Problems Faced by Postgraduate Students in Developing their Writing Skills.

Abstract

 The paper aims at clarifying the main problems which postgraduate students (both M.A. and Ph.D. students in the different departments of the College of Education, scientific and literary) face when using English in writing. English is given to them as a secondary lesson in the two courses of their preparatory year of study. Teaching English is supposed to help students develop their reading and writing skills and thus they will be able to understand their mainstream subjects taught in English. Students’ problems have been explained by identifying and analyzing the different types of mistakes they committed in their examination papers and assignments to specify the reasons lying behind committing them.

The different types of mistakes, taken form students’ examination papers and assignments, have been identified and explained first. They are classified into different types and arranged into groups to clarify the main areas where students have more problems. Then, reference has been made to the possible causes of these problems like the interference of students’ mother tongue, incomplete knowledge in relation to the basic rules of writings and English grammar, the course time, students’ interest and teaching materials and methods.  Some suggestions to help students overcome such problems in their future writings have been presented as well.