Foundation-Level Gulf Arab Student Response to Self-Access Learning

Abstract

This article describes the role of the self-access centre at Arabian Gulf University (AGU) in helping low proficiency students in our foundation year achieve the skills in English they will need to succeed in our medical college. Students’ previous training and expectations are described as well as some of the practices developed at AGU to monitor and encourage student participation in the centre. While students have generally responded well to their self-access work in our facility and endorse its role in developing their skills, they have also highlighted some areas for improvement. Although our centre is small and serves a specialized group of learners, some of the issues we face may be similar to those experienced by others in different settings and some of the solutions we have tried to find may be of interest.

Keywords

• self-access language learning
• low proficiency English learners
• self- access centres
• Gulf Arab English learners