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Tamara Al Khalili

Department: Education
Discipline: Graduate School of Education
Research Centre/Unit: TESOL

Project Summary

Changing Practices to Overcome Writing Difficulties in EFL Courses at University: A Lebanese Case study is my first research study at the PhD program. This research paper is conducted to study the effectiveness of using an intervention based on the process-writing approach (PWA) in a pre-university English program at one of the private universities in Lebanon. The participants have different language backgrounds and they are all taking a remedial English course to enhance their English comprehension and writing skills. A qualitative case study is conducted and three types of data collection instruments are used to collect data; identical pre and post-writing tests, semi-structured interviews, and field notes. The findings of the study proved the effectiveness of the PWA intervention in this context and in reducing students’ negative attitudes toward writing.

Supervisory Team

This research study was supervised by Dr. Gabriela Meier and Dr. Phil Durrant and published as a chapter in Lee McCallum and Christine Coombe's book entitled "The assessment of L2 written English in the MENA region" p. 269-296. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

The book is available on: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030532536.

Wider Research Interests

I conducted another research study entitled "Marginalized Students and Linguistic Challenges at Intensive English Programs in Lebanon" and was supervised by Dr salah Troudi.

This research study is conducted in a private English speaking university in Lebanon that uses English as a medium of instruction and tackles the difficulties that students coming from refugee and public high schools face when studying at private Lebanese universities that use English as the main medium of instruction. This study is a critical ethnography intended to explore and highlight the effect of the inequity that exists because of the different language policies followed in refugee and public schools on one hand and private schools on the other hand in Lebanon. It also aims to give these students the chance to voice their challenges and suffering. The methodology is exploratory with an element of critical ethnography. Qualitative data was obtained through interviews and classroom observations that revealed the pain and inequality faced by these students because of their previous schooling experiences. Also, the results showed that the discrepancy in language education policy is denying many refugee students from good higher education in Lebanon and is distressing them in the English intensive courses that they are forced to take as prerequisites for a college education.

The paper is a chapter in a forthcoming book edited by K. Raza, R. Dudley and C. Coombe (eds.), entitled "Problematizing past, present and future language policies".

Authored Publications/Reports

Tamara Al Khalili (December 2020) Changing Practices to Overcome Writing Difficulties in EFL Courses at University: A Lebanese Case study