Foreign Language Learning Pedagogy: Learner Centredness vis-à-vis Linguistic Competence - Action and Reaction

It is well-expected that in the cause-and-effect relationship, authentic formal language learning four hours weekly for six years and 18 hours a week for nearly one year is very likely to produce learners with language proficiency enough to conduct simple conversations about basic daily life issues. Through measuring the global grammar accuracy in the oral language of foundation students at the English Institute at King Abdul Aziz University, the present study aimed at examining how far the learner is the centre of the learning operation so that it can correspondingly yield a considerable amount of EFL linguistic proficiency. The results, however, show that even the most basic grammar norms of the target language (TL) have not yet been acquired, and the learners’ TL grammar is so inaccurate that it severely affects the oral output intelligibility. That highly inaccurate TL grammar calls for the reestablishment of the learning aims, approaches, and tools in serious quest for more learner-centredness in the learning task so that those severe linguistic gaps can be abridged and more authentic TL acquisition is achieved.