Evaluating English Language Teaching ( ELT) Effectiveness at the University Level: A Formative Perspective: Oman as a Sample

Abstract

This work is a formative evaluation study of an ELT undergraduate programme implemented by a private higher education institution (PHEI) in the Sultanate of Oman. It mainly aims at investigating the effectiveness of teaching strategies adopted in this programme. The technique used is end-of-semester questionnaire. It covers 13 subjects distributed among linguistic courses, literary courses, college compulsory and elective courses, department ancillary courses, and foundation programme courses. The subjects representing the sample of the study are 294 undergraduate students at the English Department of the (PHEI). The data obtained are subjected to mean value and percentage analyses. The researcher comes up with a number of conclusions regarding the teaching situation of that progamme. The major point of strength is the higher level of performance registered in linguistic courses as compared to the other courses involved. Areas that need much concern and improvement are those relevant to the inadequacy of library resources and computer resources, difficulties faced by foundation programme students to enhance their communicative skills, difficulty and inusefulness of some textbooks used, inadequacy of marking and grading criteria of some literary courses, and the unsuitability of the course content of some ancillary Arabic courses. The paper presents a number of suggestions to improve the discrepancies mentioned so far in the light of the feedback given.