The Relevance of Students Performance to Intensive English Program Evaluation in Saudi Context

(Mubarak Salem BRIC)

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Abstract

The recent expansion in scientific specializations in Saudi Universities has led to an increase on the emphasis on teaching English to prepare students for studying in English. The program offered by King Faisal University (KFU) in Saudi Arabia is one example of this new surge in teaching English. The program which has been running in the Colleges of Medicine, Architecture in the Dammam Campus and Veterinary Medicine in Al-Ahsa compus has not been subjected to professional evaluation. The aim of this paper is to evaluate students performance in this program which is currently offered to four colleges in the main Campus of KFU in Al-Ahsa: College of Medicine, College of Veterinary Medicine, College of Clinical Pharmacy, and College of Computer Science and Information Technology. Only the College of Medicine currently admits girls. The Michigan Proficiency Test (MPT) was given to all five groups in these colleges in the first and last week of instruction, and the results were compared with the performance of students as evaluated at the end of the program by course instructors. The results show that the achievement in the MPT is rather low and that the instructors evaluation tended to be higher. The instructors evaluation was seen to be higher in the term work compared with the final examination in two groups: the Veterinary Medicine and the Computer Science. These are the lower achievers in the five groups, and the lowest in terms of the intake. The paper concludes that the overall low achievement in the MPT shows that the external general test is not sensitive to the local situation in which the program is run. The low achievement and negative correlation in the Veterinary group reflect week intake, absenteeism and a local classroom culture. These features point to the need for classroom research.
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