Editorial

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has constituted a major part of the curriculum in private and public institutions in Saudi Arabia for over eight decades. More recently, the emergence of English as a global language has made it a socially desirable language in Saudi society, as elsewhere in the world. However, despite the long history of English teaching in Saudi Arabia and the growth of the profession over the years, the overall English proficiency level of the majority of students is low and unsatisfactory. Saudi researchers have reported many reasons for the ineffectiveness of English Language Teaching (ELT) including, but not limited to, low levels of student motivation, negative attitudes toward English, a substandard English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum, and inefficient teacher pedagogical practices. These problems fall into two major categories: problems related to the lwhyr of teaching and learning of EFL, and problems related to the lhowr of teaching and learning EFL. In investigating these issues, much of this research has been carried out within individual/psychological/structuralist/positivist frameworks, which has failed not only to problematize the complexity of such constructs but also to appreciate the fact that all realities are produced/(re)produced via ldiscourser. Hence, the present study investigated EFL teaching and learning practices by employing Foucauldian and poststructuralist frameworks. This study used poststructuralism not only as a theoretical lens per se, but also established it through the implemented analytical tools and textual representations of the collected data. Employing a poststructuralist discursive perspective made it possible to view EFL teaching and learning as complex social practices, interacting with the discourses of English and ELT practices available in the global as well as the local context(s). These discourses create the nexus between power and knowledge and impact on what an EFL teacher/ learner does within a classroom setting by constructing perspectives of reality through which he or she comes to understand the EFL teaching and learning process in certain ways which constitute epistemological spaces and generate particular practices. Drawing on policy documents, EFL textbooks, classroom observations, interviews with two Saudi EFL teachers, and focus group discussions with Saudi EFL students in two rural areas, the study identified seven discourses circulating within and competing across the examined discursive spaces. The first three discourses are related to English and its values, including: English as a universal language; English as the language for better employment opportunities; and English as the language for spreading religion. The remaining four discourses centred around ELT with exams as an important aspect of EFL learning and ELT; CLT as the key to success in ELT; L1 as a barrier to successful EFL learning; and EFL textbooks as an essential aspect of the processes of EFL learning and ELT. In exploring the production and (re)production of these discourses through the examination of how visibilization, normalisation, exclusionary/inclusionary acts, classification, and subject positioning as discursive strategies are employed, it was found that whether a particular discourse was made visible or invisible depended on other discourses operating across the examined discursive spaces: the social context, the policy, the textbook, the classroom, and the teachers and students. The analysis of the connection(s) and misconnection(s) between these discursive spaces demonstrated that the interplay between the different discourses constructed discursive battlegrounds, which impacted the processes of EFL teaching and learning. Through the investigation of this interplay, it was found that there was a disconnect and an ambivalent relationship between the study participantsr espoused discourses of English and their EFL teaching and learning practices, suggesting that EFL teachers and learners should not be considered lstabler figures, but rather as social agents with discursively constructed ever changing subjectivities. Furthermore, the analyses of the constructions of the discourses operating within the examined policy texts demonstrate an intra disparity and fragmentation. This was manifested in the difference between the ideals of the EFL curriculum and the institutionally imposed regulating techniques, that is, examinations and teachersr assessment practices which had negative effects on EFL teaching and learning dynamics. Additionally, as a consequence of the competition between the different sources of discursive constructions, I found that there was a gulf between the EFL policies and the enactment of these policies in EFL teaching and learning dynamics in the observed EFL classrooms. The findings of this study also indicate that if a discourse promoted through the policy is mediated by discourses operating in the larger societal context, it became more visible in teaching and learning practices as compared to other discourses that did not have social moorings. This suggests that taking the prevailing social expectations into account at the stage of developing any policy is of paramount importance.nThe study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the interplay of connections and misconnections between competing discourses across different spaces in Saudi educational settings for improving the EFL teaching/learning environments in Saudi Arabia and other similar contexts.n

Previous studies have mainly focused on homework in courses such as math and physics with little attention to homework in EFL (English as a foreign language) classes. The main purpose of the study reported in this paper was to give a voice to both EFL teachers and learners with regard to English homework. To this end, 8 EFL teachers and 19 EFL learners took part in a semi-structured interview first. Then, based on their responses to the interview questions and a comprehensive review of the literature, a questionnaire was developed and validated to investigate EFL learners’ and teachers’ perspectives on different aspects of English homework. The questionnaire was finally completed by 283 EFL learners and 46 English teachers from two famous English institutions in Iran. Results revealed that English homework can help EFL learners with their language learning apart from enabling them to improve their reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar. However, the homework assignments that are currently being used are not very interesting and do not help EFL learners improve all their English skills. The majority of EFL learners usually finish their homework in a hurry just before class begins; others do not spend the time that their teachers require them to spend on doing homework. English teachers should, therefore, design homework based on their students’ needs and interests as well as resort to employing modern opportunities such as online resources and self-access centers.

Lexical inference strategy plays an important role in increasing the level of reading comprehension of second or foreign language learners. Lexical inferencing as an efficient strategy to deal with unfamiliar words has attracted much attention in the comprehension literature. However, few studies on lexical inferencing have been conducted in an English as a foreign language (EFL) setting. To fill in the existing gap, the current study aimed at investigating the effect of lexical inferencing strategy instruction on Saudi EFL students’ reading comprehension. Additionally, it sought to identify the lexical inferencing strategies used by Saudi EFL learners while they were inferring unknown words in a text. Last, the current study attempted to find the relationship between lexical inference strategies and reading comprehension among Saudi EFL learners. Sixty students from the English department were selected based on their scores on the Oxford Placement Test, indicating that they were at intermediate levels of English proficiency. The participants were randomly divided into two groups: control and experimental (each consisting of 30 students). The participants in the control group received regular instruction, while the participants in the experimental group were treated using lexical inference strategies. The instruments used for collecting data were Oxford Placement Test, reading comprehension test, and think-aloud protocol. A pre-test and post-test were administered for control and experimental groups. The results of the independent samples t-test revealed that teaching inference skills had a significant effect on reading comprehension performance among EFL learners. The results of the paired t-tests showed that lexical inferencing instruction had a statistically significant effect on EFL learners’ reading comprehension development. The results of the Spearman correlation coefficient indicated that there was a significant relationship between lexical inferencing strategies and reading comprehension. The findings revealed the profound impact of lexical inferencing strategy instruction on the experimental group's performance in understanding reading text. Hence, it was concluded that lexical inferencing strategies were recommended to teach to improve the students’ reading comprehension performance.

By examining relevant research articles published in reputable journals or conference proceedings in 2013-2020, the literature review article attempted to shed light on the areas: (1) contributions of thematic progression to the coherence and cohesion quality of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners’ writing, (2) EFL learners’ problems regarding thematic progression in their writing, and (3) research on pedagogical implications of thematic progression on teaching writing. While there have been extensive studies on thematic progression, it remained intriguing to investigate the extent to which this topic had been explored by scholars, particularly in the context of English as a foreign language. The previous studies had consistently confirmed the following results: (1) thematic progression contributes to the coherence and cohesion quality of EFL learners’ writing, (2) problematic thematic progression in EFL learners’ writing included the emergence of the brand new theme, double rheme, empty rheme, empty theme, overuse of constant theme pattern, overwhelming selection of textual theme, and (3) some studies evidenced good results of integrating thematic progression in teaching writing. The research suggests that further research develops a more detailed and systematic procedure of teaching thematic progression in a specific EFL teaching-learning context by integrating thematic progression theory with English language teaching materials. Furthermore, the research calls for more experimental research on teaching thematic progression to determine the significance of this method in enhancing students’ writing quality.

<span lang="EN-US">With the rapid growth of computer technology, some printed texts are designed as hypertexts to help EFL (English as a foreign language) learners search for and process multiple resources in a timely manner for autonomous learning. T</span><span lang="EN-US">he purpose of this study was to</span><span lang="EN-US"> design a hypertext system and examine if a 14-week teacher-guided print-based and hypertext reading intervention might benefit non-traditional EFL students’ reading comprehension. Non-traditional EFL students are older students with greater work experience. The primary investigation finding revealed no significant difference in comprehension between the teacher-guided print-based and hypertext intervention conditions, though a significant mean improvement was found after hypertext learning. EFL learners’ attitudes also supported that both teacher-guided print-based and hypertext interventions merit reading comprehension performance. In addition, there appears to be a significantly strong and positive relationship between the perceived usefulness of hypertext reading and attempt of future hypertext use, suggesting that the majority of non-traditional EFL learners made a positive willingness and prediction to use the hypertext system in their future reading, but that the degree of usefulness of hypertext reading was not reliably predicted by their hypertext comprehension scores. Based on the investigation results, limitations and future research are discussed and presented.</span>

Syntactic Complexity at the Intermediate Level in EFL Writing by Early Balanced Bilinguals

The study investigated how group-dynamics instruction techniques of adaptable nature can be to the benefit of EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners so as to develop and improve their willingness- to- communicate and speaking- ability in the long run. After analyzing the data via ANCOVA and EFA, the researcher selected 108 young Iranian male and female EFL learners in a language school in Tehran by means of convenient sampling technique. This investigation shows how EFL learners reacted to Group-Dynamics Oriented Instruction (GDOI). Later, the researchers instructed speaking tasks along with improving the learner’s willingness to communicate. TOEFL PBT Test was run among participants for homogeneity purposes, and then the researchers used two parallel speaking section of PET test along with WTC questionnaire before and after the treatment process. The findings of the study bore witness to hypotheses of the study, indicating that GDOI was reliably effective in improving speaking ability and uplifting willingness to communicate. In the same line of analysis, the researcher proved that GDOI has improved EFL learner’s willingness to communicate since GDOI provoked and triggered energy, interest, and inclination to partake in discussions in learners. As its effects on speaking ability were concerned, the results were interpreted as showing that GDOI would exert changes to L2 learners’ conceptual and psychological predispositions that, in return, would determine the strategies and behaviors the learners employ to address the challenges of L2 learning.

This paper explores the integration of digital technologies and tools in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning in Jordanian Higher Education through a qualitative open-ended online survey. It highlights the perceptions of 100 Jordanian EFL instructors, each with a minimum of five years of experience, on the digital transformation in the EFL learning process. The survey, consisting of ten open-ended questions, gathered in-depth insights on the benefits, challenges, and implications of this transformation. Thematic analysis was employed to analyze the qualitative data, revealing varied levels of experience, the use of diverse digital tools, and both technical and pedagogical challenges. Key findings include the positive impact of digital tools on teaching and learning experiences, enhanced student engagement, and opportunities for personalized learning and collaboration. The study concludes that leveraging digital resources can enhance EFL learner engagement and learning outcomes, inform future pedagogical practices, and shape the landscape of digital transformation in EFL Higher Education for years to come.

This study aims to explore and investigate University English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors’ perceptions of enhancing and improving EFL learners’ oral proficiency in English classrooms in Saudi Arabia and real-life communication. The researcher used a mixed-method approach to achieve the aim of the study. The quantitative method involves the construction of a structured questionnaire based on the EFL instructors’ views to enhance the students’ oral proficiency and was distributed among 30 EFL teachers from Majmaah University. In the quantitative phase, in-depth interviews were conducted with a subset of 6 EFL instructors to gain deeper insights into EFL instructors’ perceptions of improving EFL learners’ oral proficiency. The findings of the study explored that, EFL instructors at Majmaah University agreed that oral proficiency is the most important aspect of overall language proficiency, and they used various strategies to improve the students’ oral proficiency with a clear preference for role-playing, presentations, group discussions, and debates. The findings also stated some problems and challenges such as limited class time, large class sizes, and low student motivation faced by EFL instructors to improve learners’ oral proficiency. The study finally, recommends including the incorporation of more communicative activities, the integration of technology, and the provision of professional development workshops. The findings of the study can give a path to provide some new strategies to overcome the problems and challenges faced by EFL instructors for enhancing EFL learners’ oral proficiency.

EFL/ESL teachers have used digital communication activities to teach language skills. However, the effect of digital communication activities on EFL learners' Willingness to Communicate (WTC) in classrooms and learner engagement has yet to be well investigated. This study examined the influence of digital communication activities on the engagement and willingness to communicate of intermediate English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. It also assessed the potential advantages of integrating digital communication into language learning contexts. A mixed-methods approach involving pretest-posttest comparisons and qualitative interviews was employed. In the quantitative phase, four intact classes of 80 intermediate Chinese EFL learners were recruited and assigned to control and experimental groups. They attempted the scales (WTC and engagement) before and after treatment. However, 20 EFL learners exposed to digital communication activities were interviewed. The research revealed notable enhancements in affective, cognitive, and behavioral engagement among the experimental group. Moreover, a substantial positive effect on EFL learners' willingness to communicate was observed, particularly in speaking, writing, reading, and comprehension activities. Findings have practical implications for EFL teachers and learners to use digital communication activities to enhance the learners' WTC in the classroom and different aspects of engagement.

The integration of computer in the service of FL (Foreign Language) learning is expected to be inevitable in the future. It is seemingly due to (a) its considerable affordances for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners, (b) the characteristics of today’s learners as the Generation Z (Gonzalez-Lloret & Ortega, 2014), and (c) the widespread use of the internet in the 21 st century. This situation then leads to transforming CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) into WFLL (Web-Facilitated Language Learning) as an alternative paradigm for EFL teachers and learners. Furthermore, TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) is likely to serve as a pedagogical framework in designing the Web for the purpose of FL learning. The present study was therefore mainly aimed at (a) developing a particularly teacher-designed learning website, namely I Love Indonesia, and (b) investigating high school learners of English in Indonesia with different attitudes towards CALL (positive/moderate/negative) in correlation with how they perceive WFLL (agree/disagree) and perform web-based activities. Descriptive Statistics, IF Function in Excel, Correlation Analysis, and Independent-samples t-test were employed in the study. Finally, the findings of the study showed that (a) the website seems to benefit EFL learners in some certain aspects, and (b) positive attitude learners are likely to perceive more positively (agree) than moderate and negative attitude learners (disagree) on the use of the website for the purpose of language learning. A greater number of learners over a longer period of time should be taken into account when conducting further studies on the effectiveness of the website for EFL learners in order to be able to shed some light on learners’ language development. Keyword : attitude, perception, task-based language teaching, web-facilitated language learning

The integration of computer in the service of FL (Foreign Language) learning is expected to be inevitable in the future. It is seemingly due to (a) its considerable affordances for EFL (English as a Foreign Language) learners, (b) the characteristics of today�s learners as the Generation Z (Gonz�lez-Lloret & Ortega, 2014), and (c) the widespread use of the internet in the 21st century. This situation then leads to transforming CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) into WFLL (Web-Facilitated Language Learning) as an alternative paradigm for EFL teachers and learners. Furthermore, TBLT (Task-Based Language Teaching) is likely to serve as a pedagogical framework in designing the Web for the purpose of FL learning. The present study was therefore mainly aimed at (a) developing a particularly teacher-designed learning website, namely I Love Indonesia, and (b) investigating high school learners of English in Indonesia with different attitudes towards CALL (positive/moderate/negative) in correlation with how they perceive WFLL (agree/disagree) and perform web-based activities. Descriptive Statistics, IF Function in Excel, Correlation Analysis, and Independent-samples t-test were employed in the study. Finally, the findings of the study showed that (a) the website seems to benefit EFL learners in some certain aspects, and (b) positive attitude learners are likely to perceive more positively (agree) than moderate and negative attitude learners (disagree) on the use of the website for the purpose of language learning. A greater number of learners over a longer period of time should be taken into account when conducting further studies on the effectiveness of the website for EFL learners in order to be able to shed some light on learners� language development.�Keyword: attitude, perception, task-based language teaching, web-facilitated language learning

The potential role of ChatGPT in English as a foreign language (EFL) learning and teaching has not yet been fully elucidated. Therefore, a systematic review was conducted using Web of Science to identify the effectiveness of ChatGPT in promoting EFL learning and teaching. The database was searched until May 2024. The review summarizes findings from twenty-one studies extracted from the Web of Science database to get a better insight into the advantages and drawbacks of using ChatGPT in the field of EFL education. The review results showed that ChatGPT significantly improved students’ EFL learning experiences and teachers’ teaching practices. The main advantages of ChatGPT in EFL education are that it can improve learners’ language proficiency and basic language skills of speaking, listening, reading, grammar, vocabulary and especially the writing skill in addition to its ability to increase motivation and engagement, enhance learner autonomy, and provide individualized learning opportunities. Despite these beneficial effects, students and teachers approach ChatGPT with caution mostly because of its limitations and ethical issues. This systematic review research contributes to the understanding the key benefits and drawbacks of ChatGPT in the specific area of EFL teaching and learning.

In this study, I analysed the reading culture and its influence on reading comprehension of learners of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in Uganda. The data were collected by interviewing ten EFL teachers in order to gather their views of their learners’ reading culture and comprehension abilities. Data were analysed using Vroom’s Expectancy theory. Findings indicate that the EFL learners were enthusiastic about reading even beyond the classroom reading tasks. 30% of the teachers interviewed confirmed that the learners had a positive attitude towards reading as part of their language learning, hence a confirmation of their good reading culture. The rest of the teachers interviewed confirmed that 70% of the learners possess a poor reading culture. The study further confirmed the presence of a strong link between the learners’ reading culture and reading comprehension achievement. The majority of the teachers agreed that the positive reading culture exhibited by their EFL learners significantly contributed to their reading comprehension. The learners with a poor reading culture also exhibited poor reading comprehension abilities because they lacked frequent reading comprehension opportunities. The study concludes that the majority of EFL learners lack a good reading culture. There was a clear relationship between the reading culture and the learners’ attainment of reading comprehension. This is confirmed by the fact that in cases where the reading culture was positive, the learners’ reading comprehension abilities were better

Process drama, which emphasizes the active exploration of fictional roles and situations, has proven to be an effective pedagogical approach in language teaching and learning. Despite its recognized efficacy, the systematic evaluation of process drama's impact on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) education remains understudied. This systematic review aimed to investigate the current literature on the relationship between process drama and EFL teaching and learning. Using the keywords "process drama" and "EFL," publications released between 2003 and 2023 were meticulously extracted from various reputable databases, including ProQuest Citation, Web of Science, Scopus, Science Direct, Taylor & Francis, SAGE, and Google Scholar. In total, 30 studies (27 articles, two master's theses, and one PhD thesis) that met the inclusion criteria were analyzed comprehensively based on their primary characteristics, fostering in-depth discussions on the diverse factors influencing EFL learning and teaching through process drama. Notably, the review underscores that process drama exerts a significant and positive impact on EFL learning and teaching, particularly by enhancing language skills, students' language learning outcomes, and EFL teacher development.