This article examines the notions of (in)directness and politeness in the speech act of requests among Saudi Arabic native speakers as compared to American English native speakers. To elicit data on the requestive strategies that the two groups employed, a randomly chosen group of 30 Saudi and American undergraduate students were given a discourse completion test that consisted of twelve written context-enriched situations. The results revealed that conventional indirectness was the most prevailing strategy employed by the American sample. On the other hand, the Saudi sample varied their request strategies depending on the social variables of power and distance. The results also showed that the level of directness differed cross-culturally. American students used direct requests when addressing their friends on the condition that the request was not weighty; however, directness was the most preferred strategy among Saudi students in intimate situations where directness is interpreted as an expression of affiliation, closeness and group-connectedness rather than impoliteness

The current coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic caused a temporary halt to educational activities around the world. The abrupt and fast shift from regular face-to-face learning to fully online learning altered the students’ impressions toward the Blackboard application and its use. It is important to have an in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of using the blackboard platform in developing students’ skills. The current study included a review of both quantitative and qualitative papers according to their relevance to the Saudi context to get a clearer image about the use of blackboard in building up Saudi EFL learners speaking skills. The purpose of this study is to address and review the studies that investigate students’ perceptions of the Blackboard program as a mere tool of learning English courses in Preparatory Year, as well as the impact of those perceptions on students’ use of Blackboard. This work underlines previous literature associated with blackboard as a platform in the practice of speaking skills in the English language among Saudi English as Foreign Language (EFL) Learners. It is meant to provide an overview of how Blackboard computer and internet-based virtual class (CIBVC) is used to overcome Saudi EFL learners’ difficulties in English-speaking skills and describes their speaking ability from the perspectives of accuracy, fluency, and Anxiety. This work suggests that the students’ earlier knowledge of online learning via Blackboard has a positive impact on their perceptions. It also contributed to online learning of English language speaking skills and the learning via the online learning platforms’ research field during the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

The current coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic caused a temporary halt to educational activities around the world. The abrupt and fast shift from regular face-to-face learning to fully online learning altered the students’ impressions toward the Blackboard application and its use. It is important to have an in-depth analysis of the effectiveness of using the blackboard platform in developing students’ skills. The current study included a review of both quantitative and qualitative papers according to their relevance to the Saudi context to get a clearer image about the use of blackboard in building up Saudi EFL learners speaking skills. The purpose of this study is to address and review the studies that investigate students’ perceptions of the Blackboard program as a mere tool of learning English courses in Preparatory Year, as well as the impact of those perceptions on students’ use of Blackboard. This work underlines previous literature associated with blackboard as a platform in the practice of speaking skills in the English language among Saudi English as Foreign Language (EFL) Learners. It is meant to provide an overview of how Blackboard computer and internet-based virtual class (CIBVC) is used to overcome Saudi EFL learners’ difficulties in English-speaking skills and describes their speaking ability from the perspectives of accuracy, fluency, and Anxiety. This work suggests that the students’ earlier knowledge of online learning via Blackboard has a positive impact on their perceptions. It also contributed to online learning of English language speaking skills and the learning via the online learning platforms’ research field during the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

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