Determinants of EFL
achievement among Arab
college-bound learners
Ghazi Ghaith and Hassan Diab
American University of Beirut, Beirut, Lebanon
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine the degree of interrelatedness and the role of a
number of context-specific factors in the English language proficiency development of Arab
college-bound learners. These factors include: language class risk-taking, sociability, discomfort,
motivation, and attitude toward class.
Design/methodology/approach – The study employed a one-group pretest-posttest experimental
design. In total, 67 (n ¼ 67) male English as a foreign language college-bound learners participated in
the study. All participants took general English language proficiency pretests and posttests in order to
determine the effect size of improvement in their language proficiency after an intensive treatment of
200 contact hours. The calculated effect sizes of improvement were correlated with learners’ scores on
the factors under study as measured by a modified version of the Ely classroom climate measure. In
addition, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients were computed and a step-wise multiple
regression analysis was run in order to determine the degree of interrelatedness among the variables
under study and to determine their extent of their role in the effect size of the proficiency gains of the
participants.
Findings – The findings indicated that language class sociability is positively related to students’
motivation to learn and to a positive class attitude. Conversely, language class risk-taking was found
to be negatively related to class discomfort which in turn was negatively related to student motivation
to learn. The findings also indicated that none of the affective variables under study predicted the
effect size of the proficiency gains realized by learners.
Research limitations/implications – The findings of this study suggest that language acquisition
is a complex process determined by interaction among a number of learner-related and contextual
factors. Furthermore, the findings suggest that motivation for learning is related to learners’ affective
feelings and may impact their class participation. A limitation of the study is that it employed a
one-group experimental design and, as such, there was no control or comparison group.
Practical implications – Using humanistic/affective methods of teaching could decrease students’
feelings of class discomfort and increase their motivation and class sociability.
Originality/value – The study provides insights into the language acquisition process of Arab
college-bound learners based on empirical evidence.
Keywords English language, Students, Saudi Arabia
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
Considerable numbers of high school graduates in Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Gulf
region remain largely unprepared to join English-medium universities and perform at
the levels they must in order to succeed in all-English curricula at the college level.
This lack of preparedness limits the access of these graduates to quality higher
learning and may hinder their academic achievement. Consequently, there are several
“foundation year” and intensive English programs that are associated with many
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
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EBS
1,4
278
Education, Business and Society:
Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues
Vol. 1 No. 4, 2008
pp. 278-286
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1753-7983
DOI 10.1108/17537980810929993