IMPORTANCE OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE CLINICS FOR REMEDIAL TEACHING: CONCEPT, FUNCTIONING AND CHALLENGES

Abstrak

Although EFL students learn English at schools and colleges, the time allotted for their English lessons per day is very limited. Setting up English Language Clinics at EFL colleges/institutes will help students improve and develop their language skills. This paper aims at helping EFL students develop their English language skills by opening English language clinics in schools and colleges. The paper presents the concept and scope of ELC and its usefulness. It also provides an overview of some of the English language clinics successfully run by various colleges in general and Jeddah community college in particular. Finally, it suggests various ways in which English language clinics can be established and implemented successfully for the benefit of students as well as teachers. It also provides some suggestions for extended tasks that can be carried out by the language clinic given enough administrative and financial support. The work is basically of descriptive-exploratory type that involved some English teachers’ responses from different colleges/universities and JCC teachers at King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah-KSA. The findings will be helpful in supporting the theory of establishing ELCs at English departments to cater to the needs of learners facing difficulties in learning specific aspects/skills of English language.