An investigation into students’ perceptions towards Academic Writing at the faculty of education of Tripoli university in Libya.

Abstract

In Libya,  academic writing is perceived as a big issue for EFL students in the EFL context. As a matter of fact, most English courses offered at the university level focus on teaching English for general purposes and very few aim to teach writing for academic purposes for EFL English students.. Therefore, this small-scale research study attempted to investigate students’ perceptions towards academic writing taught at the faculty of education of Tripoli university in Libya. A questionnaire was conducted on 40 EFL students majoring in English in their final semester of their study. The findings of the study indicated that the majority of BA undergraduate students never took academic research skills in their academic writing course before and that the academic writing skills students found difficult were those less frequently taught. The results of the study also found that most useful academic writing teaching materials and teaching tasks & activities were not provided in the students' academic writing course nor they were regarded as effective in their academic writing course. As a result,  the study suggested that EFL students should be offered an academic writing course with academic research skills and generic features   to EFL university students.