Date of Award

Fall 12-1-2014

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Curriculum, Instruction, and Media Technology

Abstract

This study investigated the writing difficulties that Libyan graduate students encounter while attending universities in the United States. Libyan graduate students have difficulties in writing effective paragraphs and essays. Most of their academic writing tasks have numerous grammatical errors and their writing style appears elementary-like. The main purpose of this study was to diagnose writing issues such as grammar, unity, style, diction, and language interference that the students encounter and find solutions for existing problems. A mixed-methods approach was employed in this study. One hundred Libyan graduate students studying at U.S. universities were sought as participants. Data were collected by using an online questionnaire that consisted of 14 multiple-choice questions, four open-ended questions, and two writing tasks. In the writing part, the participants were asked to write two different topics. Error analysis was used to analyze the participants’ mistakes. The analysis of the writing samples focused on thesis, unity, style, and diction and grammatical mistakes. The findings have revealed that the most common difficulty encountered by Libyan graduate students in writing is grammar. The common grammatical errors from the participants involved articles, especially over-use of the definite article “the” in many sentences. The study also showed that the majority of participants did not use writing techniques such as brainstorming, outlining, and clustering to complete their writing assignments in English. It was also revealed that there was little emphasis in teaching English writing on other elements, such as techniques and style, communicating the content (idea and information), and learning vocabulary iv and diction (knowing the correct use of the word). Therefore, teaching methods that Libyan teachers frequently use in teaching writing were not adequate in terms of preparing the Libyan students for appropriate levels of academic writing and did not help them to be more creative in writing since writing is not just grammatical rules. This study has also indicated that the majority of the participants, 84.5%, did not do any collaborative work activities, such as peer editing, proofreading, and so forth in writing classes in Libya. It has been observed that some participants relied on both the first-language thinking and translation, while composing in English to complete their writing tasks. Some participants employed some similar rhetorical strategies of their first language when composing in English. The rhetorical impact of the first language, Arabic, has been shown in some cases, for example, repetition. It appeared from their writing samples that the participants were not acquainted with various writing styles and purposes of writing in English. Lack of variation and misapplication of some cohesive devices in the writing samples were also revealed. Some of the participants found difficulty in staying on topic in the paragraph. In other words, supporting sentences may not be related to the main idea of the paragraph. This may be due to different reasons, such as language interference. This study suggested many recommendations that will improve teaching writing in Libya.

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