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The current English programme provided to foundation year students at King Abdulaziz University is failing to equip learners with the desired level of English language. This paper assesses the teaching materials and proposes a teaching framework to improve teachers' lesson delivery. The framework was designed to overcome some of the shortfalls in the mandatory course book series (Headway Plus). The framework adopted Kumaravadivelu's (2010) principles for lesson delivery: diagnosis, treatment and assessment, and advocates the development of cognitive ability, encourages collaborative learning, problem solving, emphasizes process rather than product, communication skills, and self-inquiry. Fifteen English teachers participated in a pilot study by implementing the new lesson delivery framework over a 14-week course. A peer observation strategy was used to help the teachers reflect on their teaching methods and improve the quality of their teaching. Also, during the last two weeks of the course the head of the English unit and an external observer conducted observations to monitor and assess teachers' development. The findings of the study revealed the new framework helped teachers improve their lesson delivery and encouraged them to use new teaching techniques such as problem solving and a student-centred approach. However, the results also indicated there was a need for teacher training courses to help teachers understand the principles behind the different teaching methodology. In addition, a cultural factor was found to be influential, as some teachers were reserved about criticizing other teachers' performance.

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As Saudi Arabia is increasing its international influence and educational collaboration at a global scale, promoting the importance of English language teaching and learning in basic and tertiary education has been more prioritized in the country. Diverse programs are offered in universities, incorporating foundation year programs and curricula, which have become a must for anyone passionate about his/her future, and a strategic necessity for any university that aims at preparing its graduates for their career life. This paper investigates the birth of one of the newest approaches in EFL curriculum design that tries to re-launch the link between labor markets and demands of academic requirements, global society, on the one hand, and the learners’ needs on the other hand, and questions the opinions of foundation year students who completed one academic year of the newly launched curriculum in an English Language Institute at a Saudi public university, data collection employed a large-scale survey (n = 2000) that purposefully explores the students’ opinion on the new curriculum. Results obtained from 371 respondents reveal students’ satisfaction toward a clear improvement in their language skills, specifically presentation, vocabulary, and writing, and joint agreement that the course was autonomy supportive. It was also significant that the course increased the students’ intrinsic motivation and appreciation of the challenges and inspiration this curriculum had given to them. This paper is an extended piece of knowledge for further research. It provides an illustration of students’ deep thoughts on their target language needs for policymakers and curriculum designers to consider.

Educational initiatives and plans worldwide are now heading towards more decentralized systems including curricular decentralized models which are assumed to enhance teaching and learning outcomes and allow the whole educational community to participate in decision making. Decentralized approaches foster whole communities to share the development of teaching and learning management and processes. Providing a comprehensive description of a proposed semi-decentralized model, smoothly built into a higher education institute in Saudi Arabia and synchronized with the current Saudi Vision 2030, this paper illustrates a planned and deployed road map that guided the reform of some major aspects of the organization starting from the vision, mission, philosophy, principles, curriculum and decision-making, to teachers’ autonomy and creativity, and students learning outcomes.