This study tackles the misalignment between the objectives of the Intensive English course and the textbook writing content prescribed for Arab students in Computer Science, Engineering, Media and Communication, Law, and Business Administration at a Saudi university. It examines Saudi learners’ perspectives on the course and its materials through a mixed-methods design: a ten-item closed-question questionnaire administered to students, complemented by semi-structured interviews. The participant pool comprised thirty-two female Saudi learners aged 18–19 whose first language is Arabic.
Findings indicate that, because the prescribed textbooks contain an extensive amount of material, teachers predominantly adopt “teaching-to-the-test” or test-driven instruction. The results suggest that the Intensive English course objectives require revision and modification, aligning with McTighe and Wiggins’s (2005) backward-design framework, which prioritizes facilitating student learning over merely covering content. Accordingly, the study concludes with recommendations for revising both course objectives and textbook content to achieve better alignment.