Investigating Major Academic Writing Problems Encountered by Yemeni MA Students of English in Writing Examinations’ Answers at the Faculty of Education/ Saber – Lahij University (Published)
The present study aimed at investigating the problems of Yemeni Master students of English in writing examinations’ answers at the faculty of education/Saber -Lahij University. The population of the study was (20) master students in the department of English during the period 2019 to 2021 who were chosen as the sample of this study. The data was obtained from analyzing the students’ written answers for the examination questions in relation to the course of semantics. The students’ difficulties in writing were viewed in relation to analyzing their exams’ answers according to the academic writing conventions. The results of the analysis showed that there were variations between the students in their writing performance as well as their scores due to the problems and difficulties they face in writing answers for the examination’s questions. The results showed that there were problems in both sentence as well as paragraph levels in terms of vocabulary, sentence structure, using conjunctions and punctuation marks and the organization of paragraphs. Such problems were related to both linguistic and cognitive types. The linguistics’ problems were clear in relation to language use and vocabulary, and the cognitive problems were related to organization and mechanics. The results also showed that the master students of English face problems in achieving cohesion and coherence in terms of creating linkage and relationships between the constituents of a sentence, between sentences in a paragraph and within paragraphs.
Keywords: Academic Writing, coherence, unity