A Comparative Study of Students' Perceptions about the Effectiveness of Teachers in English Language Classroom at College Level in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

English is taught as a foreign language at school and university level in Saudi Arabia. The issue of teachers, who are better performer according to their effectiveness in a classroom, still remains unresolved. The present paper focuses on this issue of native and non-native speaker English teachers about their effectiveness. It reports the outcome of a study carried out in Jazan University, Saudi Arabia. The study was conducted with 120 Saudi male students. The object was to get a deeper insight into the students' perceptions about the Effectiveness of Native English speaker teachers and Non-Native English speaker teachers in English Language Teaching classroom. The effectiveness of the model study was based on enhancing the language proficiency level of the learners in the context of pedagogical behavior of teachers. Qualitative and quantitative data were collected through the questionnaire surveys, interviews and end semester results of the participants. The learners involved in this model study were Preparatory Year students of (Level-1&2) taking Intensive English Language Course at Jazan University, KSA. The findings of the study statistically indicated the students' perceptions in favour of such Native English speaker teachers and Non-Native English speaker teachers (Arabs, Non-Arabs) both, who leave no stone unturned to maintain a serious learning environment. They apply varying strategies in order to enhance and improve the language proficiency level of the learners. The results will be beneficial for native and non‐native teachers in terms of realizing their deficiencies and raising awareness.

Keywords: language proficiency, native, non-native, preference, students' perception