May Alharbi

About me:

I am May Alharbi, an international student from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I have a scholarship to complete my PhD in the UK. It is my pleasure to be a student in the Exeter University.

I did my master's degree at Arkansas Tech University in the US. I have awarded Master of Arts in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Language (TESOL). I have two years experience working and teaching from 25/1/2016 to 10/1/2018. During that period, I demonstrated the ability to work independently with creativity and enthusiasm as effectively teaching senior students in the university.

Research Unit:
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

Research Project:

Teaching in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms is an exciting area to study because the majority of EFL learners tend to encounter challenges when asked to compose logical academic essays. In Saudi Arabia, EFL students are required to complete a series of writing task, i.e., single-paragraph exercises, summaries, and essays (Alharabi, 2016). These written tasks present a challenge for many college students who find it difficult to compose well-reasoned academic essays (Ahmad, 2018). This difficulty could be an outcome of these learners' lack of exposure to varying types of feedback that EFL teachers are able to provide to EFL students (Alharabi, 2016). One of the main techniques for addressing this issue is by providing various types of feedback to the EFL students in Saudi Arabia, the type of feedback provided is not usually beneficial and useful. However, there has been no study conducted in the context of Saudi Arabia to address such a gap.

Accordingly, my research aims to investigate the impact of providing feedback to EFL writers in Saudi Arabia. This will be done by exposing students to two kinds of feedback, as suggested by the scholars Elola and Oskoz (2016), as well as Hyland and Hyland (2019): indirect feedback and direct feedback. The findings of my project will have benefits for teaching English composition both within and outside Saudi Arabia. Additionally, this study’s results could also be used in the teaching of first language (L1) composition.

The selection of my research comes from my personal experience and interests, as I have been studying different aspects of EFL teaching methodology in Saudi Arabia for my assignments. Another important reason is the lack of in-depth research on the impact of EFL feedback on EFL writers, generally and more specifically, in the context of Saudi Arabia.

References

Ahmad, I. (2018). Teacher Cognition and Grammar Teaching in the Saudi Arabian Context. English Language Teaching, 11(12), 45-57.

Alharbi, S. (2016). Effect of teachers’ written corrective feedback on Saudi EFL university students’ writing achievements. International Journal of Linguistics, 8(5), 15-29.

Elola, I., & Oskoz, A. (2016). Supporting second language writing using multimodal feedback. Foreign Language Annals, 49(1), 58-74.

Hyland, K., & Hyland, F. (2019). Feedback in second language writing: Contexts and issues. Cambridge: Cambridge university press

Research Supervisory team:

Dr. Philip Durrant

Dr. Nasser Mansour

Professional/research experience:

January 2016 April 2018

Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

A lecturer at Dept. of English and translation at Qassim Univesity, Saudi Arabia.

January 2012 December 2012

Wesam International School, Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

A supervisor at Al Wesam International School, Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

August 2011 December 2011

Riyadh bank, Saudi Arabia

A customer service at Riyadh bank, Qassim, Saudi Arabia.

Education:

January 2018 January 9999

University of Exeter

Educational doctorate (EDD) in TESOL

January 2014 January 2015

Arkansas Tech University

MA in TESOL, Arkansas Tech University, United States.

January 2008 January 2011

Qassim University, Saudi Arabia

BA in English Language, English Department, Arts and Science College, Saudi Arabia.

Professional Development:

2019-07-24

Conferences/Symposiums-

I attended the Doctoral Research Forum session organized by the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. The title of presentation was“Investigating the Mediating Role of Written Corrective Feedback: Linking Teachers Professional Development with Learners’ Educational Outcomes. it was presented by Emna Maazoun Zayani. from the University of Sfax.

2018-11-13

Conferences/Symposiums-

I attended the Doctoral Research Forum session organized by the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter. The title of presentation was''How Omani teachers perceive the process of integrating the 21st century competencies and skills in the EFL Curriculum’'. it was presented by Atoom Alkhatri.

2015-08-05

Conferences/Symposiums-

Attending a regional TESOL conference at Rogers, Arkansas and had the honor of meeting TESOL teachers and professors.

2015-04-10

Conferences/Symposiums-

Attending conference on Language, and Culture "Next Generation Assessment" at Virginia International Unversity in Fairfax, VA.

2014-10-09

Conferences/Symposiums-

Completing 9 hours of Professional Development At the SETSOL Conference, October 9 – 11, 2014, United States.