Listening and Speaking Instruction, Assessment and Technologies in the Saudi EFL Context: A Systematic Self-Review

Abstract

This study sought to conduct a systematic review (SR) of the author’s studies on listening and speaking published between 2005-2023. The author’s 31 studies were categorized into 4 clusters: listening and speaking teaching approaches, combining listening and/or speaking with other skills, technologies used in listening and speaking enhancement (mobile apps, TED talks, podcasts, online tasks & Zoom, social media, online videos and digital multimedia language labs) and listening and speaking assessment. The corpus offers a comprehensive understanding of how EFL learners develop listening and speaking proficiency in Saudi higher education contexts. Across the clusters, the evidence demonstrates that oral skills development is most successful when instruction integrates meaningful content, explicit strategy instruction, phonological and cognitive support, and autonomous mobile based practice. Studies in Cluster 1 show that instructional models grounded in global themes, multicultural content, participation goals, and task based learning significantly enhance students’ engagement, confidence, and communicative fluency. Cluster 2 demonstrates that weaknesses in decoding and auditory processing significantly constrain learners’ ability to comprehend spoken input, while strong background knowledge facilitates more accurate and efficient processing of spoken input.  Cluster 3 provides strong evidence that self study through audiobooks, MP3 lessons, podcasts, or apps, produces substantial gains in fluency, listening comprehension, and learner autonomy, outperforming textbook only instruction. Finally, Cluster 4 highlights the need for assessment practices that reflect authentic communicative performance rather than narrow, decontextualized tasks.  Overall, the findings confirm that successful oral skills development emerges from the integration of pedagogy, cognition, technology, and assessment within a coherent instructional framework. This SR provides a unified perspective on nearly two decades of research and offers a foundation for future work on enhancing EFL listening and speaking proficiency in higher education settings. The listening and speaking aspects covered reflect the full range of themes that previous SRs in the literature have treated separately. By integrating strategies, technologies, pedagogical models, assessment considerations, and affective variables within a single comprehensive review, this SR provides a broader and more coherent understanding of L2 listening and speaking development, an approach not found in existing SRs.