Lecturers' and students' perspectives towards strategies used in oral practice and assessment in Libya

The study aims to identify strategies used for oral practice and assessment inLibyan private language centres from the perspectives of teachers and studentsworking/enrolled in these centres. Within the Libyan higher education context,students and graduates seek learning opportunities in private centres to improveand consolidate their English language oral skills, including listening andspeaking, knowing that their school/university education is not sucient fore ective, real-life communication skills in English. Drawing on principles fromAssessment for Learning (Black and Wiliam, 1998) which emphasise the dynamicconnection between assessment and learning as well as Social Learning theory(Bandura, 1977, et seq.), the study sought to examine to what extent teachers'and students' perspectives towards oral practice and assessment supported thelearning process. Using a lens of power, the paper critically examined thesestrategies for English language learning and assessment in the Libyan context.Education in general, and English Language Teaching in particular, arein uenced by an array of power relations (Foucault, 1980). The Ministry ofEducation controls examination policies and teaching/assessment timetables inLibya. The Departments of Educational Inspection and Examinations areexamples of such power relations. Additionally, MacLure (2006) argues thateducation workers, including students and teachers, are con ned by coursebookmaterials in which they have pre-determined goals, activities, and time plans ofunits and modules. The teacher's book may as well instruct the teachers what todo, when and how long to do it, and furthermore what to say in the process. Tothis end, the current work adopted the qualitative mode of investigation, usingsemi-structured interviews. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted,nine with teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) working in privatelanguage centres and eleven with students enrolled on EFL courses in thesecentres. The participants were asked questions related to their perspectives andattitudes towards oral practice and the strategies used for oral assessmentpractice. One of the ndings was that, generally, teachers and students hadpositive perspectives towards oral teaching/assessment practice in privateschools, unlike in government-led schools, where they argued that forms of powersuch as school administration, inspectors were seen as interfering in a negativeway in that they encourage memorisation over oral practice arguing that oralpractice was `too hard' for the learners and that covering the syllabus was apriority over language attainment. However, in their attempts to promotepractising oral skills, teachers stated that they use scores as incentives. Studentsalso stated how they were penalised for making mistakes in oral practice.Foucault (1977, p. 183) discusses how reward and punishment have becomehabitual in disciplinary institutions in a practice which compares, excludes, andthus normalises. It has become a power structure which leaves little room foragency or resistance from those under it. These ndings indicate that privatelanguage centres in Libya provide more e ective practice of oral assessment thatsupports learners in developing authentic spoken English in private languagecentres in Libya compared to their experience in government-led institutions.However, there remains room for improvement, particularly with regards tomotivation strategies, feedback and audio-visual teaching aids.