The Impact of Learner Language Knowledge on Teacher-learner Authentic Partnership

The language teacher and learner (T-L) partnership is a give-and-take relationship that gains authenticity through mutual awareness that their collaboration can only happen through the learner’s autonomy as an active partner and a source of information. To play that role properly, the learner’ language performance is expected to have a high level of TL knowledge reflected in norm-based grammar. Put differently, the more established the T-L partnership is, the more accurate the learner’s TL is expected to be. To explore the level of TL knowledge that can enable the learner to play the role of a reliable partner, the present study measured the English grammar global accuracy of the foundation students at a Saudi university. The results obtained show that the learner’s TL is noticeably inaccurate, implying that T-L partnership is still far from being true in that academic context. As such, the T-L alienation requires appropriate pedagogical interference believed to reconcile between the teacher and learner in a quest to activate the learner’s academic role and build their sound linguistic competence.