A mixed-method inquiry into Arabic-speaking students’ experiences with English academic writing at the undergraduate level

ABSTRACT

The challenges facing non-native English-speaking students (NNESSs) in adapting to the conventions of academic writing at the tertiary level in English-medium institutions have been widely canvassed in scholarly research. Nonetheless, there does not appear to be a great deal of research that investigates the experiences of Arabic-speaking students with English academic writing across the disciplines at undergraduate level. This mixed-method study aimed to fill in this gap by utilizing three data collection methods: focus groups, an online questionnaire, and semi-structured interviews. The findings suggest that Arabic-speaking students’ experiences with English writing are shaped by several factors. Such factors include past language learning experiences, the lack of clarity around discipline lecturers’ academic writing expectations, linguistic differences between Arabic and English, and the impact of IELTS.

KEYWORDS:

• Arabic-speaking students
• academic writing
• IELTS writing
• internationalization
• tertiary education

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the participants in this study for their contribution.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ahmed Kamal Junina

Ahmed Kamal Junina is an assistant professor at the Department of English, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, al-Aqsa University, Palestine. He obtained his PhD from Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His research interests include academic writing, pragmatic competence, and L1 transfer.

Pat Strauss

Pat Strauss is an associate professor at the Auckland University of Technology. Her research interests include the teaching and learning of academic writing, issues of identity and agency and thesis supervision.

Jay K. Wood

Jay K. Wood (PhD, Queen’s University, Canada) is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and the School of Social Sciences and Public Policy at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. His research primarily explores social influence and attitude change processes, as well as how social psychological principles can be applied to real-world domains.

Lynn Grant

Lynn Grant taught at the Auckland University of Technology for many years. Her research interests included academic writing and speaking and corpus linguistics.