Bakhtiar Naghdipour | Nazarbayev University (original) (raw)

Papers by Bakhtiar Naghdipour

The Journal of AsiaTEFL, Mar 1, 2015

Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language... more Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language (L1) reading ability in alphabetic or non-alphabetic languages on their second language (L2) reading performance, paying scant attention to the different aspects of L2 reading performance in learners of two alphabetic languages that have different writing systems or reading directionality modes. This study, however, examines the impact of L1 reading directionality on English reading fluency–represented here by a combination of reading rate, reading accuracy, and reading comprehension–in Turkish and Arab learners of English. Different reading texts from both first and second languages were employed to compare undergraduate intermediate students' (n = 40) performance on different components of reading fluency. Students were also interviewed upon the completion of the tasks in order to obtain in-depth insights into the way they approached reading and the challenges they encountered while reading in each language. Analysis of the data indicated that in spite of significant differences in some areas, the learners' L1 reading directionality mode did not have a significant effect on all aspects of their reading fluency in English. However, the observed differences between the mean scores of reading fluency components could have pedagogical implications for classroom practice.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jul 1, 2013

This study attempts to assess and compare the level of reflective thinking in undergraduate unive... more This study attempts to assess and compare the level of reflective thinking in undergraduate university students and to investigate lecturers' perceptions on the promoters or inhibitors to their students' reflective thinking. A sample of 96 students who were taking practical courses such as 'Special Teaching Methods', 'Teaching Language Skills' and 'Teaching Practice' as well as 10 instructors of the ELT department at Eastern Mediterranean University participated in this study. The results revealed that age and the level of education are two key determinants of reflective thinking behaviour. The lecturers also reported several constraints and promoters to reflective thinking.

Journal of Second Language Writing, Jun 1, 2021

Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting ... more Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting students’ writing development in pre-degree General Foundation Programs (GFPs) across Oman, where the boundary between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is becoming increasingly blurred. This report describes how mastery in English writing has become an invaluable skill for students’ academic, social and future professional mobility, as they attend English-medium colleges and universities where writing plays a crucial role across the curriculum. Students also need to develop an ability to communicate in English, orally and in writing, to secure an employment opportunity at the multilingual and multicultural local job market. To meet this demand, the concerned educational and accreditation bodies made necessary provisions in terms of upgrading the curriculum and establishing standards. However, data collected from teachers and students at different institutions using semi-structured interviews reveals that English writing is taught through traditional pedagogical practices that do not have the leverage to prepare students for challenging academic writing tasks at degree programs. Exploring L2 writing instruction in this context could have implications for similar contexts where developing writing skills contributes to students’ academic success and future career prospects.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jul 1, 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine whether university students were engaged in any type of ... more The purpose of this study was to examine whether university students were engaged in any type of academic dishonesty as well as to look for their justifications for this likely lack of academic integrity. A sample of 500 students and lecturers from different faculties at The American University participated in this study. Findings suggest that although students did not report any severe form of cheating, they showed an inclination towards engaging in academic dishonesty. There was also a mismatch between students' reports and their lecturers' observations with respect to students' amount of cheating.

Journal of Second Language Writing, Jun 1, 2016

Abstract This paper reports on English writing instruction and the main factors shaping the dynam... more Abstract This paper reports on English writing instruction and the main factors shaping the dynamics of English writing at different levels of education in Iran. The data gathered from teachers and students using semi-structured interviews and class observations revealed, despite students’ need to develop competency in English writing, unsatisfactory writing skills, mainly because of the inadequacy of the English writing curriculum and pedagogy. The findings further indicated that English language education in general and writing skills in particular have fallen prey to the conflict between the post-revolutionary ideological sentiments behind the design and implementation of the English language curriculum and pragmatic forces that allure individuals to subscribe to the new multi-literate and multi-cultural world, which has come to embrace equal educational access and opportunities for its citizens. Exploring the dynamics of English writing in this under-represented context could offer insights for the similar EFL contexts where the role of writing as a means of enriching the personal and future professional life of new generation of students and language learners has yet to be recognized.

TESOL Journal, Jul 27, 2023

The journal of Asia TEFL, Mar 1, 2017

This study investigated EFL language teachers' and learners' evaluation of classroom-based pair a... more This study investigated EFL language teachers' and learners' evaluation of classroom-based pair and group work activities during an intensive English language program and it sought their opinions on the potential of Facebook to extend such collaborative activities online. Data were collected from 26 teachers and 178 pre-intermediate students using surveys and semi-structured interviews at an international university in Cyprus. The data analysis revealed that despite acknowledging the benefits involved in using pair and group work tasks in their classes, more than half of the participants reported that students developed the feelings of boredom and demotivation toward participating in classroombased collaborative activities, mostly due to their overuse, poor design, and failure to cater to students' learning needs and beliefs and their educational and cultural backgrounds. The results also indicated that, under some conditions, Facebook could function as a learning environment to revamp students' interest and facilitate their engagement in collaborative language learning activities. Both students and teachers suggested specific ideas with respect to the informal as well as formal integration of Facebook into language learning classes.

Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 2014

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, May 1, 2013

Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller were two memory playwrights who searched the memory or the c... more Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller were two memory playwrights who searched the memory or the collective unconscious of their generation for the lost dreams of an unspoiled myth as well as the genuine ideals of love, humanity and dignity. These authors employed techniques and mechanisms such as poetic language and expressionistic stage directions to translate the inner workings of their characters into artistic projection. This paper employs the phenomenological principles of Geneva School of criticism with the aim of reducing the immediate consciousness of Williams and Miller, projected as stories of Tom and Willy, in search for the playwrights' attitudes towards some basic concepts of life in the modern era.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jul 1, 2013

Curriculum Journal, Apr 3, 2017

Undergraduate students' experience of assessment in universities is usually of summative assessme... more Undergraduate students' experience of assessment in universities is usually of summative assessment which provides only limited information to help students improve their performance. By contrast, formative assessment is informative and forward-looking, possessing the leverage to inform students of their day-today progress and inform teachers of how to better tailor their instruction to students' immediate learning needs. Despite these potentials, studies carried out on the use of formative assessment in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts are somehow rare. The current study reports on incorporating formative assessment in an L2 writing course in Iran. The analysis of data from pre-and poststudy writing tasks, pre-and post-study questionnaires, and semistructured interviews revealed that first-year undergraduate students were offered opportunities to improve various aspects of their writing and to develop positive attitudes toward writing as well as formative assessment. However, the students reported several challenges that could have implications for the further implementation of formative assessment in similar contexts.

Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching

With the popularity of student-centered pedagogy in language education, research on alternative f... more With the popularity of student-centered pedagogy in language education, research on alternative feedback strategies to supplement teacher written corrective feedback (WCF) has flourished in different contexts. Such research, however, has viewed alternative feedback strategies as initiated, deployed, and controlled by teachers, paying little attention to students’ capability in identifying and correcting their linguistic errors on their own. The current study adopts a quasi-experimental design to investigate the impact of a student-initiated feedback intervention on undergraduate students’ error identification and correction ability at a major university in Oman. To this end, two groups of first-year students (n = 63) from two different sections of an essay writing course were assigned to a control group, who received the traditional teacher feedback, and an experimental group, who consulted alternative sources of feedback on their own. Analysis of the data from pre-test and post-tes...

The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 2014

The curriculum for teaching undergraduate university students in Iran majoring in English general... more The curriculum for teaching undergraduate university students in Iran majoring in English generally includes paragraph writing in the second year and essay writing (4–5 paragraphs) in the third year. The first-year course ‘Grammar and Writing (I & II)’ offered in two consecutive semesters covers grammar only, despite the inclusion of writing in the title, and rarely goes beyond sentence-level writing in support of the newly taught grammar. This one-year delay in focusing on writing per se has been a source of frustration for those students who have to deal with the demanding writing tasks or large-scale written assignments such as extended essays and papers later during their academic or professional life. The current study describes and evaluates a teaching intervention for the potential development of a writing curriculum in first-year writing classes. A pre-test–post-test control group design was employed to compare the effect of the writing instruction within the process genre approach with that of the traditional grammar and sentence-level writing on the fluency, accuracy and quality of students’ (n = 68) paragraph and essay writing during two consecutive semesters. Findings from the tests and a focus group discussion revealed that students in the treatment group outperformed their control group counterparts at both paragraph and essay levels. The findings could inspire similar EFL programmes to design a writing curriculum and instruction commensurate with the real needs of their students.

E-Learning and Digital Media

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile soc... more With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile social networking applications to supplement formal education has attracted a great deal of attention. Teachers do have opportunities to join students’ online groups to share, clarify, and exchange housekeeping information and course-related content with them. Teachers can, in particular, provide English as a foreign language (EFL) students with more sources of linguistic input, interaction, and feedback. Research investigating this potential, however, is still scarce in such contexts. The current study explores the likely affordances of teaching presence in students’ WhatsApp groups for designing, facilitating, and guiding cognitive and social processes conducive to their language learning. A mixed-method design was employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and information from English-major undergraduates ( N = 111) and faculty teachers ( N = 8) who joined the same WhatsA...

Journal of Second Language Writing

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2022

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile soc... more With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile social networking applications to supplement formal education has attracted a great deal of attention. Teachers do have opportunities to join students’ online groups to share, clarify, and exchange housekeeping information and course-related content with them. Teachers can, in particular, provide English as a foreign language (EFL) students with more sources of linguistic input, interaction, and feedback. Research investigating this potential, however, is still scarce in such contexts. The current study explores the likely affordances of teaching presence in students’ WhatsApp groups for designing, facilitating, and guiding cognitive and social processes conducive to their language learning. A mixed-method design was employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and information from English-major undergraduates (N = 111) and faculty teachers (N = 8) who joined the same WhatsApp groups for one academic semester at a major university in Oman. Descriptive and thematic analyses of data from a survey with both closed-ended and open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews indicate that the shared WhatsApp groups functioned as small close-knit communities where students were able to constantly access teachers for their assistance, feedback, and clarification of content. Despite these merits, however, the participating faculty believed that the presence of teachers in WhatsApp groups might have consequences for students’ tolerance of ambiguity, scaffolding, and autonomous language learning. The paper concludes by discussing several pedagogical implications and directions for future research.

The Journal of AsiaTEFL, Mar 1, 2015

Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language... more Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language (L1) reading ability in alphabetic or non-alphabetic languages on their second language (L2) reading performance, paying scant attention to the different aspects of L2 reading performance in learners of two alphabetic languages that have different writing systems or reading directionality modes. This study, however, examines the impact of L1 reading directionality on English reading fluency–represented here by a combination of reading rate, reading accuracy, and reading comprehension–in Turkish and Arab learners of English. Different reading texts from both first and second languages were employed to compare undergraduate intermediate students' (n = 40) performance on different components of reading fluency. Students were also interviewed upon the completion of the tasks in order to obtain in-depth insights into the way they approached reading and the challenges they encountered while reading in each language. Analysis of the data indicated that in spite of significant differences in some areas, the learners' L1 reading directionality mode did not have a significant effect on all aspects of their reading fluency in English. However, the observed differences between the mean scores of reading fluency components could have pedagogical implications for classroom practice.

Journal of Second Language Writing, 2021

Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting ... more Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting students’ writing development in pre-degree General Foundation Programs (GFPs) across Oman, where the boundary between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is becoming increasingly blurred. This report describes how mastery in English writing has become an invaluable skill for students’ academic, social and future professional mobility, as they attend English-medium colleges and universities where writing plays a crucial role across the curriculum. Students also need to develop an ability to communicate in English, orally and in writing, to secure an employment opportunity at the multilingual and multicultural local job market. To meet this demand, the concerned educational and accreditation bodies made necessary provisions in terms of upgrading the curriculum and establishing standards. However, data collected from teachers and students at different institutions using semi-structured interviews reveals that English writing is taught through traditional pedagogical practices that do not have the leverage to prepare students for challenging academic writing tasks at degree programs. Exploring L2 writing instruction in this context could have implications for similar contexts where developing writing skills contributes to students’ academic success and future career prospects.

The Journal of AsiaTEFL, Mar 1, 2015

Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language... more Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language (L1) reading ability in alphabetic or non-alphabetic languages on their second language (L2) reading performance, paying scant attention to the different aspects of L2 reading performance in learners of two alphabetic languages that have different writing systems or reading directionality modes. This study, however, examines the impact of L1 reading directionality on English reading fluency–represented here by a combination of reading rate, reading accuracy, and reading comprehension–in Turkish and Arab learners of English. Different reading texts from both first and second languages were employed to compare undergraduate intermediate students' (n = 40) performance on different components of reading fluency. Students were also interviewed upon the completion of the tasks in order to obtain in-depth insights into the way they approached reading and the challenges they encountered while reading in each language. Analysis of the data indicated that in spite of significant differences in some areas, the learners' L1 reading directionality mode did not have a significant effect on all aspects of their reading fluency in English. However, the observed differences between the mean scores of reading fluency components could have pedagogical implications for classroom practice.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jul 1, 2013

This study attempts to assess and compare the level of reflective thinking in undergraduate unive... more This study attempts to assess and compare the level of reflective thinking in undergraduate university students and to investigate lecturers' perceptions on the promoters or inhibitors to their students' reflective thinking. A sample of 96 students who were taking practical courses such as 'Special Teaching Methods', 'Teaching Language Skills' and 'Teaching Practice' as well as 10 instructors of the ELT department at Eastern Mediterranean University participated in this study. The results revealed that age and the level of education are two key determinants of reflective thinking behaviour. The lecturers also reported several constraints and promoters to reflective thinking.

Journal of Second Language Writing, Jun 1, 2021

Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting ... more Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting students’ writing development in pre-degree General Foundation Programs (GFPs) across Oman, where the boundary between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is becoming increasingly blurred. This report describes how mastery in English writing has become an invaluable skill for students’ academic, social and future professional mobility, as they attend English-medium colleges and universities where writing plays a crucial role across the curriculum. Students also need to develop an ability to communicate in English, orally and in writing, to secure an employment opportunity at the multilingual and multicultural local job market. To meet this demand, the concerned educational and accreditation bodies made necessary provisions in terms of upgrading the curriculum and establishing standards. However, data collected from teachers and students at different institutions using semi-structured interviews reveals that English writing is taught through traditional pedagogical practices that do not have the leverage to prepare students for challenging academic writing tasks at degree programs. Exploring L2 writing instruction in this context could have implications for similar contexts where developing writing skills contributes to students’ academic success and future career prospects.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jul 1, 2013

The purpose of this study was to examine whether university students were engaged in any type of ... more The purpose of this study was to examine whether university students were engaged in any type of academic dishonesty as well as to look for their justifications for this likely lack of academic integrity. A sample of 500 students and lecturers from different faculties at The American University participated in this study. Findings suggest that although students did not report any severe form of cheating, they showed an inclination towards engaging in academic dishonesty. There was also a mismatch between students' reports and their lecturers' observations with respect to students' amount of cheating.

Journal of Second Language Writing, Jun 1, 2016

Abstract This paper reports on English writing instruction and the main factors shaping the dynam... more Abstract This paper reports on English writing instruction and the main factors shaping the dynamics of English writing at different levels of education in Iran. The data gathered from teachers and students using semi-structured interviews and class observations revealed, despite students’ need to develop competency in English writing, unsatisfactory writing skills, mainly because of the inadequacy of the English writing curriculum and pedagogy. The findings further indicated that English language education in general and writing skills in particular have fallen prey to the conflict between the post-revolutionary ideological sentiments behind the design and implementation of the English language curriculum and pragmatic forces that allure individuals to subscribe to the new multi-literate and multi-cultural world, which has come to embrace equal educational access and opportunities for its citizens. Exploring the dynamics of English writing in this under-represented context could offer insights for the similar EFL contexts where the role of writing as a means of enriching the personal and future professional life of new generation of students and language learners has yet to be recognized.

TESOL Journal, Jul 27, 2023

The journal of Asia TEFL, Mar 1, 2017

This study investigated EFL language teachers' and learners' evaluation of classroom-based pair a... more This study investigated EFL language teachers' and learners' evaluation of classroom-based pair and group work activities during an intensive English language program and it sought their opinions on the potential of Facebook to extend such collaborative activities online. Data were collected from 26 teachers and 178 pre-intermediate students using surveys and semi-structured interviews at an international university in Cyprus. The data analysis revealed that despite acknowledging the benefits involved in using pair and group work tasks in their classes, more than half of the participants reported that students developed the feelings of boredom and demotivation toward participating in classroombased collaborative activities, mostly due to their overuse, poor design, and failure to cater to students' learning needs and beliefs and their educational and cultural backgrounds. The results also indicated that, under some conditions, Facebook could function as a learning environment to revamp students' interest and facilitate their engagement in collaborative language learning activities. Both students and teachers suggested specific ideas with respect to the informal as well as formal integration of Facebook into language learning classes.

Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 2014

International Journal of Applied Linguistics and English Literature, May 1, 2013

Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller were two memory playwrights who searched the memory or the c... more Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller were two memory playwrights who searched the memory or the collective unconscious of their generation for the lost dreams of an unspoiled myth as well as the genuine ideals of love, humanity and dignity. These authors employed techniques and mechanisms such as poetic language and expressionistic stage directions to translate the inner workings of their characters into artistic projection. This paper employs the phenomenological principles of Geneva School of criticism with the aim of reducing the immediate consciousness of Williams and Miller, projected as stories of Tom and Willy, in search for the playwrights' attitudes towards some basic concepts of life in the modern era.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, Jul 1, 2013

Curriculum Journal, Apr 3, 2017

Undergraduate students' experience of assessment in universities is usually of summative assessme... more Undergraduate students' experience of assessment in universities is usually of summative assessment which provides only limited information to help students improve their performance. By contrast, formative assessment is informative and forward-looking, possessing the leverage to inform students of their day-today progress and inform teachers of how to better tailor their instruction to students' immediate learning needs. Despite these potentials, studies carried out on the use of formative assessment in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts are somehow rare. The current study reports on incorporating formative assessment in an L2 writing course in Iran. The analysis of data from pre-and poststudy writing tasks, pre-and post-study questionnaires, and semistructured interviews revealed that first-year undergraduate students were offered opportunities to improve various aspects of their writing and to develop positive attitudes toward writing as well as formative assessment. However, the students reported several challenges that could have implications for the further implementation of formative assessment in similar contexts.

Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching

With the popularity of student-centered pedagogy in language education, research on alternative f... more With the popularity of student-centered pedagogy in language education, research on alternative feedback strategies to supplement teacher written corrective feedback (WCF) has flourished in different contexts. Such research, however, has viewed alternative feedback strategies as initiated, deployed, and controlled by teachers, paying little attention to students’ capability in identifying and correcting their linguistic errors on their own. The current study adopts a quasi-experimental design to investigate the impact of a student-initiated feedback intervention on undergraduate students’ error identification and correction ability at a major university in Oman. To this end, two groups of first-year students (n = 63) from two different sections of an essay writing course were assigned to a control group, who received the traditional teacher feedback, and an experimental group, who consulted alternative sources of feedback on their own. Analysis of the data from pre-test and post-tes...

The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher, 2014

The curriculum for teaching undergraduate university students in Iran majoring in English general... more The curriculum for teaching undergraduate university students in Iran majoring in English generally includes paragraph writing in the second year and essay writing (4–5 paragraphs) in the third year. The first-year course ‘Grammar and Writing (I & II)’ offered in two consecutive semesters covers grammar only, despite the inclusion of writing in the title, and rarely goes beyond sentence-level writing in support of the newly taught grammar. This one-year delay in focusing on writing per se has been a source of frustration for those students who have to deal with the demanding writing tasks or large-scale written assignments such as extended essays and papers later during their academic or professional life. The current study describes and evaluates a teaching intervention for the potential development of a writing curriculum in first-year writing classes. A pre-test–post-test control group design was employed to compare the effect of the writing instruction within the process genre approach with that of the traditional grammar and sentence-level writing on the fluency, accuracy and quality of students’ (n = 68) paragraph and essay writing during two consecutive semesters. Findings from the tests and a focus group discussion revealed that students in the treatment group outperformed their control group counterparts at both paragraph and essay levels. The findings could inspire similar EFL programmes to design a writing curriculum and instruction commensurate with the real needs of their students.

E-Learning and Digital Media

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile soc... more With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile social networking applications to supplement formal education has attracted a great deal of attention. Teachers do have opportunities to join students’ online groups to share, clarify, and exchange housekeeping information and course-related content with them. Teachers can, in particular, provide English as a foreign language (EFL) students with more sources of linguistic input, interaction, and feedback. Research investigating this potential, however, is still scarce in such contexts. The current study explores the likely affordances of teaching presence in students’ WhatsApp groups for designing, facilitating, and guiding cognitive and social processes conducive to their language learning. A mixed-method design was employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and information from English-major undergraduates ( N = 111) and faculty teachers ( N = 8) who joined the same WhatsA...

Journal of Second Language Writing

E-Learning and Digital Media, 2022

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile soc... more With the recent COVID-19 pandemic and disruption of campus-based education, the use of mobile social networking applications to supplement formal education has attracted a great deal of attention. Teachers do have opportunities to join students’ online groups to share, clarify, and exchange housekeeping information and course-related content with them. Teachers can, in particular, provide English as a foreign language (EFL) students with more sources of linguistic input, interaction, and feedback. Research investigating this potential, however, is still scarce in such contexts. The current study explores the likely affordances of teaching presence in students’ WhatsApp groups for designing, facilitating, and guiding cognitive and social processes conducive to their language learning. A mixed-method design was employed to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and information from English-major undergraduates (N = 111) and faculty teachers (N = 8) who joined the same WhatsApp groups for one academic semester at a major university in Oman. Descriptive and thematic analyses of data from a survey with both closed-ended and open-ended questions and semi-structured interviews indicate that the shared WhatsApp groups functioned as small close-knit communities where students were able to constantly access teachers for their assistance, feedback, and clarification of content. Despite these merits, however, the participating faculty believed that the presence of teachers in WhatsApp groups might have consequences for students’ tolerance of ambiguity, scaffolding, and autonomous language learning. The paper concludes by discussing several pedagogical implications and directions for future research.

The Journal of AsiaTEFL, Mar 1, 2015

Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language... more Cross-orthography research has thus far focused on the effect of learners' first language (L1) reading ability in alphabetic or non-alphabetic languages on their second language (L2) reading performance, paying scant attention to the different aspects of L2 reading performance in learners of two alphabetic languages that have different writing systems or reading directionality modes. This study, however, examines the impact of L1 reading directionality on English reading fluency–represented here by a combination of reading rate, reading accuracy, and reading comprehension–in Turkish and Arab learners of English. Different reading texts from both first and second languages were employed to compare undergraduate intermediate students' (n = 40) performance on different components of reading fluency. Students were also interviewed upon the completion of the tasks in order to obtain in-depth insights into the way they approached reading and the challenges they encountered while reading in each language. Analysis of the data indicated that in spite of significant differences in some areas, the learners' L1 reading directionality mode did not have a significant effect on all aspects of their reading fluency in English. However, the observed differences between the mean scores of reading fluency components could have pedagogical implications for classroom practice.

Journal of Second Language Writing, 2021

Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting ... more Abstract The purpose of this report is to examine English writing pedagogy and factors affecting students’ writing development in pre-degree General Foundation Programs (GFPs) across Oman, where the boundary between English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) is becoming increasingly blurred. This report describes how mastery in English writing has become an invaluable skill for students’ academic, social and future professional mobility, as they attend English-medium colleges and universities where writing plays a crucial role across the curriculum. Students also need to develop an ability to communicate in English, orally and in writing, to secure an employment opportunity at the multilingual and multicultural local job market. To meet this demand, the concerned educational and accreditation bodies made necessary provisions in terms of upgrading the curriculum and establishing standards. However, data collected from teachers and students at different institutions using semi-structured interviews reveals that English writing is taught through traditional pedagogical practices that do not have the leverage to prepare students for challenging academic writing tasks at degree programs. Exploring L2 writing instruction in this context could have implications for similar contexts where developing writing skills contributes to students’ academic success and future career prospects.