Promoting Communicative Competence within EFL Contexts: A UAE Case Study

Abstract

Upon university graduation, under-graduate students studying in the United Arab Emirates are expected to acquire adequate communicative competence in English as a foreign language. Despite the efforts made within the area of teaching English to university students majoring in subjects other than English language and literature, the outcome as reflected by students’ skills and competencies in English is still below expectations. Believing in the essential role literature can play in promoting communicative competence on the part of EFL learners; the current study introduces a literature-based course: LEARN AND GAIN. Adopting an experimental design, the research project involved two groups: experimental and control. To examine treatment effectiveness, the researcher set and administered a pre-posttest. The pre-posttest aimed to measure subjects’ communicative critical reading competence and subjects’ communicative critical writing competence in English. Based on the statistical findings, the experimental group students’ achievement on the communicative critical reading competence pre-posttest and the communicative critical writing competence pre-posttest was significantly better than that of their counterparts of the control group students. In the light of findings and conclusions, a number of recommendations have been made.