The Current Study in Relation to other Relevant Studies

As indicated above, relevant studies that approached NA, attitudes, and motivations, with concerns that are comparatively similar to those addressed by the current study, will be reviewed through the remainder of this chapter.

2.7.1 Needs Analysis Studies in SA

Although I did my best to find a reasonable number of relevant studies in this context, the results came up with a tiny number. Only seven NA projects were undertaken with this concern, involving ESP students, namely, medical, engineering and general EAP students, by Al-Harby (2005), Al-Ghamdi (2005), Al-Eissa (2008), Abu-Rizaizah (2009), Shukri (2008), Madkhali (2005) and Al-Shumaimeri (1999). Thus, it is hoped that this research can participate in enriching the literature of NA in the Saudi context by drawing attention to the importance of conducting this activity while proposing any ESP

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programme. Here I try to produce brief accounts of each study, by identifying the aims, contexts, stakeholders, and findings.

Al-Harby (2005) admits that only a few applications have been carried out in SA with the aim of customising ESP courses suitable to the local work environment, especially in the medical field wherein English plays a major communicative role. Therefore, he investigated the language use in the medical workplace with the aim of providing empirical data that can best serve Saudi ESP, namely, medical settings. Questionnaire was the only feasible tool for this researcher to access the medical professionals. Results indicated that the productive skills (speaking and writing) were perceived as less

important than receptive skills (reading and listening), yet with very little differences percentages. These findings led the researcher to state that the English language courses were inappropriate so far as the English language use in hospitals is considered.

There is also Al-Ghamdi’s (2005) evaluative study that investigates both the products and processes of the medical English course. Through this study, Al-Ghamdi attempted to appraise the effectiveness of that program in terms of the appropriateness of its content and methodology of its objectives, and the attitudes of the involved stakeholders toward its products and processes. Unlike the other evaluative studies reviewed in this project, Al-Ghamdi’s findings showed that the investigated EAP program was effective and successful on the whole, yet with some limitations attributed to the course’s general organisation and its syllabus specifications. Reaching this result, Al-Ghamdi conducted present and target communicative language needs analysis from the viewpoints of all programme’s stakeholders, in order to suggest a new ‘integrated’ language presentation scheme.

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The third study was carried out by Al-Eissa (2008). Al-Eissa acknowledged the importance of linking the needs of the learners’ current situation to those required in their future workplace. He evaluated the status quo of health-related students’ language needs, focusing on reading, writing and conversation needs, both in the educational and professional circles. The language needs for ESP students as perceived by educators at the King Abdul-Aziz University Medical colleges were presented, with reference to how these perceptions were reflected in the syllabus design and materials selection. This study was concerned with determining the language proficiency needs required in both the medical contexts and the courses. The findings indicated that the language ability primarily required at the college was the writing skill. Regarding the medical contexts, the data represented speaking, with paying attention to accurate pronunciation and fluency, as the most emphasised skill in hospitals. The most interesting finding revealed that the language course developers were not aware of the needs that should be

addressed due to their unfamiliarity with health courses and future occupational requirements. This finding can indicate the importance of investigating the target workplace as a source that can well inform the needs that should be addressed in language courses.

Similarly, in Abu-Rizaizah’s (2009) evaluative study, the needs of the academic English programme and the workplace were identified through a pre-designed framework of analysis developed by Chen (2005) and Jacobs (2000). In order to comprehensively evaluate the efficiency of the program, he identified the skills and proficiency levels needed by the students, in order to meet academic and workplace requirements. The findings of the study indicated a discrepancy between the current situation and the target situation in the English language-teaching programme. As identified by the NA, the

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programme was meeting neither the requirements of any of the involved stakeholders, i.e. students, English language and Engineering teachers, academic staff, companies’ representatives, nor the aims of the programme.

Likewise, Madkhali’s (2005) project addressed both academic and occupational needs so as to inform the process of establishing goals of the Institute of Public Administration in SA. His main incentive was to help build academic goals based on the needs found in the workplace, then to propose an alternative design, informed by the job market, for the English language programme taught at this institute. The results of NA in business settings show that English is often used in the private sector due to the existence of expatriates, non-native speakers of Arabic in non-Saudi companies, i.e. the nature of the company being non-Saudi emphasises the use of English. The academic settings, on the other hand, reflect students’ facing challenges mainly in three skills: reading, writing, and speaking. Reaching such results, the researcher was able to propose an alternative design for the English Language Center Programme, emphasising teaching GE, rather than ESP.

Shukri (2008) explored the perceptions of medical students towards their writing needs in medical biology (MB) classes. She investigated their needs through their own

perceptions, and their ESP and MB teachers’ viewpoints. The medical students reported writing practice, reading for different schemata, and grammar practice as their writing ‘wants’.

Al-Shumaimeri’s (1999) study, however, was mainly concerned with analysing high school textbooks. He followed the NA approach in order to investigate how far the

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textbooks were helpful in satisfying the learners’ needs. He highlighted the spread of English in his introduction, referring to the mounting number of NNSs around the world and how this phenomenon affects communication. However, this discussion was not clearly reflected as a primary concern in the research questions or objectives. The study was primarily concerned with only analysing the textbooks under investigation. Yet, a finding referred to a considerable number of students who used English outside the classroom, which could indicate that the actual use of English is as a means of communication with non-Arab speakers in SA. In general, students thought that the textbooks were not very helpful in developing their desired skills.

It can be argued that none of the studies reviewed above come originally from an EIL perspective. Furthermore, researchers did not refer to any area within this perspective, apart from the fact that communication in the target workplaces mostly occurs between foreigners or non-native English speakers. Although these researchers conducted TSA in order to inform pedagogical issues and decisions about present situations at their

institutions, they were focusing on either the English programs efficiency and appropriateness, or the level of students’ proficiency. Their evaluations were mainly concerned with the content areas that should be included in the teaching materials, or the four skills, receptive and/or productive.

Having reviewed NA studies, I will now move on to present similar studies that

investigated the second construct, i.e. motivations, and namely learners’ motivations in the field of ESP, some with relation to EIL perspective, particularly in expanding-circle countries and the Saudi context.

84 2.7.2 Motivations Studies

2.7.2.1 Motivational Studies from Expanding-circle Countries

As mentioned above, by virtue of its established recognition worldwide, Gardner’s (1985) socio-educational model has been adopted and employed by many following interested researchers. For example, Lai (2008) conducted a motivational study from the perspective of EIL. He explored Taiwanese, English-major and non-English-major university students’ motivations for learning English in general, examining changes in their motivations, and influences that might have caused them. Besides, he investigated their perceptions of the role of the phenomenon of EIL. Gardner’s agenda of attitudes and motivations forms the main theoretical basis of this research. Lai examines the instrumentality and integrativeness. The findings of this research showed that the majority of the students adopts a combination of instrumental and integrative

motivations for studying English. Yet, Lai found that the majority of the students was more instrumentally motivated, indicating reasons for learning, such as finding a good job or having a better salary. Although reviewed studies in the Taiwanese context showed that Taiwanese learners were not integratively motivated, the respondents of Lai’s questionnaire revealed a positive correlation between integrative and instrumental motivations. Nonetheless, Lai argues that the term ‘integrative orientation’ in his study is not in accordance with that of Gardner’s (1985), hence it needs to be further

explained.

In a similar manner, Guerra (2005) investigates his participants’ reasons for studying English on the basis of integrativeness and instrumentality. The data analysis indicated interesting differences in the students’ instrumental and integrative motivations. The findings revealed that ESP students appeared to be instrumentally motivated when identifying their reasons for learning English. This study can prove that instrumental

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motivation is quite relevant in countries where English is considered as a foreign

language. However, integrativeness and instrumentality in this study were influenced by the students’ course and length of time studying English. That is, the more students spend time studying English, the more they develop motivations.

The literature related to the analysis of attitudes and motivations in the field of ESP is still comparatively little, especially in SA (Makrami, 2010), if it is not so in other contexts. Therefore, Al-Huqbani (2005:8) concluded, “there is no systematic line of studies in the literature that examined the motivation and attitudes of ESP learners towards the learning of English” in the region. I hope, therefore, to contribute to the discussion of motivations in the context of SA through the upcoming study. Following would be a brief review of a few studies, having concerns of language learning

motivations, conducted in the context of SA.

2.7.2.2 Motivational Studies Including Saudi Participants

According to Al-Seghayer (2012a), English in SA is used as an instrument for modernisation, advancement, technological transfer, a dependable means of

strengthening and expanding the economy, a means of assimilating modern technology and of absorbing world science, and as a vehicle for global communication. Therefore, it can be emphasised that the use of English in the country is mainly for instrumental, rather than integrative, reasons.

Al-Shehri (2009) explored the motivations of Saudi students in the UK toward BrE and AmE, in terms of Gardner’s orientations - integrativeness and instrumentality. His findings indicated that integrative motivation was not identified as important as instrumental motivation among the respondents.

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In his investigation into high school students’ perceptions about English textbooks, Al- Shumaimeri (1999) delved into the learners’ reasons for learning the language. His research reported no integrative desire from the side of the students to adopt features of English-speaking culture in Saudis’ life. Instead, students indicated instrumental reasons for learning the language, such as ‘to pass the final exam’, or ‘to enter a scientific college at the tertiary level.’

Makrami’s (2010) study mainly focused on ESP students’ motivations, in comparison to the motivations of English for General Purposes (EGP) students, namely integrative and instrumental motivations. The findings showed that the EGP group was more

instrumentally and integratively motivated than the ESP group.

The following will present the third set of the reviewed studies, besides NA and

motivations studies, which includes attitudinal studies, mostly investigating participants’ attitudes toward NSs and NNs and their Englishes.

2.7.3 Attitudes Towards NS and NNS Varieties and Teachers

A plethora of studies reported negative attitudes toward English varieties other than ‘standards’, namely BrE or AmE, which are often assigned with strong preference. Atechi (2007) remarks that the terms ‘variety’ and ‘variation’ are associated with negative connotations, and people usually relate them to lower standards. For example, Jenkins (2007) conducted a study with participants from diverse backgrounds in order to investigate their attitudes toward ELF accents. She included three accents from inner- circle countries (US, UK, Australian), six from expanding-circle countries (Brazilian/ Portuguese, Spanish, German, Swedish, Chinese, Japanese), and one from an outer-

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circle country (Indian). Both NS and NNS participants underestimated English non- native varieties, revealing a preference for standard Native Englishes instead, the AmE and BrE, in her study. Jenkins’ (2007) book English as Lingua Franca: Attitude and Identity shows some previous studies on perceptions and attitudes towards English with ELF, WEs or EIL concerns. Almost all the studies reviewed by Jenkins revealed

negative attitudes toward NNSs or their Englishes, such as Matsuda (2000), Scales et al. (2006) Friedrich (2000), Timmis (2002), Shim (2002), and Butler (2007). However, participants in Kim’s (2007b) study, although indicated a quite strong positive attitude towards the AmE, revealed no discrimination toward NNSs. Indeed, the participants in her study revealed positive attitudes towards NNSs. (refer to Appendix 7 to see a table of more details about these studies.)

Most of the studies investigating motivations I presented earlier have been mainly attitudinal or dealing with attitudes in one way or another. Here, I am referring to these studies once again in order to present how they approach and discuss the attitudinal aspects of their concerns.

In general, studies over the past two decades show that people in the country of SA hold strong positive attitudes toward English. Saudi people believe that English is pivotal to the future prosperity of the country and that it is crucial if to meet the needs of various domains (Rahman, 2011; Seghayer, 2012).

Makrami’s (2010) study reveals a strong positive correlation between students’ motivation and attitude to learning English, i.e. correlation values indicate that the increase in motivation is correlated with the increase in attitude.

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Al-Shehri (2009) investigated his participants’ attitudes towards the BrE and AmE. BrE was preferred by most of the participants. The British speaker was evaluated more positively than the American in this study.

Similarly, Guerra’s (2005) participants displayed some conservative attitudes by favouring the BrE as the only variety that should be followed, and by expressing a lack of interest in learning about other non-native varieties. However, the participants displayed a distinct tendency to accept other varieties and mix them, thinking that this helps the language user’s ability to achieve mutual intelligibility.

Through analysing his students’ integrative motivation, Lai (2008:205) concluded that these students “may have developed an attitude of ‘international posture’ with

‘intercultural competence’ and aim to achieve their ideal L2 self.” Most of the Taiwanese students in this study expressed a desire to achieve native speakers’

communicative competence in English as their ultimate learning goal. Particularly, they favoured the AmE and BrE as the language models that should be followed in the classroom.

Ghobain (2010) investigated medical students’ attitudes toward and beliefs about both native and non-native English varieties, namely Indian and Filipino varieties, in SA. The participants in her study revealed a positive attitude towards NSs, as they believed in English-speaking countries as the major resource of ‘perfect’ English. However, some learners revealed a hesitant attitude toward native teachers due to reasons related to the notion of intelligibility, stating that their speaking was somehow unintelligible as non- native varieties. Therefore, they showed a preference for English spoken by Arabs in

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general, and the variety that is spoken by Saudi teachers in particular. However, the participants accepted other ‘Englishes’ and showed a tendency to learn more about their characteristics, pronunciation in particular.

Also, the results of Yang’s (2010) attitudinal study showed that Chinese students revealed positive attitudes toward the English language and ‘China English’. Another significant finding asserted a positive relationship between the period of learning the language and the attitude towards it.

Al-Omrani’s (2008) study was mainly concerned with the attitudes of Saudi learners towards NS and NNS teachers. Participants in this study reported advantages and disadvantages of both NS and NNS teachers. Thus, they, together with the researcher, seemed to highly recommend the collaboration between NETs and NNETs in the teaching process. In their viewpoint, NETs were better in teaching oral skills than their NNET counterparts, due to their fluency and accuracy. These participants rejected the pronunciation ‘errors’ made by NNETs; therefore, they preferred NETs, instead.

However, they thought that NNETs could teach other linguistic skills, better than NETs could do, because such teachers had been through their students’ situation previously. Furthermore, teachers who speak Arabic, the participants’ L1, were seen advantageous in teaching vocabulary and grammar in particular. The participants believed that the most distinctive feature of good teachers is their expertise or experience of teaching, regardless of nativeness.

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It should be noted that, through the latter section (2.7) of this chapter, none of the studies I have reviewed approached or investigated the combined three elements I am

investigating in one study, i.e. needs, motivations, and attitudes, with a theoretical concern for EIL in medical contexts in Saudi Arabia, nor in other expanding-circle countries. However, these three elements are likely to have an important impact on the language development of medical students. Investigating them will at the same time contribute to clarification of how English as an International Language is to be conceived in a country like SA. Therefore, the current study should be viewed as an original attempt to fill this gap of knowledge, not only because it tackles an important issue in a context not fully investigated, but also because of the importance of exploring the combined effect of needs, motivation and attitude with regard to EIL in general. The following table clearly shows how the current study can be original as it identifies the areas that will be addressed in this project in relation to the reviewed studies.

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Study EIL ESP Context Needs

Analysis

Moti- vation

Attitudes Participants

Lai 2008 √ N/A Taiwan N/A √ √ University students

Yang 2010 N/A China N/A √ √ College students

Aleisa 2008

N/A Medicine SA Target and Present needs

N/A N/A College students, instructors,

administrative staff Alharby

2005

N/A Medicine SA Target needs

N/A N/A Saudi health professionals Abu-

Rizaizah 2009

N/A Engineering SA Target and Present needs N/A √ Toward program product and process Students, Teachers, companies representatives Makrami 2010 N/A Medicine Engineering Computing

SA N/A √ √ University EGP

and ESP students Madkhlai

2005

N/A Business SA Target and