An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners’ Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203.

An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners’ Writing

Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines

Dr. Choudhary Zahid Javid Assist. Professor, Department of Foreign Languages,

Taif University, Taif, KSAEmail: [email protected]

Tel: +966-502312949; Fax: +966-7284299

Dr. Muhammad Umar Farooq

Assist. Professor, English Language Centre, Taif University, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

E-mail: [email protected]: +966582912894

Dr. Muhammad Umer Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages,

Taif University, Taif, KSAEmail: [email protected]

179

mailto:[email protected]




Tel: +966-594187312; Fax: +966-7284299

Abstract

The study in is a comprehensive investigation to

identify the important writing tasks, major areas of

difficulty in academic writing, the factors causing these

difficulties and the corrective measures in the Saudi EFL

academic context. It attempted to identify gender-based

differences for the above-mentioned factors and the results

of independent-samples t-test did not show major

differences in the perceptions of both the groups partially

accepting the null hypotheses. Several research studies

were reviewed and a 40-item Likert-scale agree-disagree

questionnaire was developed by the researcher. It was

translated into Arabic and piloted before it was

administered to 194 Saudi EFL learners (108 male & 86

female) studying at Taif University. Descriptive analyses

and Independent-samples t-test were run using SPSS version

17. The findings reported that these particular Saudi EFL

learners have serious problems in their academic writing

due to their weaknesses in using appropriate lexical items,

180

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. organisation of ideas and grammar. The other weaker areas

include wrong use of prepositions, spellings, irregular

verbs, articles, punctuation, suffixes and prefixes. It is

recommended to implement a stricter admission policy,

increase language courses, develop tailor-made activities,

provide increased practice in academic writing, exploit

modern teaching techniques and equip the classrooms with

modern teaching aids to improve Saudi EFL learners’

academic writing.

Keywords: Academic Writing, Perception, Syntactic Errors; Gender

Introduction

Because of the English language being a storehouse of

world knowledge, it has been chosen as the medium of

instruction for higher studies in general in many regions

of the world including the gulf countries and, of course,

the English language teaching in particular (Crystal,

2003).

When it comes to the teaching and learning of language

skills, writing comes at the end according to the natural

order hypothesis of language learning, but this does not

make writing skill insignificant. Rather, its significance

increases manifolds in the academic contexts in which

181

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. students are required to apply this skill as a main tool to

show what they have learnt. A growing mass of research has

offered valuable insights into the significance of this

skill for academic success. Bjork and Raisanen (1997, p. 8)

argue that

We highlight the importance of writing inall university curricula not only because ofits immediate practical application, i.e. asan isolated skill or ability, but because webelieve that, seen from a broaderperspective, writing is a thinking tool. Itis a tool for language development, forcritical thinking and, extension, forlearning in all disciplines.

According to Fageeh (2011), “many EFL learners heavily rely

on writing as integral skill to language learning” as

supported by much research that EFL learners’ listening,

speaking and reading skills mainly depend on their writing

competence (Hefferman, 2006; Hinkel, 2004; Al-Ghamari,

2004; Cayer & Sacks, 1979).

Though writing skill is considered extremely

important, a lot of research studies conducted in the

various EFL contexts strongly suggested that EFL learners,

who study in institutions that use English as a medium of

instruction, face severe problems in writing skills that

hinders their academic progress (Tahaineh, 2010; Rababah,

182

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. 2003; Bacha, 2002; Kharma & Hajjaj, 1997). Tahaineh (2010,

p. 79) reiterated that the writing skill “……. is needed for

taking notes, describing objects or devices and writing

essays, answering written questions, writing their

compositions, writing experimental reports, etc”. Like

other EFL contexts, the situation in the Arab world has

also been reported poor and Arab students seriously lack in

all English skills in general and writing skills in

particular. Several studies conducted in the Arab world

revealed that Arab students face maximum problems in their

writing (Abdul Haq, 1982; Zughoul & Taminian, 1984; Al-

Khuweileh, & Al-Shoumali, 2000; Al-Hazmi, 2006; Al-Samdani,

2010; Grami, 2010; Ezza, 2010).

Writing is defined as "…. the logical organization and

arrangement of the written sentences within a paragraph and

paragraphs within the units of discourse …………and the

expression of the ideas" (Abu-Ghararh, 1998, p. 87).

Concerning the problems of ESL learners’ in writing, Al-

samadani (2010, p. 53) stated that it “is a complex,

challenging, and difficult process” because it includes

multiple skills such as identification of thesis statement,

writing supporting details, reviewing and editing. This

complex process makes it rather difficult to teach it. The

183

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. difficulty of teaching/learning of this skill is due to the

fact that it involves a comprehensive knowledge of grammar,

suitable vocabulary, writing mechanics (e.g., punctuation &

capitalization), organizational skills, style, imagination

etc. Another factor that makes teaching of writing rather

difficult is that it has been historically dealt with vis-

à-vis the other skills. Writing skill is formally defined

as the “recording of human communication, using signs or

symbols to represent the spoken words” (McMillan

Encyclopedia, 1986, p.1317) whereas functionally speaking

it is defined as a “curiously solitary form of

communication, addressed to an absent and often unknown

reader” (Peters, 1986, p.169). The challenge faced by the

faculty members in teaching this skill is that it is either

considered a secondary activity in ELT or taken as a

desocialised communication pattern. This problem rather

intensifies when it is not the learners’ first language

because of the additional problems encountered in this

regard. Highlighting these difficulties, Hopkins (1989)

stated that writing is the most difficult skill to be

learnt for non-native speakers. Piper (1989 cited in Grami,

2010) reported that instructional methods are instrumental

in shaping the learners’ behaviour towards writing skills

as well as their writings. It has also been pointed out184

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. that the approaches to teach writing skills vary in the

different academic contexts due to the indigenous specific

circumstances.

As for the history of teaching of writing is

concerned, it was not given much attention as evident from

scarcity of research studies related to this skill till the

beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century

(Krashen, 1984). Long and Richard (2003) reported that

writing skills teaching was given importance during 1990s

when English established its status as a language of

international communication and consequently “English as L2

writing skills do not only ―play an increasingly important

role today in the lives of professionals in almost every

field and discipline” (p. XV). A closer look through the

history of teaching of writing skills reveals that among

the different approaches that have been experimented to

teach writing effectively, three approaches have been the

most influential which are product approach, process

approach and genre approach. Much research has strongly

suggested that all these approaches carry their own

weaknesses and strengths but they are complementary to each

other as well (e.g., Grami, 2010; Hayland, 2007; Paltridge,

2004; Badger & White, 2000; McDonough & Shaw, 2003).

185


Research has offered valuable insights into the fact

that all the approaches of teaching writing skills have

their own strengths and weaknesses; therefore, it is not

advisable to follow any one of these exclusively; rather,

the teachers should have thorough knowledge of all these

approaches so that they should inculcate the professional

ability to exploit all these approaches to pick and choose

appropriate techniques according to the students’

level/needs, social context and their peculiar academic

echo system (Badger & White, 2000; Asiri, 1997; Raimes,

1991).

Like the rest of the world, English language teaching

(ELT) has embedded firmly in the Arab world during the last

few decades and a growing mass of research produced in this

region has been related to English teaching and its sub

fields (Al-Seghayer, 2011). Though tremendous efforts have

been made, as reflected by the huge funding allocated to

ELT, the research studies conducted in the Arab world

reported that EFL learners in the Arab world including

Saudi Arabia suffer from serious problems in this regard

such as students' poor performance low proficiency level in

the target language (Javid, Farooq, & Gulzar, 2012; Al-

Jarf, 2008; Rababah, 2003). Bacha (2002) suggested that it

186

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. might be due to the fact that the students are not

motivated to develop their writing and that "L2 writers are

known to face problems in developing their writing skills

at the university level. These problems are even more

accentuated with L1 Arabic non-native speakers of English

in required English composition courses" (p. 161). A report

published by the Cambridge Examination Center in 2009 about

the proficiency level of Saudi students "…ranked them 39th

of the 40 nations participated in both academic and general

training tests" (Cambridge ESOL: Research Notes, 2010 cited

in Al-Seghayer, 2011, p. 45). This poor performance has

been more strongly revealed by the studies which were

conducted to evaluate Saudi students' writing skills

(Bersamina, 2009; Grami, 2010; Al-Eid, 2000). Grami (2010)

cited the results of IELTS test report of Saudi students

which revealed that they scored comparatively low in all

English language skills (5.17, 4.97, 5.81 out of 9 in

listening, reading and speaking respectively ) but the

average in writing skills was the lowest (4.83 out of 9).

Numerous studies have been conducted to identify the

problems of Saudi EFL learners in their writing. The

findings of these studies reported that despite the fact

that Saudi students study English as a compulsory subjects

for six years before joining any university but actually187

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. only a few of them are able to show satisfactory

performance in the university entrance examinations (Grami,

2010). Tahaineh (2010) has stated that Arab students’

errors in writing mainly fall in the category of syntax and

grammar and quoted Hashim’s (1996) findings, who reviewed

and analysed a number of studies conducted on Arab EFL

learners’ syntactic errors and stated that Arab learners’

errors can be categorised in seven syntactic subcategories:

prepositions, verbs, articles, conjunctions, relative

clauses, adverbial clauses, and sentence structure. Kharma

and Hajjaj (1997) is another study that reinforced the

previous findings and revealed that Arab EFL learners’

errors in writing are syntactical and especially in

prepositions. Most recent studies conducted to investigate

Arab EFL learners syntactic errors also found out that

verbs and prepositions are the most problematic areas in

this regard (Zahid, 2006, Muhammad, 2005, Muortaga, 2004).

Concerning the problems of Saudi university undergraduates,

Khan (2011), who recently conducted a study to investigate

the problems of Saudi university undergraduates, has

mentioned that they face several problems in phoneme

clusters, spellings, grammar, mistakes due to L1

interference, structure, doubling of subjects, doubling of

188

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. preposition, tenses, articles, appropriate vocabulary,

wrong use of prefixes & suffixes etc.

Much research has offered valuable insights into the

reasons of Arab EFL learners’ weaknesses in English in

general and writing skills in particular. Khan (2011)

reviewed several studies in this regard and concluded that

Arab EFL learners’ problems are caused by the following

reasons:

a) school graduates have lack of informationregarding the university or college theyenrolled in; b) there is deficiency in theEnglish language curricula offered by someschools and universities; c) dreadful teachingmethodology; d) problems with proper languageenvironments; and e) lack of personal impetuson the part of the students. (p. 1250)

According to his findings, the causes of the problems may

be dealt with from four perspectives, i.e., the learners,

faculty members, curricula and the environment of

teaching /learning context. It has been reported that Saudi

EFL learners are more interested in getting better scores

instead of learning the target language and they are in the

habit of memorising passages without understanding,

grammatical rules and lexical items to achieve high grade

point average (Grami, 2010; Zaid, 1993). Another very

189

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. strong reason behind this marks-oriented behaviour of Saudi

EFL learners is that a vast majority of them lack intrinsic

motivation and bear various extrinsic motivational factors

to learn English language (Javid, Asmari, & Farooq, 2012).

Concerning the role of EFL teachers, a growing mass of

research has suggested that a vast majority of EFL teachers

are hired from the Arab countries (such as Egypt, Sudan,

Jordan etc.) to serve in Saudi Arabia. These teachers seem

to lack the following: a) a proper and appropriate training

to teach English, b) a proper motivation to indulge in

teaching process, and c) willingness to incorporate

innovation and modern techniques in their teaching

practices; thus, causing the continuation of traditional,

outdated and teacher-led teaching practices that is a major

impediment in the way of effective and efficient ELT in

Saudi Arabia (Bersamina, 2009; Grami, 2010; Syed, 2003;

Zaid, 1993). Another important factor in this regard is the

absence of appropriate and learner-centered curricula to

cater for the specific EFL needs of the learners. It has

been frequently reported that the curricula taught in

several Saudi university is outdated, traditional and

textbook-based that encourage the students to merely

memorise instead of making them grasp the target language

(Khan, 2011; Bersamina, 2009; Hazmi, 2006; Zughoul, 1987).190

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. The context of the study

This study was conducted in the second semester of

academic year 2012 at foreign languages department, Taif

University (TU). It offers 4-year graduate and 2-year

masters programmes majoring in English language and

linguistics. The students who are enrolled in the graduate

programme have to take 59 compulsory courses of 2-credit

hour each in eight semesters. These courses include

language, linguistics, literature and translation courses.

During the first three semesters, the undergraduates are

taught various language courses to improve their four

English language skills. Though the undergraduates are

given intensive courses in various English language skills

including writing but research, such as a study conducted

at TU by Javid, Farooq, and Gulzar (2012), strongly

suggested that Saudi EFL learners suffer from serious

handicap in all language skills including writing.

Research Objectives

This empirical study intended to investigate the

following research objectives:

a. Identifying the kinds of academic writing as

perceived by male and female Saudi EFL learners

studying at TU,191


b. Identifying the academic writing problems as

perceived by male and female Saudi EFL learners

studying at TU,

c. Identifying the causes of academic writing

problems as perceived by male and female Saudi

EFL learners studying at TU,

d. Identifying the solutions to overcome academic

writing problems as perceived by male and

female Saudi EFL learners studying at TU.

Null Hypotheses

H01: There is not any statistically significant

difference in the perception of

male and female Saudi EFL learners

regarding the kinds of academic

writing at TU.


difference in the perception

of male and female Saudi EFL learners

regarding the academic

writing problems at TU.



192



regarding the causes of

academic writing problems at TU.




regarding the solutions to

overcome academic writing problems at TU.

Participants

For the purpose of this study all the junior and

senior students, who have already spent two to three years

at TU, were taken as the population whereas the freshmen

and sophomores were not investigated. Considering the fact

that the study in hand was perceptive in nature and the

researcher considered it important to elicit the responses

of those EFL learners who knew the academic echo system at

TU so that authentic and reliable responses may be ensured.

The questionnaire was translated into Arabic to collect

reliable data. The researcher coordinated with the faculty

members and visited the male participants of the study

during their lectures to collect the data whereas the

female faculty members were requested to administer the

translated questionnaire to collect the data from the

193

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. female cohorts. Incomplete questionnaires or the ones with

same values assigned to all the items were rejected by the

researcher. One hundred and eight questionnaires filled in

by the male cohort and 86 by the female participants were

selected for the final analyses.

The participants of the study were investigated once

when the questionnaire was administered and they were given

the option of free will to respond to the questionnaire.

Furthermore, it was optional to mention their personal

information. They were also informed that their personal

information would be de-identified and data would be used

for the purpose of this study only. Their submission of the

questionnaires was considered as their informed consent.

Instrumentation

The researcher consulted many related research studies

including the ones conducted in the EFL context of Saudi

Arabia (such as Al-Seghayer, 2011; Grami, 2010; Al-

Khasawneh, 2010; Al-Hazmi, 2006) to collect data to develop

a suitable questionnaire to elicit the responses of male

and female English-major undergraduates of Taif university

194

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. related to various dynamics of writing skills. A 40-item

Likert-scale agree-disagree questionnaire was developed and

translated into Arabic (See appendix#1). The Arabic

translation along with the English version was given to two

senior professors of translation at TU to identify any

inconsistencies. Their suggestions were incorporated in the

final Arabic version that was piloted with 20 EFL learners

at TU. A Pearson correlation matrix was run for all the

forty items using SPSS 17 that yielded a Cronbach's alpha

coefficient of .75 which was a high value for ensuring

sound judgments as George and Mallery (2003) have reported

that alpha coefficient of more than .70 is acceptable for

reliable scientific investigation.

Statistical Analysis

The descriptive analyses, namely the means, medians

and standard deviations, were run for all the questionnaire

items to identify the most and least preferred

questionnaire items. Furthermore, independent-samples t-

test was used to see whether or not any gender-based

statistically significant differences existed. The data

analyses generated the following results.

Results and Discussion

195


The 40-item questionnaire was divided into four

sections to elicit the participants’ perceptions towards

important writing tasks for their English-major studies at

TU, the areas of difficulties in this regard, the factors

that cause these problems and the probable solutions. The

results generated through the descriptive analyses and

independent-samples t-test have been summarised in tables

1, 2, 3 and 4.

The first section of the questionnaire contains ten

items that were included to elicit the participants’

perception to identify important academic writing tasks for

their EFL studies at TU. Table 1 details the responses of

the male and female Saudi EFL learners in this regard.

Table (1): Analyses of important academic writing tasks atTU

Academic writing

tasks Group N M SD T df p

value

1 Topic sentences /supportingdetails

Male 108

3.6667

1.0590

-2.74

7

192 .007

p <0.05

Female

86 4.0465

.8103

-2.83

0

191.72

2 Paragraphs Male 108

3.9259

.8395

.658 192 .028

p <0.05

Female

86 3.8372

1.0388

.642 161.66

3 Summaries Male 108

4.1111

1.1051

-.969

192 .118

p >0.05

Fema 86 4.25 .935 -.98 191.

196


le 58 4 7 254 Letters Male 10

83.4444

.9795

1.021

192 .341

p >0.05

Female

86 3.2907

1.1153

1.006

170.41

5 CriticalAppreciation

Male 108

3.1296

1.0598

-.210

192 .313

p >0.05

Female

86 3.1628

1.1361

-.208

176.34

6 Reports Male 108

3.2407

1.0400

1.614

192 .867

p >0.05

Female

86 2.9884

1.1323

1.599

174.87

7 Narrative Essays Male 108

3.2407

1.1590

1.471

192 .724

p >0.05

Female

86 2.9884

1.2223

1.462

177.86

8 DescriptiveEssays

Male 108

3.2593

1.0445

-.767

192 .850

p >0.05

Female

86 3.3721

.9828

-.773

186.69

9 ArgumentativeEssays

Male 108

3.3704

1.2722

-.642

192 .726

p >0.05

Female

86 3.4884

1.2718

-.642

182.41

10 Expository Essays Male 108

3.6667

1.1107

1.552

192 .924

p >0.05

Female

86 3.4186

1.1004

1.424

157.63

Descriptive analysis results reveal that both sample

groups saw eye to eye to each other as far the most

important writing task is concerned and writing “summaries”

has been assigned the highest values in favour of the

female cohort. The first and second questionnaire items

have been identified as the second and third most important

tasks but in reverse order: the female participants197

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. allocated the second highest to writing topic sentence and

supporting details and third highest to paragraph writing

whereas the male cohort did the same but in a reverse

order. Furthermore, the male participants also allotted the

third highest value (3.66) to writing “expository essays”

as well. Lowest value of less than 3.0 is not assigned to

any item by the female cohort but the males did it for two

items, i.e., to writing reports and narrative essays. The

results of this empirical study contradict with the

research conducted by Al-Khasawneh (2010) who investigated

Arab postgraduate students studying at the College of

Business, University Utara Malaysia and found out that

summary writing was among the least important tasks for

their postgraduate studies whereas writing article reviews

and reports were the two most important tasks. One probable

justification for these contradicting results is due to the

different levels (i.e., undergraduate v/s postgraduate

level). The participants of this study need to write

summaries for different concepts related to their various

literature and linguistics courses; thus, ranked it the

most important task for carrying out their studies

effectively. The findings are partially in line with the

results of Al-Khasawneh (2010) towards their perceived

responses towards essay writing: postgraduate students198

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. considered it the least important as the participants of

this study also reported it among the less important tasks.

Standard deviation of more than 1 was calculated for

nearly all items except the top three ones showing that the

participants carried wide differences in their perceptions.

Independent-samples t-test results indicated that though

both groups bear differences in their perception towards

all items but significant difference has been recorded only

for the first and second items; thus, partially accepting

the first null hypothesis because both groups have not

shown any significant difference except items 1 and 2.

Table (2): Analyses of problems faced in academic writingtasks

Problematic areas in Academic writing

Group n M SD T Df p value

11 Vocabulary Male 108 3.8519

1.0836

.172 192 .686 p >0.05

Female

86 3.8256

1.0197

.173 186.68

12 Spellings Male 108 3.3148

1.2047

.358 192 .144 p >0.05

Female

86 3.2558

1.0537

.363 190.27

13 Articles Male 108 3.2037

1.1337

-.181 192 .766 p >0.05

Female

86 3.2326

1.0702

-.182 186.48

14 Punctuation Male 108 3.1111

1.2023

-.376 192 .452 p >0.05

Female

86 3.1744

1.1187

-.379 187.35

199


15 Prepositions Male 108 3.2037

1.1978

-.589 192 .782 p >0.05

Female

86 3.3023

1.1069

-.594 187.74

16 Suffixes/Prefixes

Male 108 3.2593

1.1790

-.865 192 .047 p >0.05

Female

86 3.3953

.9614 -.886 191.88

17 Irregular Verbs

Male 108 3.1481

1.1982

-1.724

192 .915 p >0.05

Female

86 3.4419

1.1541

-1.731

185.17

18 Question Words Male 108 3.2222

1.1547

.803 192 .271 p >0.05

Female

86 3.0930

1.0586

.811 188.17

19 Grammar Male 108 3.7407

1.2257

.722 192 .536 p >0.05

Female

86 3.6163

1.1496

.727 186.88

20 Organisation of Ideas

Male 108 3.4630

1.1392

-.497 192 .412 p >0.05

Female

86 3.5465

1.1947

-.494 178.36

The descriptive and comparative analyses of ten items

that constitute the second section of the questionnaire

eliciting participants’ perceived responses regarding the

difficulties they face in their academic writing have been

summarised in the above given table. An interesting finding

is that none of the ten items has been allocated high value

of 4.0 or above by either group indicating that the male

and female participants of the study did not perceive any

of these areas as a very serious problem. This does not

200

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. seem consistent with the previous research that was

conducted in the various Arab countries and strongly

reported that Arab EFL learners face serious problems in

all English language skills in general and writing skills

in particular (see for example Khan, 2011; Al-Samdani,

2010; Bersamina, 2009; Grami, 2010). Concerning the

seriousness of the problem, Zaid (1993) stated that Arab

students tend to cram grammatical rules, required lexical

items and even important passages in English due to their

lack of understanding and inability to write even few

correct sentences in the target language.

Item analysis for this section of the questionnaire

exhibits strong affinities in the perceptions of the male

and female participants. Use of suitable vocabulary has

been declared the weakest area with the highest mean values

that hinder their English-major studies at TU. This finding

is in accord with the previous study conducted by Al-

Khasawneh (2010) who also reported that the postgraduate

Arab students studying in Malaysian university also ranked

vocabulary as the most difficult area. Difficulties in

grammar have been unanimously identified as the second most

problematic area with comparatively high mean values. The

next item in this regard remains the organisation of ideas

201

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. and that also unanimously by both groups. Comparatively

lower values (i.e., 3.15 to 3.30) were assigned by the male

and female groups to the use of prepositions, irregular

verbs, articles, suffixes and prefixes. This result is in

line with much research conducted in the various regions of

Arabic peninsula such as the findings of Hashim (1996) who

reviewed many studies related to the syntactic errors of

Arab EFL learners and reported that their problematic areas

include use of prepositions, verbs, articles, conjunctions,

sentence structure etc. Many other studies as well revealed

that Arab EFL learners face severe problems in using

prepositions and articles correctly (Khan, 2011; Zahid,

2006; Mourtaga, 2004 etc.) The least mean value was

allocated to punctuation suggesting that the participants

of this study do not have serious problems in punctuation.

The participants assigned medium values to the remaining

six items but their responses carried differences for all

these items.

The results exhibited some interesting trends. Three

items with maximum values and one with least value bear

complete similarity in the perception of both the male and

female participants but SD of more than 1.0 for these item

reports high inter rater differences. The same is true for

202

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. other items because nearly all the remaining ones also have

high SD of more than 1.0. The results of independent-

samples t-test reported significant difference for only one

item that elicited their responses regarding the use of

suffixes and prefixes. The results indicate that the null

hypothesis # 2 is also accepted with a minor difference of

only one item out of the total of ten items in this

section.

Table (3): Analyses of the reasons of weak academic writing Reasons of Weak Academic Writing


21

Low proficiency in thetarget language

Male 108

4.0556

.9154

1.461

192 .013

p > 0.05

Female

86 3.8372

1.1668

1.422

158.49

22

Lack of language courses at Taif University

Male 108

4.5556

.6604

-1.31

1

192 .035

p > 0.05

Female

86 4.6744

.5829

-1.33

0

189.93

23

Teachers' lack of interest in writing tasks

Male 108

3.5185

1.1559

-1.70

2

192 .201

p >0.05

Female

86 3.7907

1.0417

-1.72

2

189.03

24

Limited opportunities to practice English outside the classroom

Male 108

4.4074

1.0325

-1.37

0

192 .016

p > 0.05

Female

86 4.5930

.8026

-1.40

9

191.90

203


25

Interference of your mother tongue

Male 108

3.4630

1.4688

-3.08

8

192 .001

p > 0.05

Female

86 4.0581

1.1413

-3.17

6

191.89

26

Inappropriate teachingmethods

Male 108

3.8704

.9676

-1.43

6

192 .055

p >0.05

Female

86 4.0814

1.0761

-1.41

8

172.78

27

Lack of writing practice at Taif

University Male 10

83.8333

1.0722

-1.83

8

192 .933

p >0.05

Female

86 4.1163

1.0563

-1.84

1

183.54

28

Use of Arabic in the classrooms

Male 108

3.5926

1.1684

1.321

192 .382

p >0.05

Female

86 3.3605

1.2734

1.308

174.77

29

Lack of audio visual aids in the classrooms

Male 108

4.2778

1.0837

.435 192 .999

p >0.05

Female

86 4.2093

1.0967

.434 181.43

30

Insufficient use of

dictionaries Male 10

83.7778

1.0170

.302 192 .402

p >0.05

Female

86 3.7326

1.0563

.301 179.21

Table 3 details the descriptive and comparative

analyses for the ten items included in the third section of

the questionnaire meant to elicit the participants’

perception towards the causes of weak academic writing. The

participants assigned comparatively much higher values to

the various items of this section as compared to the

204

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. previous two sections: the female participants allotted

high value of more than 4.0 to six items and the male group

did it for four items. ‘Lack of language courses at TU’ has

been ranked at the top with extremely high values of 4.67

and 4.55 by the female and male cohort respectively

confirming the findings of Zahid, Farooq and Ajmal (2012)

that insufficient number of languages courses has been a

major cause of ineffective ELT in Saudi Arabian

universities. Furthermore, the SD has been calculated as

0.58 and 0.66 for the female and male participants

confirming that they bear strong agreement as far as this

item is concerned. The female cohort assigned the second

highest value of 4.59 to 24th questionnaire item suggesting

that the limited opportunities to practice the target

language outside the classroom is a major reasons for their

weak academic writing. The other group allocated it the

third highest value. This finding is in line with the much

research conducted in the Arab world and revealed that lack

of support from the society and family in terms of

providing Arab EFL learners with sufficient opportunities

to practice the target language cause a major handicap in

effectively learning the target language including the

writing skills (See for example Kahn, 2011; Tahaineh,

2010). Though there are contradictory voices as well such205

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. as Al-Khasawneh (2010) who reported that the postgraduate

Arab students perceived it one of the least important

factors in this regard. Another major reason, the second

most favoured item by the male participants and the third

most favoured item by the female participants, held

responsible for weak academic writing remained the ‘lack of

audio visual aids’ in the teaching process. Both sample

groups saw eye to eye to each other as far the least

preferred items were concerned. ‘Use of Arabic in

Classrooms’ has been allocated the lowest values by both

groups followed by ‘insufficient usage of dictionaries’.

This finding is not consistent with the study conducted by

Javid, Farooq and Ajmal (2012) in the same context and

reported that frequent use of Arabic language in the

classrooms by the faculty as well as the students has been

a major cause of ineffective ELT in Saudi universities.

The results of independent-samples t-test revealed

that four items (21, 22, 24 & 25) bear statistically

significant gender-based differences partially accepting

the third null hypothesis.

Table (4): Analyses of measures to improve academic writing Measures to Improve Academic Writing


206


31

Using multiple teaching techniques

Male 108 4.5370

.7416 -.314 192 .631 p >0.05

Female

86 4.5698

.6952 -.316 186.91

32

Using pair/group

work Male 108 4.333

3.7488 1.251 192 .094 p >

0.05Female

86 4.1744

1.0197

1.209 151.48

33

Using English as a medium

Male 108 4.2037

.7582 -2.255

192 .494 p >0.05

Female

86 4.4535

.7770 -2.248

180.39

34

Diagnosing students' problems in academic writing

Male 108 4.3148

.8823 -1.834

192 .007 p > 0.05

Female

86 4.5233

.6458 -1.898

190.73

35

Frequent use of modern teaching

facilities Male 108 4.222

21.017

0-

1.992192 .008 p >

0.05Female

86 4.4884

.7933 -2.048

191.92

36

Additional coachingfacilities for

weaker students Male 108 4.203

71.133

7-.873 192 .195 p >

0.05Female

86 4.3372

.9531 -.891 191.41

37

Timely correction of students' errors

Male 108 4.2778

.9937 -1.766

192 .021 p >0.05

Female

86 4.5116

.8080 -1.808

191.90

38

Increased language courses

Male 108 4.4259

.9192 -.576 192 .634 p >0.05

Female

86 4.5000

.8506 -.581 187.67

39

Using peer reviews Male 108 4.0556

1.1008

-.896 192 .433 p >0.05

Female

86 4.1977

1.0935

-.897 182.91

40

Frequent dictionary

usage Male 108 3.833

31.264

2-.622 192 .195 p >

0.05Female

86 3.9419

1.1309

-.630 189.37

207


The analyses of the last ten questionnaire items which

were included to elicit the participants’ suggestions

regarding the correctives measures to improve their

academic writing demonstrate interesting trends because all

the items except the last one has been assigned extremely

high values of more than 4.0. The results of this section

are in contrast to the results of the previous section to a

great extent. ‘Using multiple teaching techniques’ has been

assigned extremely high values of 4.56 and 4.53 by the

female and male participants respectively clearly

indicating that Saudi EFL learners strongly feel that the

teachers follow traditional methods of teaching that are

monotonous and uninteresting. This finding is supported by

high mean values allocated to the item that elicited their

perception regarding the frequent use of modern teaching

facilities in English classes to make them lively,

interesting and appealing for the learners. The results of

these items strongly support the findings of the growing

mass of research (e.g., Javid, 2011; Khan, 2011; Grami,

2010) conducted in the Arab world. A relatively

contradictory finding is reported by Al-Khasawneh (2010)

that ranked the use of multiple teaching techniques among

the least preferred items. The female participants allotted208

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. the second highest mean of more than 4.5 to the need of

diagnosing the EFL learners’ specific writing problems so

that appropriate corrective measures may be taken by the

ELT faculty. This item was ranked as the fourth highest by

the male cohort. The finding is in line with the

recommendation of Al-Khasawneh (2010) who suggested that

error analysis of EFL learners’ writings is quite

instrumental for improving writing skills because “…..it

helps to build students’ awareness of the different types

of grammatical errors they are making and encourage them to

check their errors by using grammar handbooks” (p. 19). The

third most important item as considered by the female group

has been the timely correction of EFL learners’ academic

writing errors. Increasing the number of language courses

has been ranked the second highest by the male cohort and

4th highest by the female participants. ‘Frequent

dictionary usage’ is the only item that has been allocated

low mean value of less than 4.0 by both groups suggesting

that frequent use of modern gadgets has weakened their

association with print material including dictionaries.

The comparatively analyses generated by independent-

samples t-test indicated that three items (34, 35 & 37)

209

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. carried statistically significant differences partially

confirming the fourth hypothesis of this study.

Conclusion and Recommendations

This study is a comprehensive investigation to

identify the important writing tasks, major areas of

difficulty, the factors causing these difficulties and the

corrective measures in a Saudi EFL academic context. It

attempted to identify gender-based differences for the

above-mentioned factors and the results of independent-

samples t-test did not show major differences partially

accepting all four hypotheses. It has been found that the

participants of this study need writing skills to paragraph

level for carrying out their undergraduate English-major

studies and that they also have serious problems in their

academic writing due to their weaknesses in using

appropriate lexical items, organisation of ideas and

grammar. The other weaker areas are prepositions,

spellings, irregular verbs, articles, punctuation, suffixes

and prefixes. The findings strongly support the previous

research that Saudi EFL learners who are supposed to have a

reasonable command of English commit serious errors of

various syntactic categories even at sentence level.

210


The findings also suggested that the number of

language courses as well as the opportunities of writing

practice in the classrooms are not sufficient considering

the fact that the participants of this study reported that

they do not have appropriate English language proficiency

when they joined Taif university for their English-major

studies. This finding may resonate with the undergraduates

who join other Saudi universities for their higher studies.

Therefore, it seems important to implement a stricter

admission policy and only those students are given

admission in English departments who have a reasonable

command of the target language so that they may be able to

effectively handle technical courses of English literature,

linguistics and translation. It is strongly recommended

that along with other content based courses, English

departments need to provide their undergraduates with

sufficient number of language courses to improve their all

language skills in general and writing skills in

particular. Another important factor that should be

considered for better results is to identify Saudi

students’ specific errors and to develop tailor-made

activities, in the form of on-campus and home assignments,

to address to their common mistakes. This will not only

help them with their problematic areas but also enhance211

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. their practice time ensuring better results. In line with

the findings of much research it has been found out that

EFL learners do not get any support in terms of practicing

the target language in the real world context because of

limited use of English in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, it also

seems imperative that the English faculty members should

provide their students with as many opportunities to

practice the target language as possible. In this regard it

is also worth mentioning that effective use of group/pair

work will be extremely instrumental to materialise it with

an additional benefit of making their students learn from

each other. These groups should include learners of

different levels so that the students with comparatively

better proficiency help the weaker ones. Use of traditional

teaching methods is reportedly a major cause for their weak

writing and it is strongly recommended that the faculty

members should exploit modern teaching techniques and the

classrooms should be provided with the latest teaching aids

to ensure enhanced learning possibilities.

There seems a scarcity of research related to the

writing problems of Saudi undergraduates along gender lines

as the researchers could not find any relevant study in a

Saudi context. This study is an effort to fill this gap but

212

Javid, C.Z., Farooq, U., & Umer, M. (2013). An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners' Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines. Kashmir Journal of Language Research, 16(1), 179-203. the findings of the present study are limited to the

context of the current study and should not be over-

generalised to other academic settings without conducting

further investigations. Therefore, it is suggested that

further research is imperative to understand this area in a

better and more comprehensive manner.

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Appendix # 1

QUESTIONNAIRE

I- PERSONAL Name: Email: Level: GPA:

II- Circle the most appropriate choice. 1 = strongly disagree 2 = disagree 3 = neutral 4 = agree 5 = strongly agree

A: Which of the following tasks are significant and relevant for your studies at Foreign Languages Department,

Taif University?

Strongly disag

Disag

ree Neutral

Agre

e Stronglyagree

Academic writing tasks No

219


ree Topic sentences/supporting details

1Paragraphs2Summaries3Letters4Critical appreciation5Reports6Narrative essays7Descriptive essays8Argumentative essays9Expository essays10B: Which of the following problems do you face in your

academic writing tasks?

Strongly disag

ree

Disagr

ee Neutral

Agre

e Strongly

agree

ItemsNo

Vocabulary1Spellings2

220


Articles 3Punctuation4Prepositions5Suffixes / prefixes6Irregular verbs7Question words8Grammar9Organisation of ideas 10C: Which of the following are the reasons for your weak

academic writing skills?

Strongly disag

ree

Disagr

ee Neutral

Agre

e Strongly

agree

ItemsNo

Low proficiency in the target language1Lack of language courses at Taif University2Teachers' lack of interest in writing tasks3Limited opportunities to practice English outside the classroom

4Interference of your mother tongue5

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Inappropriate teaching methods6Lack of writing practice at

Taif University 7Use of Arabic in the classrooms8Lack of audio visual aids in the classrooms9Insufficient use of

dictionaries 10

D: Which of the following steps are necessary to solve the

above-mentioned problems ?Strongly disag

ree

Disagr

ee Neutral

Agre

e Strongly

agree

ItemsNo

Using multiple teaching techniques1Using pair/group work 2Using English as a medium3Diagnosing students' problems in academic writing4Frequent use of modern

teaching facilities 5Additional coaching facilities for weaker

students 6

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Timely correction of students' errors7Increased language courses8Using peer reviews 9Frequent dictionary usage 10

Thanks a lot for your cooperation

223

An Investigation of Saudi EFL learners’ Writing Problems: A Case Study along Gender-lines

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