English communication skills: How are they taught at schools and universities in Oman?

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.