An Investigation of College Students’ Preferred Classroom Activities in an EFL Context

Abstract

With the use of a questionnaire administered to 93 EFL students and 47 teachers, the present study investigates the perceptions of Omani college level EFL students towards their most preferred classroom activities and their teachers’ perceptions of these preferences. Eight types of class activities were investigated with a total of 48 items. These were: reading, writing, listening, speaking, testing, feedback, participation and other activities.  The study is also set to explore the effect of two main variables on students’ classroom preferences, namely the effect of student gender and students’ proficiency level. Results of the study showed a wide agreement between students and teachers where they differed significantly in only 14 classroom activities out of 48 activities. As for the effect of gender, the results revealed that the means scored by female students in all types of classroom activities were a little higher than means scored by male students, however, this difference was not a statistically significant one. There were also differences between advanced and beginning students in favor of advanced students in some types of class activities. The study makes a number of pedagogic recommendations.