Exploring the Causes of Arabic Students’ Weakness in Listening and Speaking Skills as Perceived by the Skills Instructors )Case study of national universities in Tehran)

Language teachers are among the most important components in the language teaching enterprise, and their pivotal role is accentuated in almost all the prestigious language teaching methods. The present study aims to investigate the instructor’s function(s) in improving the listening and speaking skills of Arabic Language and Literature students; plus, it attempts to seek (and hopefully offer) possible strategies to improve these two skills. In order to address the research objectives and questions, (semi-structured) interviews were conducted with the university instructors and the data were qualitatively analyzed utilizing ATLAS ti qualitative software. The results point to some factors which are deemed among the major contributing factors to the students’ unsatisfactory listening competency (e.g. students' lack of motivation, unavailability of appropriate textbooks, limited hours devoted to these two skills compared to other courses, and some professed doubts about the expertise of a few instructors when it comes to the practical teaching of these two skills). The paper concludes with a discussion of the professors’ recommended strategies to improve the students' speaking and listening skills (e.g., motivating students, designing practical instructional booklets, and attending off-campus skill learning classes and courses).