Speaking is the most difficult as well as the most complex of all the four skills, as it requires expertise in, and exposure to, the target language. Different factors are found responsible for poor speaking skills among EFL learners in general and Saudi EFL learners in particular. The current study investigates the influence of various factors related to teachers, learners, and learning environment on the students' attitude towards learning speaking skills. The questionnaire survey was employed to elicit responses from 184 undergraduate EFL male and female students in Taif University. Data analyzed through SPSS reveals that out of five variables only one was insignificant, whereas all other variables showed significant positive effect. In the light of the findings, it could be inferred that lack of measures on the part of teachers and learners as well as the classroom setting/environment do not fully facilitate both the male and female students to learn speaking skills in a better way. The poor level of their skills in English is attributed to the variety of teachers', learners', and environment related factors. And these factors affect negatively on the attitude of learners towards learning speaking skills.

Method-based pedagogies are commonly applied in teaching English as a foreign language all over the world. However, in the last quarter of the 20 th century, the concept of such pedagogies based on the application of a single best method in EFL started to be viewed with concerns by some scholars. In response to the growing concern against the concept of a method, some scholars started to offer alternatives to a method in different forms. Kumaravadivelu is one of the scholars who offers his post-method macro-strategic framework as an alternative to method-based pedagogies. This small-scale study explores English language practitioners' experience and their views about applying method-based and post-method pedagogies. Semi-structured pre-and post-interviews were conducted from eight participants. The pre-interviews investigated the teacher-participants' views about the method-based pedagogies in practice and the post-interviews aimed at knowing the prospects and concerns in the application of post-method pedagogies in their context. Although participants were skeptical of the concept of methods, they considered them useful in making contribution towards learning and teaching English. They found post-method pedagogies as more preferable option to method-based pedagogies in ELT on the ground; the post-method pedagogies, according to them, give broad directions while specific methods make teachers to work within narrow guidelines. However, they showed certain concerns in the application of such pedagogies in their context.

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Maximum utilization of technology in all fields of life including language education by a country has become inevitable to survive in the competitive world. Saudi government has already invested a lot of efforts and public finance to adopt modern teaching practices using Information Communication Technology (ICT) to supplement English Language Teaching (ELT) in Saudi Arabia. The present study applies Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) as a theoretical model to explore the effects of different factors on the attitudes of teachers towards using Computer-Assisted Language Learning (CALL) in the language learning contexts of Saudi Arabia. The current study investigates the effect of perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use on the attitude and intended usage behavior of Saudi English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers towards using CALL. In addition to these two factors borrowed from TAM, three other variables: social influence, facilitating conditions and management support are added into the model. To test the hypothesized model, this study applied a quantitative questionnaire survey approach with participants chosen randomly from 10 different universities in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. A total of 421 valid responses received through online questionnaire from the teachers were used for the analysis to achieve research objectives and hypotheses testing. Structural Equation Modeling Analysis was employed to analyze the data. The findings of this study are found very encouraging and provide sufficient support to the proposed model of the study, which was consisting of TAM as the foundation theory. According to TAM, postulation perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use both are two significant elements that determine attitude and intended usage behavior. These hypotheses were found significant, thus provided external validity to the TAM postulations. In addition, the findings suggested that social influence, management support, and facilitating conditions are important factors that influence individuals’ intended behavior towards CALL usage.

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