Abstract

There is a general belief among researchers and speakers at conferences and symposia that Arab EFL Learners are primarily responsible for their weak writing performance. Educational policies usually evade criticism. This study is an attempt to show that educational policies can have their role in the learner’s writing problems. Viz. it posits that for the most part writing problems can be caused by the employment of outdated approaches and resources. To this end, content analysis has been applied to existing writing courses in three Arab Universities. The examination of these courses has revealed that English Departments adopted approaches and materials characteristic of the 1940s and 1950s. Thus, unless the new the developments into the linguistic and writing theories and approaches are incorporated into the writing syllabus, Arab EFL learners will continue to experience writing problems.

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