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The focus of this study is to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions, evaluations and
expectations about English language courses as EFL in Saudi tertiary level. In
other words, this article aims at creating a new avenue for effective EFL teachinglearning curriculum techniques and syllabus in the Saudi tertiary context. Saudi
universities offer credit and non-credit Foundation English courses as a part of
their program, which are not being very effective. These courses do not promote
the students in dealing with their disciplines or programs oriented courses. Even
after completion of the Foundation English courses in consecutive two or three
semesters, students fail to grasp comprehensive control over the reading materials
of their discipline-oriented courses. This is a common scenario in almost all the
universities in KSA. The author of this paper ventured to study the predicament of
EFL courses in some universities through survey questionnaires, observation as
well as primary and secondary sources. The data were collected through
questionnaires from a total of 25 EFL teachers at renowned Saudi universities.
The research results revealed that the existing Foundation English Course syllabus
is not tailored appropriately to the needs of the students so far as the higher studies
concerned, and EFL classroom is not conducive to task-based language teaching
(TBLT) practice due to large class size (100-140). It, therefore, suggests that
university Foundation English Courses should be redesigned in assimilating the
learners’ standard and previous learning, and course contents should cover the
socio-cultural factors of the learners. The study also concludes with some effective
implications and recommendations based on the findings of the present research.
