This study is conducted at the English language department at the College of Arts and Humanities at City University (CU). CU is a prestigious academic institution that was initially established in \s]f as a private university by a group of businessmen. The goal was to provide the people of the western region of KSA with the opportunity to complete their higher education since there was no other university in the region. CU was later converted to a public university in \sf\, which enabled it to grow rapidly. The university started its first year in \s]i with a population of ]i male and YX female students and with only two colleges: The College of Economics and Management and the College of Arts and Human Sciences (KAU, WX\fa).
The main campus of CU is located in Jeddah, on the western coast of KSA. It is separated into two main campuses that adhere to Islamic regulations, one male and one female campus. The male campus has \e colleges and the female campus has ]. Both are equipped with various educational, sports and healthcare facilities which include two separate libraries with the latest technology to serve both students and staff. The university witnessed considerable development in quality and quantity from its establishment until it became one of the leading universities in terms of the number of students, and the number of scientific and theoretical fields of study (Alriyadh, WXXf).
The university provides students with the opportunity to join different colleges and departments that offer a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. However, undergraduate students must first pass a compulsory preparatory year programme (PYP) in their first two semesters before enrolling in their degree level studies. According to CU’s Handbook Guide to the Preparatory year (KAU, WX\fb) the goal of the PYP is to reduce the knowledge gap between the graduates of public education and what is expected of undergraduate level students, by developing their
academic and language skills. The PYP follows a similar structure to that in secondary education as it is divided into two tracks (i.e. ‘natural sciences’ and ‘humanities and administrative’), and is closely associated with the students’ route in secondary school (see Appendix W for details of the PYP structure for the humanities and administrative).
Students who complete the arts route in their secondary education can only enrol in the humanities and administrative track of the PYP. These students study \\ courses, which include Islamic studies, Arabic, English and Information Technology. After the successful completion of the programme, students are allocated to different departments in one of the four specific colleges, Arts and Humanities, Law, Economics and Administration, or Communication and Media. The placement process is based on a student’s Grade Point Average (GPA), the department’s capacity and its specific admission criteria.
Students who follow the natural science route in their secondary education are allowed to join either track of the PYP. Those who choose the natural science track also study \\ courses, which include Mathematics, Physics, Biology and English. The students are then allocated to one of the different departments in STEM colleges. These colleges have a higher level of student competition and more rigorous entry requirements than other colleges and departments in CU. For example, the College of Medicine requires students to achieve a high-grade average of id% in all EFL modules in the PYP whereas the College of Arts and Humanities only requires students to pass (i.e. a grade average of ]X%) these modules to join its various departments.
Students in both tracks must complete a four level content-based EFL programme as part of the PYP. The EFL programme is conducted by the English Language Institute (ELI) in CU, which operates independently from the Department of English Language and is delivered using a system of four modules, two per semester (ELI, WX\fa). Each module is seven academic weeks and taught for \i hours a week. At the beginning of the EFL programme, students are required to take a placement
test to assess their language proficiency and are then placed at the relevant level, according to their test scores. The ELI also uses the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR), which defines students’ level of proficiency and measures their progress at each stage of learning (Trim, WXX\). The aim of the EFL programme is to develop the students’ language competencies from a beginner’s level to an intermediate level (ELI, WX\fb). This suggests that the programme is designed with the assumption that students who finish school and join the PYP have a low level of language competency and therefore need to start learning English from a beginner’s level.
Furthermore, CU’s culture in general and teaching and learning in particular are highly affected by the norms, traditions and values that govern Saudi society. In relation to the university’s overall culture, Alhazemi et al. (WX\Y) argue that the fact that CU is classified as a ‘government university’ means that it is expected to comply with the cultural and social norms of the country. These considerations have exerted a significant impact on the university’s culture. These effects can be observed in, for example, the university’s decision-making process in relation to issues such as the level of participation of women in various activities (e.g. sports and theatre). This is mainly because “… [CU] and its senior staff … [are], to a degree, expected to conform to traditional customs and norms rather than effecting changes which may challenge these customs and norms” (p. sfi).
Alhazemi et al. (WX\Y) further suggest that teaching and learning has also been affected within the university. They give an example of how the western-based perspective about education encourages students to learn through active participation in various activities and by asking questions, while the Saudi perspective encourages students, to some degree, to passively adhere to authority. This suggests two important issues. First, that many students at CU take on a passive role in relation to their learning and are less engaged with various learning activities at the university (e.g. workshops and seminars). Second, students are generally less involved in activities provided by the university such as sporting events, theatre and different clubs (e.g. horsemanship club, scout club, and hobby centre).