Dr. Abraham Oommen Elankathil, M.A, B.Ed, TESOL(UK), Ph.D.

Many institutions of higher education in Saudi Arabia employ expatriate teachers for teaching English as a foreign language. Majority of them are non-native English teachers from neighboring countries. This situation gives rise to problems such as what approach, procedures, strategies and techniques to be followed in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). However, there are not enough empirical studies to show what is going on in classrooms where English is taught in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context by non-native English teachers. Therefore, this observational study with post-observation discussions aims to bridge this gap by having a closer look at the classroom teaching practices from the perspective of direct instruction and structured lessons. Now as regards this study, 55 English language teachers from eight colleges under preparatory year program at the university level were randomly selected and their lessons were observed based on a rating scale with 35 teaching points under seven components of a structured lesson. As far as the results are concerned, the teachers 'teach the way they were taught' and most of them use the direct instruction with focus on teaching instead of learning. This paper suggests that inclusion of learner-oriented activities and communicative tasks can impart learner motivation and achievement in language learning through well-structured lessons. Furthermore, this paper maintains that classroom instruction should strike a balance between structured lessons and learner-oriented activities to optimize students' learning. The data is presented and illustrated through tables and charts with inference and discussion.

Teaching Listening Skill in the classroom is a challenging experience for many EFL teachers as it tends to be often product oriented than to be process oriented. Therefore, it entails the criticism; Listening is tested in the classroom instruction rather than taught. This PowerPoint presentation is an attempt to shed light on how to relate theory and practice to remain focused on  the process of teaching listening comprehension. This presentation is divided into two parts: the first part discusses the theory and strategies to be adopted in a lesson on listening and the second part is a Listening Lesson as it is usually conducted in my classroom instruction using the PowerPoint.

Teaching Listening Skill in the classroom is a challenging experience for many EFL teachers as it tends to be often product oriented than to be process oriented. Therefore, it entails the criticism; Listening is tested in the classroom instruction rather than taught. This PowerPoint presentation is an attempt to shed light on how to relate theory and practice to have a focus on the process of listening. It is in two parts: the first part discusses the theory and strategies to be adopted in classroom teaching and the second part is a Listening Lesson as I conduct in my classroom instruction using the PowerPoint.