Perceptions and Performance: Students’ Attitudes towards Academic English Writing

This research investigates the importance of writing skills in English for academic purposes (EfAP) courses and compares students’ responses to their own English writing needs, their ability to perform and their priorities in their foreign language writing. This paper presents quantitative and qualitative research conducted through analysis of a questionnaire and students’ written compositions. The survey involved 50 EFL (English as a foreign language) students from different departments of the South East European University of Tetovo, Macedonia aged between 18 and 23 who attended Academic and Advanced Academic English (AE & AAE) classes at the Language Center. The participants composed different types of texts in their foreign language. The findings from the needs analysis questionnaire conducted at the beginning of the courses show that students deemed their written performance as not important and that for them writing was not priority over other language skills. However, the results from their actual work (different genres of writing) showed that students could perform quite well. Moreover, their writing improved, and, by the end of the semester, writing in English was not considered an intimidating process.