EFL Omani Foundation Programme Students’ Attitudes Towards Reading in English and Their Knowledge of Reading Comprehension Strategies (Published)
This study investigated the importance of reading in English for EFL Foundation Programme students at a private college university in Oman. It discussed the students’ attitudes towards reading in English and their knowledge of reading comprehension strategies. The instruments used included a short questionnaire and a reading achievement test. They were handed to sixteen mixed-age and gender students from level one and sixteen mixed-age and gender students from level two. The findings of the study instruments’ data showed that gender and English language proficiency had no statistically significant effect on the level of knowledge of reading comprehension strategies in English. They also revealed that age had no statistically significant effect on attitudes towards reading in English.Moreover, they showed no statistically significant correlation between the knowledge of reading comprehension strategies and attitudes toward reading in English. Although there were positive reading attitudes, students showed weak knowledge of reading comprehension strategies. The study recommends that EFL teachers develop their students’ knowledge of reading comprehension strategies.
Keywords: EFL Omani foundation programme, Students’ Attitudes, comprehension strategies, knowledge of reading, reading in English
Evaluating the Implementation of the Android Applications on the Students of Phonetics Course in the English Department at TTU (Published)
This study aims at evaluating the students’ attitudes and perceptions on the implementation of the Android application “K&J English Pronunciation” as a learning tool in the teaching of Phonetics course in the English department at Tafila Technical University. It also focuses on investigating the students’ interaction and understanding of this application, the extent to which they use it in their learning, the obstacles they encounter in using it, and their suggestions and recommendations for a better use of this application in learning. Hence, the data was collected via a questionnaire distributed to the students of Phonetics course in the English department at TTU to evaluate their attitudes and interaction with this android application, the extent of their usage of this application, and the obstacles that halt their usage of it. The goal of this study is to shed light on the importance of integrating smart phone applications in the teaching of English courses at the English department at TTU, which will pave the way towards implementing more technological tools and applications in other courses in the English department in the future. The data analysis shows that the students’ attitudes, interaction, and the extent of their usage of this application are very high. Whereas the results show that the obstacles that the students encounter in implementing this application are very low. Finally, all the students of the course were strongly agreed that TTU University should work hard on arming the students with enough knowledge via holding seminars and workshops on how to use these android applications effectively, and on designing some useful applications to use in other courses in the future.
Keywords: Android Application, Phonetics, Smartphones, Students’ Attitudes, Usage