Difficulties of Learning EFL in KSA: Writing Skills in Context

Abstract

This study is an in-depth effort to investigate issues usually faced by EFL learners in writing skills. Fifty students of Preparatory Year Program (from different sections) Najran University were randomly selected to illicit their opinion on writing skill using Likert’s 5 scale (always, usually, sometimes, rarely never) questionnaire. In addition, fifty writing samples from first and second midterms of PYP were also selected. The study analyses the writing samples mainly focusing on with special reference to capitalization, punctuation, language use (grammar) and spelling and their impact on other items of language like articles, preposition, coherence, cohesion etc. Contrastive analysis of students’ writing samples and questionnaire prove that students commit mistakes, though unconsciously, in writing. While conducting data analysis using students’ writing samples, it was observed that students used ways to pass an exam i.e. memorize the writing answer(s)/paragraph(s) rather than the proper approaches to developing/learning most common writing strategies when writing an answer. In the end, this study offers some remedial measures for writing problems of Arab EFL learners.

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