Abstract-This study aimed to explore and discover how Saudi students feel and think about English as a Foreign Language (EFL) acquisition and its problems and difficulties. It also aimed at sorting out the most common external EFL problems and difficulties that made most of them fail to successfully acquire English language. A sample of 300 male students was randomly chosen from level one students in their foundation year at King Abdulaziz University in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Those students recently graduated from secondary schools spread all over the country and so they represented the different regions of the country. Data for this study was obtained from interviews. The results of the interviews showed that students had an actual desire to learn English. The EFL external problems and difficulties were categorized into a set of four main groups: (1) Insufficient exposure to and practice of language in real life situations, (2) Teachers' lack of seriousness and training, (3) Lack of motivation and (4) Inappropriate textbooks. This study can help English teachers, supervisors, curriculum designers and education policy-makers in Saudi Arabia overcome these problems and difficulties.
This study aims at analyzing an EFL course book in terms of the availability of multiple intelligences (MIs)-based activities and their distribution among the four English language skills. To achieve this the researchers surveyed other experiences in this context and analyzed a unit in terms of the availability of MIs-based activities in Unlimited Series/Level Four/Unit Two/Cambridge University Press, their weight and distribution in each skill. The results showed unfair distribution of the four skills and the eight multiple intelligences. This is due to the nature of the English language unit where certain intelligences are more appealing. It is recommended that curriculum designers give nearly equal weight to the four skills especially in general English courses and include as many MIs-based activities as possible. This variety is of great importance to students as teachers guarantee that no learning styles among students are left behind.
This study aims to deeply explore the Saudi college students’ perspective about the role of audio and visual English media in developing their English-speaking proficiency. To arrive to the best results possible a survey was used as a data collection tool. A focus group of five college students who were interested in improving their English proficiency was formed. Following the brainstorming technique, they created a questionnaire of six multiple choice, checkbox, rating, and scale questions which was reviewed by three experts and then piloted on 30 students, improved accordingly, created by Google Forms, and finally distributed online via WhatsApp groups. College students who were interested in improving their English-speaking proficiency and used to listen to and/or watch English media were requested to respond to the questionnaire. A sample of 65 college students’ responses were received and the data was analyzed by Google Forms. The major results revealed that: -the immense majority of students believed the English media could affect their speaking proficiency, -YouTube, social media, songs, and movies were the most repetitively and continuously used by students. -YouTube and movies were the types of media that affected the speaking proficiency the most. -Pronunciation was the most affected area by the media. Related educational recommendations and deeper further studies were suggested.
This study was conducted to investigateand identify the most effectiveoral outside classroom opportunities for practicing English and their effecton EFL learners' oral fluency. An investigative questionnaire consisted of 10 questions was used to collect the related data. A random sample of 89 students from King Abdulaziz University responded to this questionnaire. One important finding of this study wasmost students preferred the oral opportunities in which they interacted with native speakersandbelieved these opportunitiesaffected their fluencythe most.Another significant finding was studentsfavoured virtual opportunities more than authentic ones. A third finding was the activitiesin which students wereobliged to use English had a noticeable effect on their oral fluency more than opportunities where they used their mother tongue. Interpretations for these findings were discussed and recommendations were suggested to encourage students to engagein effectiveoral opportunities to improve their English fluency.
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