Saudi College Students Percept

(Mohammad Yousuf Crusader)

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Abstract

The aim of this study is to shed light on the students learning strategies through their comments on their errors in written English extracted from the answer sheets of their midterm test. Thirty-two Saudi female college students at the fourth academic level made 207 errors, and when they were asked to comment on these errors, they claimed that they have made them because of test anxiety, concentration on content rather than form and the limited time allotted to the test. They have also claimed that they know the rules that underlie these deviant structures they have produced. The main implication of the students’ comments is that the second or foreign language learners should be made aware of the differences between their native and target languages. However, the drills and exercises which are based on contrastive analysis should not be used excessively in the classroom; otherwise, the learners will be oversensitive and confused concerning these differences, and consequently, produce unnecessary and unintentional errors.
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