JEDDAH: The King Abdul Aziz University’s English Language Institute (Main Women’s Campus), which is a pioneering institute in the Kingdom in the field of English language teaching and learning, held a symposium on EFL (English as a foreign language) Research Methodology recently.

The conference kicked off with an interesting research conducted by Abeer Madini which investigated the conventions of interaction among expatriate Saudi students in an online discussion forum in Brisbane, Australia. The research explored questions of identity, purpose, and communication patterns using discourse analysis and ethnographic observation.

Misbah Khan opened her research with a discussion analyzing the relationship between the motivation for learning the second language (L2) and students’ achievement in the Saudi EFL (English as a Foreign Language) context. Dornyei’s (2009) L2 Self System was utilized as a theoretical framework for this purpose.

Teachers’ beliefs and their implementation were presented by Farwa Hussain Shah, a doctoral student in her final year. The research study described the findings from an exploratory study about teachers’ beliefs with regard to their implementation of the change in the English Language curriculum at undergraduate level in the public sector colleges in Pakistan. The study used qualitative research methodology to serve the purpose of an interpretative approach.

Syeda Saima Ferheen introduced the contemporary question of identifying adult learners’ attitudes toward English as a Second Language. The sample of the study comprised 200 learners and five language teachers from different institutes across Pakistan.

The study used the mixed method approach, structured interviews and two questionnaires. The Attitude/Motivation Test Battery and Foreign Language Classroom Anxiety Scale and classroom observations were also employed to probe deeper into learners’ attitudes.

Synforms, a linguistic term to identify words with similar forms and students’ difficulty with their acquisition was the key area of interest in Dalal Bahanshal’s research study. Employing both qualitative and quantitative approaches, the analysis aimed to discover the cause of students’ difficulty in understanding synforms.

A contemporary study conducted by Hanan Oraby, ‘The factors influencing the adoption of the LMS in King Abdul Aziz University’ explores the factors influencing the adoption of the LMS in an English Language institute at the tertiary level. The researcher used the case study method to identify the different factors at play.

As the King Abdul Aziz University surges ahead with new departments opening up in various fields, research continues to be at the heart of all academic activities in this center of learning.