6.

5 Distinctive Contribution
This study has offered a distinctive contribution to the area of spiritual listening. The study has
shown that spiritual listening through LBBQ can be used with YPs with MLD and SEBD to identify what is
important to them both now and in the future. Students appreciated being given a space in which to hear
their own voice and through their participation they have contributed to developing a greater understanding
of the areas of the YPs’ lives that could be utilised to motivate them and they want to develop. The study has
also indicated that by working with students over a period of time, using the LBBQ and providing an
opportunity to set goals, the sessions impacted the YPs’ behaviour as noted by themselves and their teachers
around them. This suggests the benefit of using LBBQ to promote change for YPs and consideration of their
possible selves in the future. Further, for the school setting, the researcher introduced a tool that learning
mentors hope to use in the future in one-to-one and group contexts to understand and develop students’
views.

The research was written as a thesis, a copy of which was given to the LA. The participants, their
parents and teachers will be offered to hear about resulting themes and overall behaviour changes once the
thesis has been submitted. The analysed results will be presented to the LA and to Trainee EPs and staff at
UEL. The researcher intends to publish some of the findings in a journal for a wider audience.

7.3 The contribution of the study

This type of research has not been conducted in Saudi Arabia and, up to the
researcher’s knowledge, no observational study investigated English teaching in Saudi
girls' schools. This effort will help understand how the speaking skill is taught and
determine the areas of weaknesses and strengths in speaking instruction in girls’
schools. The empirical research findings of the study also provide an understanding of
the teaching of EFL speaking in developed secondary schools for females in Saudi
Arabia. They document the extent to which the teaching methods of EFL speaking
address the different aspects of speaking as it has been conceptualised in this study, i.e.:
accuracy versus fluency, speaking as a skill versus knowledge of the language,
communication routines, negotiation skills, speaking strategies, and conversation
features. In addition, the findings shed further light on the use of mother tongue in the
English classroom by both the teachers and the students. Also, they provide an
understanding of the teachers’ and students’ opinions about EFL learning, and the
current EFL speaking teaching methods.
The research study has provided a theoretical background and conceptualisation of
speaking in its different dimensions, which is presented in Chapter 3. The findings from
classroom observation, teachers’ interview, and students’ interview provide a detailed
description of the teaching of EFL speaking in some typical L2 classrooms in a
developed secondary public school for females in Saudi Arabia. They also identify
strengths and weaknesses in the teaching of speaking, based on the above-mentioned
theoretical background of Chapter 3. The empirical data shows that the teachers use
English most of the class time, which provides the students with rich input that
guarantees at least implicit exposure to some of the aspects of speaking mentioned in
the theoretical background. Another strength of the EFL speaking teaching method is
the opportunity given to the students to practice speaking as performance through the
presentation activity. The research study has also contributed towards identifying the
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weaknesses of the EFL speaking teaching method, and highlighting directions for
improvement. To illustrate, the weaknesses identified include the extensive use of
mother tongue by the students; teachers’ lack of training with respect to group work
implementation; the limited range of speaking activity types; and the fact that the
various speaking features are not taught explicitly.
The teachers’ and students’ interviews have specifically contributed towards
understanding the reasons behind some of the above-reported weaknesses of the EFL
speaking teaching method. More explicitly, the findings from the teachers’ interview
explain the difficulties of group work implementation. In addition, the findings from
the students’ interview provide explanation for their extensive dependence of the use of
Arabic when communicating in the classroom, which also confirms the influence of
cultural values, discussed in Chapter 1 (Section 1.3).