Analysis of Systemic Functional Linguistics Preparatory Year Writing in a Saudi University

Self-Reported Writing Difficulties of Saudi English Majors at Qassim University College of Sciences and Arts: A Survey and Analysis

“…Given the segmentation by year, it seems that increased English education levels translates into greater perceived syntactical competence and confidence, and this confidence seems to exceed that associated with phonology and morphology. Generally speaking, these results are in line with the empirical literature: students' perceptions of their writing difficulties largely correspond to documented problem areas (Binturki 2008 [10]. However, they also add to this literature by shedding light on how learners relate these perceptions to one another as they organize them into larger conceptual structures.…”

“…Perhaps most significantly, the enduring difficulties posed by mastering English phonology and morphology suggested by the quantitative results were supported and elaborated upon in the interviews, which discussed the frustrations that are associated with English irregularities in depth. Previous studies have well documented steep learning curves in this area, but the present research elaborates on these findings by emphasizing students' perspectives rather than simply analyzing performance on standardized skill metrics (Fender 2008 [10]. The interview data suggests that frustrations regarding irregularities (and specifically the sheer quantity of case exceptions to be memorized) can mostly explain for the strongly skewed response distributions for items in this category, and particularly the fact that even strongly positive responses about perceived progress did not translate into reduced frustration or current difficulty.…”

“…While English majors are not necessarily more proficient in English than all of their peers in other disciplines, in general a baseline level of performance has been reached. Thus, fundamental grammatical errors that lower-level Saudi ESL students often struggle with, such as the use of commas rather than full stops or zero copulae in the present perfect aspect, tend to be markedly less prevalent (Deraney 2015; Romero & Manjarres 2017) [10]. Most English majors have internalized these rules, and make associated errors relatively infrequently.…”

Beyond and within the NS/NNS discourses: English teaching in the Saudi PYPs

“…There is growing attention in the literature paid to English teaching and learning in the KSA across sectors; however, few studies are concerned with the implementation of the English PYPs in Saudi universities. Of those studies which do exist, most have focused on the perspective of students regarding their satisfaction with these programs (Alghamdi, 2015;Al-Shumaimeri, 2011), their motivation (Al-Sharqi et al, 2015;Al-Shumaimmeri, 2013), their attitudes to and experience in these programs (Al-Asmari, 2013;Al Qahtani, 2013;Al-Seweed & Daif-Allah, 2012;Al-Shumaimeri & Al-Ghamdi, 2009;Deraney, 2015;Khalil, 2010;McMullen, 2014) and lastly, their preference for native or non-native English teaching staff (Albakrawi, 2014;Baniabdelrahman, 2015;Javid, 2016). Other studies have compared the PYPs in the KSA to others elsewhere in the world and offered recommendations and suggestions to improve their performance (Alaqeeli, 2014;Searcy & AlRaddadi, 2010).…”