Perceptions and Perspectives on Saudi Students' Productive skills and Communicative Competence in English as a Foreign Language

Scientific Study from the year 2016 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, Jazan University - KSA (English Language Center), course: ESP, language: English, abstract: The study was undertaken to find out and analyze how motivation influences students' communicative competence in English as a foreign language. The researcher prepared a questionnaire blended with selected items derived from Gardner's Attitude/Motivation Test Battery (AMTB), Dornyei (2001b), Cheng and Dornyei (2007) and Guilloteaux and Dornyei (2008) motivational strategies framework for foreign language classrooms. The study was conducted on two groups that included 35 students from the College of Engineering and the College of Computer Sciences in one group and 50 students from College of Business Administration in the second group and the responses from EFL teachers teaching at Jazan University. The results obtained through the responses on structured questionnaire were found almost similar for both groups and both are significantly affected by motivation. The results indicated that teaching strategies supporting motivation, curriculum and course material directly affect students' motivation and communicative competence. It also recommended few measures to counter the problems to enhance students' communication competence (L2). The second part of this book aims to explain the effects of Saudi students' productive skills on their teaching and learning process. The study is both theoretical and practical in nature covering both quantitative and qualitative aspects in totality. The researcher had obtained the response of the EFL teachers through well-structured questionnaire covering various aspects involved in teaching-learning process. Furthermore, the researcher analyzed the responses of the respondents and found out that the students are not familiarized with the fundamentals of English language. Therefore, the students resist and hesitate to learn and develop their speaking and the writing skills. The problems are further examined to derive at conclusions to suggest the most appropriate measures to be taken by the language teachers to overcome the problems of the students to enhance and expertise in their productive skills.