SOME REFLECTIONS ON MOODLE-BASED LEARNING IN THE ENGLISH FOUNDATION PROGRAMME OF SULTAN QABOOS UNIVERSITY

Further development of computer and communication technologies and applications has brought from latency toward almost complete integration an absolutely new paradigm of higher education in the Sultanate of Oman. This paradigm has given birth to a dynamic and meaningful perspective (Nunan, 1987) of learning in the environment that allows students’ to enhance their skills and competencies, communicate and work using a variety of tools (Scully, 2008), platforms and targeted websites. Using the example of the English Foundation Programme’s Moodle - based courses, which are offered by the Language Centre at Sultan Qaboos University, the authors demonstrate that learning in a Moodle-based environment - through its flexibility and facility of access ? enables novice students nurture the idea of “knowledge maintenance” and adapt to the modern academic environment and its fast changing needs especially in the field of general and academic language acquisition. They also highlight the importance of the content of the Moodle-based courses, which, according to them, should be interesting, motivating and more consistent with students’ culture and traditions.