Abstract

The current study examined the most common types of academic writing errors and the causes of such errors made by 44 tertiary EFL Arab-Israeli students. A methodological triangulation was employed in this research. Results and analyses of errors in the written samples revealed that students made a substantial number of errors in both rating scales. In the generic writing performance scale (the qualitative method), 75% of students’ written samples rated poor, and the error frequency rating scale (the quantitative method) showed that the students made 2965 errors, which is a notably large number in proportion to the essay length. The researchers have also inferred that the principal reason for such errors is the triglossic nature of Arabic in Israel. The novelty of this research is that such triglossic nature of Arab-Israelis’ language has not yet been investigated in the field. To this end, the results drawn will be utilised in future research as a platform for exploring effective teaching approaches that may enhance EFL students’ writing performance.

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