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The level of critical thinking skills of Omani tertiary-level students is an area that has received only a limited amount of investigative attention. This study employed an adapted version of the Cornell Class-Reasoning Test, Form X to assess the critical thinking skills of students in the humanities- and science-based colleges of Sultan Qaboos University, Oman. The test featured 36 questions across six item groups that were associated with five critical thinking principles. Descriptive analysis was used to calculate overall correct percentages for the entire test and for each item group in order to determine whether participants had mastered or failed to master the critical thinking principle. Independent samples t-tests were also used to explore if statistically significant differences existed on item group totals based on the independent variables of gender and college of study, while a one sample t-test compared overall test results with those reported for foundation students at the research site who took the same test in a previous study. Results indicate that participants had either failed to master, or had neither mastered nor failed to master, all five of the assessed principles. However, they recorded significantly higher scores on four of the six item groups than foundation students in the earlier study. Female participants received higher overall test scores than their male counterparts, although there was no difference based on college of study.

The notions of Critical Thinking (CT) and Lifelong Learning (LL) are mutually inseparable as both are required in every domain of one's educational and professional life in order to survive and flourish in today's world of increased literacy and competition. CT is an important functional skill, needed for students to analyze concepts and ideas to get a clear understanding of them. Review of a host of definitions of CT, included in this paper, suggests that it basically involves a plethora of thinking abilities for the purposes of evaluating one's own thinking process that results in a meaningful learning experience. However, unlike ordinary thinking, which is an inborn human ability, CT needs to be inculcated through implicit and/or explicit instruction. Many researchers (e.g. Benesch, 1993; Atkinson, 1997; Oster, 1989; Brookfield, 1987; Shor & Freire, 1987; Fox, 1994; etc.) explain CT as a means to transform learning and society and they believe that social practice is one of the indispensable components of CT. In view of this, we need to orient our ESL / EFL students towards CT, along with the teaching of language skills, through interactive instructional practices. Considering the role(s) CT can play in developing information-based societies and the pedagogical gains that can be made through the use of visuals in teaching language skills and CT, this paper aims to discuss and demonstrate how certain schematic pictorial presentations can be exploited as stimuli to orient ESL/EFL learners towards CT. The significance of this paper also lies in encouraging researches which explicitly link CT with pictorial presentations of cartoons and caricatures.

The Omani government attaches great importance to English in the education of Omani youth and their preparation for a multicultural world of employment. It has therefore poured large resources into English language teaching in the nation's schools, colleges and universities. Unfortunately, these efforts have not yielded gains proportionate to this investment. Students continue to graduate from schools with inadequate English language proficiency and the majority therefore require remedial or intensive courses in a "foundation" program before beginning tertiary level study. Based on a student perspective, this study investigated the above problem. Using data from focus groups and personal reports (based on a qualitative questionnaire) from 100 tertiary education students, it found that the major factors involved were as follows: ineffective teachers, inadequate curricula, uninterested students, limited exposure to English outside the classroom, unsupportive parents, a poor school system, and peer-group discouragement. Participants suggested a number of solutions and especially encouraging students to learn English by showing them its international status and its importance for their future education and employment.

The aim of this paper is to investigate, from a student perspective, how English communication skills are taught in Oman's schools and higher education institutions. Previous research has documented the lack of communicative ability in English among school and higher education graduates in Oman (Al-Issa, 2007; Moody, 2009). However, the reasons for this weakness have never been investigated from the point of view of students themselves. Using written protocols from 58 respondents, this study embarks on such an investigation and explores student definitions of communication skills, opinions about their importance, and how they were taught in school and higher education institutions. The results reveal that these crucial skills were actually either not taught at all or taught indirectly, which helps to explain the deficit under investigation.

The main objective of this study was to investigate the refusal speech act among Omani EFL college students. It examined how they refused in various situations and whether their responses were appropriate in terms of culture and accurate in terms of language. Forty-one English as foreign language (EFL) learners completed a Discourse Completion Test (DCT) consisting of 12 scenarios by supplying written refusals to three requests, three suggestions, three invitations, and three offers. Students' responses were rated by two professors: one a native English speaker and the other not. A convenient sampling procedure was employed. The findings indicated that students' responses were largely inappropriate and inaccurate. Further examination showed that they were heavily influenced by the students' culture, many being mere translations of refusal responses in Omani Arabic. Others were inappropriate because they were too direct, due to students' lack of knowledge of the role of social status when issuing refusals to a person of high status. Language mistakes were mainly in the sentence structure, which affected the meaning clarity. Findings suggest that, to help students become better communicators in English, it is important to teach them directly the most common speech acts, especially those they might frequently use in their everyday conversations with professors and classmates.

The field of English Language Teaching (ELT) has long sought to identify traits of good language learners, in an effort to teach these traits to less successful language learners (Rubin, 1975). Emotional Intelligence has recently come to the forefront of research on language learning and teaching, and is now increasingly recognized as an important predictor of success in academic achievement in general, and success in learning a language (Goleman, 1995; Rastegar and Karami, 2013; Sucaromana, 2012). Recent years have seen a proliferation of research linking Emotional Intelligence to success in the English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classrooms. Hence researchers have recommended explicit Emotional Intelligence instruction in language classrooms. With the importance of English in today's globalized world, and the greater need to communicate in English, fostering a student's communicative ability is important, particularly in an EFL context like Oman. The Government of Oman has invested heavily in English language instruction, but unfortunately, the investment has not paid off. While there exists a substantial volume of research identifying possible reasons for students' inadequate grasp of English even after years of language instruction both at the school and university levels, research linking emotional skills and language learning success in Oman is lacking. This article investigates whether a lack of Emotional Intelligence skills could be one of the reasons for the failure of students to achieve competence in English. Results from questionnaires of multiple choice and open-ended questions distributed to 60 university students at a large public university in the Sultanate of Oman show that a lack of Emotional Intelligence impacts a student's ability to learn. The authors conclude that directly focusing on Emotional Intelligence skills in Omani university classrooms could result in improving students' overall achievement both at university in general, and in English specifically.

High levels of parental/guardian involvement in their children's education are often associated with a number of educational, social, and even psychological benefits. These include higher rates of school attendance, greater communication with the school or education provider, better social adjustment, and higher levels of academic achievement including in the development of literacy skills. However, despite this, research from the Arab world on the relationship between parental involvement and children's development of English language literacy skills has tended to report mixed results, with this also being the case in the Sultanate of Oman. To explore this issue within the Omani context, the current study examined the potential benefits, challenges, and practices of Omani parents as these relate to their children's English language studies. A two-section Likert-type response scale questionnaire was administered to 391 parents of students in the country's public school system. The first questionnaire section related to participants' attitudes about parental involvement in their children's English studies while the second explored the frequency with which parents engaged in activities related to their children's English classes. Results indicate that Omani parents are generally aware of the importance of their involvement in their children's development and believe that they should be involved in a number of home- and school-based activities. However, despite this, their actual level of involvement in their children's English language studies was somewhat limited.

Researchers have long been interested in the characteristics associated with "good" teaching. However, most relevant studies have been conducted in Western contexts. As cultural background has a strong influence on the way good teaching is perceived, it was considered important to explore this issue in the Arab Gulf. The current study sought to compare Omani school students' and teachers' perceptions of the characteristics of good English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in the Omani context. To achieve this, 171 Omani students and 233 English teachers responded to a seven-category, 68-item questionnaire utilizing a 4-point Likert-type response key. Descriptive statistics and "t" tests were used to determine perceptions of good teacher characteristics and differences between students' and teachers' responses. Results indicate that Omani students and teachers generally agree about the importance of all characteristic categories, with those related to English language proficiency and treating students equally being of special importance. Participants also agreed that knowledge of Western culture/s and the use of technology were relatively unimportant. Implications of these findings for EFL teaching in Oman are discussed.

While thinking critically is often perceived to be the primary purpose of reading, the question of whether it can actually be taught in classrooms has been extensively debated. This paper bases itself on a qualitative case study of university students completing a degree in English Language and Literature. It explores the way in which critical thinking can be taught in EFL contexts. The paper suggests that critical thinking is best defined as a series of skills which can be continuously worked upon by students for whom constant revision and application of these skills is a significant way of internalizing what has often been seen to be just an attitude or bent of mind. This skill is further enhanced when students get an opportunity to write on the areas which have been discussed in the class, particularly if they are of some relevance to the students' own contexts. Based on the open question format of Norris and Ennis (1989) and subsequent evaluation using the rubrics of McLaughlin and Moore (2012) which take into account the critical reading component in writing, this paper investigates the extent to which critical thinking could be enhanced through in-class social practices such as discussions and subsequent writing. The study concludes that continuous practice, both oral and written, provide opportunities for students to develop their critical thinking abilities as they become more successful in incorporating nuanced and critical ideas into their academic writings. This has implications for students' academic and personal achievements because, clearly, an inability to read critically will result in an inability to write insightfully. Various strategies are then suggested to facilitate learners' use of critical thinking skills so that they may successfully incorporate them into their writing, both in an academic context and as a life-long skill.