Understanding of Reading among Teachers and Learners: A Descriptive Study of Pre-university English Language Teaching /Learning in Saudi Arabia

This study assesses pre-university teachers' perception about reading comprehension in English as a foreign language (EFL) in Saudi context. It also identifies the difficulties faced by the students in their reading comprehension classes to have a holistic view of learning process. The main aim of the study is to explore the issues related to teaching reading, both from teachers as well as learners' perspectives, so that the best teaching strategies can be adopted to achieve the desired outcomes. It assesses the ongoing prevalent scenario of learning to read in English as foreign language and observes that the learners' difficulties are not addressed properly because the teachers/instructors are not trained well or pay less attention to reading skill. A descriptive approach has been used on a sample of instructors from various non-native English-speaking nationalities (n=60) and Saudi learners (n=146). Responses revealed that teachers' poor awareness of teaching strategies cause poor learning outcomes. Their responses also reveals that their strategies do not take into account learners' difficulties which somewhere cause learners' helplessness in getting desired outcome. The results of the study elaborate how the culture and contextual knowledge play significant roles. These are the bases of teaching reading skills along with learners' needs so that more robust teaching strategies can be followed to truly meet the desired learning outcomes. This will definitely help the teacher-educators as well as the instructors in improvising their teaching practices that suit their classrooms well.