published)
Recent researches on the impact of cultural barriers in EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teaching-learning suggest that cultural barriers emerge due to the lack of successful mediation between the native language culture and the target language culture. Eventually, the teaching-learning of EFL in Bangladesh, a south-east Asian country, encounters cross- cultural barriers quite extensively as the home language culture is quite distinct from the target language culture. Therefore, this study concentrates on EFL teachers’ role in promoting intercultural communicative competence among EFL learners through successful mediation of native language culture with foreign language culture. 12 EFL teachers and 200 tertiary level students from Bangladeshi private universities were chosen as the subjects of this study to identify their perspectives on this issue. The findings of the study suggest the need for constructive changes in the choice and use of teaching-learning materials and teaching methods in EFL classrooms.
Keywords: EFL, Materials, Mediation of Cultures, Native Culture, Teacher Role
A Longitudinal Analysis Study of Writing Errors Made by EFL Students at Al-Quds Open University (QOU) the Case of Language Use Course (Published)
Errors are considered by many educators to be an integral part of the teaching – learning process. The writing errors of English -major students, in particular, are considered to be significant and beneficial since they can be used to identify the pedagogical problems that might be the reasons of these errors, to predict some possible difficulties in student’s writing especially when they need to sit for exams in the literary courses and most importantly to prepare effective teaching materials and activities that take into account students’ needs and problems. This study, therefore, aimed to analyze a corpus of English texts written by students of a course entitled Language Use at Al-Quds Open University in Nablus in three years (2103 -2015). The objective of the study was to identify the possible types of errors, their frequency and possible causes so as to come up with some recommendations and suggestions that can help both instructors and students at QOU to minimize the frequency of these errors and their negative in the future courses especially when sitting for written exams and submitting assignments and reports. To achieve these objectives, frequencies, percentages and means of errors were calculated and tabulated .Results revealed that the most frequent error type was spelling which scored 39.60 % while relativization scored the least frequent type of errors, about 2.179 %.
Keywords: EFL, Error Analysis, Language use, QOU
THE EFFECT OF DIARY WRITING ON EFL STUDENTS’ WRITING AND LANGUAGE ABILITIES (Published)
In the field of teaching EFL students the process of writing an essay, this study was conducted to investigate the influence of diary writing on the students’ writing and language abilities. 52 student participants enrolled in two Advanced Writing classes wrote a daily diary for 14 weeks. During this period, they were given essay writing lessons, and were asked to write four essays throughout the semester. At the end of the semester, the students were given an open-ended questionnaire requesting information about the students’ method of diary writing and its benefits. The analysis of the data obtained showed that the students’ language abilities significantly improved especially the grammar and vocabulary. The students also reported their satisfaction in the free-writing method which allowed them to learn more on self-expression and organization of ideas. The researchers believe that a skilful writing teacher would be able to provide maximum benefit from this experience. This study is believed to be extremely beneficial to language teachers, and more specifically, EFL writing teachers.
Keywords: EFL, Higher Education, diary writing, journaling, writing