It is worthy of note that only EFL teachers in government-owned first and second-cycle schools were covered in our study, although the tertiary-level institutions included both privately-owned and government-owned institutions. This was necessitated by the fact that an overwhelmingly large proportion of Omani students attend government schools while, at the same time, most private schools which cater to Omani students follow the same curriculum as the government schools and are regulated by the Ministry of Education. A small, unrepresentative group of urban Omani students also attend private schools that used English as the medium of instruction. The tertiary level institutions targeted in this study included one