awej 5 no.4 full issue 2014

AWEJ Volume.5 Number.3, 2014Perceptions of American Academic Discourse: Cases of Three SaudiMaddoxlearning English in Saudi Arabia. Both Hamza and Amir started studying English in the firstgrade (approximately at the age of 6). Hala was 12 when she began to study English. However,they uniformly described their experiences learning English at their Saudi Arabian schools asmostly ineffective.Hala (female), who was working on her medical science degree, had only been in the USfor 6 months at the moment of the interview. She spent one month at the IES. Upon completionof her undergraduate degree, Hala was planning to obtain a Master’s degree outside of the US for“a different culture, different experience”.Hamza (male) was studying pre-pharmacy at the time of data collection. Prior to startinghis studies at the University he spent one year and eight months enhancing his English languageability at IES. He was planning on attending pharmacy school, and subsequently earning both aMasters’ degree and a PhD in the field of pharmacology.Amir (male), similarly to Hamza, was studying pre-pharmacy and was planning to applyto a pharmacy school after completion of his undergraduate degree. Amir studied at IES for eightmonths before he was admitted into the university.Table 1. ParticipantsStudent Sex Grade level Marital status Program ofStudyHala Female Freshman Single MedicalScienceTime at IES1 monthHamza Male Freshman Single Pre-pharmacy 1 year, 8 monthsAmir Male Sophomore Single Pre-pharmacy 8 monthsData collection methodsThe aim of this study was to listen to the participants’ voices and encourage them to explain howthey understood their circumstances (Hatch, 2002). To meet this goal, I utilized semi-structuredinterviews to collect data. Qualitative interviews lead researchers “to uncover the meaningstructures that participants use to organize their experiences and make sense of their world… andenable researchers learning how to learn from the informants” (Hatch, 2002, p. 91).To triangulate the data, I also observed students during the classes that they were takingin the summer semester at a large Midwestern U.S. university. I limited my role to nonparticipantobserver as my aim was “to capture naturally occurring” phenomena (Hatch, 2002, p.73).Summer semester was divided into Session One and Session Two. Participants were only takingone or two classes during the first session of the summer semester, because they wanted either totravel around the U.S. or visit their home country in the second part of the summer. The firstsession was 4 to 6 weeks long.Hamza and Hala were observed during their biology class. The classes consisted oflectures and laboratory work. Students requested that I would only observe them during lectures.Hamza explained that I could not be present in the lab. Due to the scheduling conflicts with otherstudents’ classes, I was only able to observe Hala once during her biology class. However, sheinformed me that all of the other Biology classes were similar to the one that I observed:Arab World English JournalISSN: 2229-9327www.awej.org103