Writing of Research Articles by Saudi EFL Students: Evaluating the Role of Group Work in Empowering Learners.

Abstract

The aim of a research paper to collect pertinent opinions, views, proofs, and facts across a range of sources and express them in new perspectives. The usual sources are books, narratives, articles, and interviews, whether in physical form or as found over the internet-based databases. Such collected material is then used to create a reference point to interpret new findings or report the previous ones in a new interpretation to derive information and reporting the same in the writer's own words. Viewed thus, it establishes a definite and natural relationship in context: the triangular relationship between the article writer, other authors/writers on the topic, and the writer's supervisor/guide. There is, therefore, no place to use mother tongue/language by the research students to write a research paper as it would firstly be difficult to write, and secondly, equally difficult for the teacher to teach except by using modern ICT technology (not preferred in classroom setting). Writing a research paper involves many necessary steps. These steps may each be time-consuming and involving cost. An effort has been made in this study to deal with those difficulties and problems, enabling students to overcome those and similar blocks to smoothen the process of writing articles/reports. An effort is also made here to find out the difficulties faced by Arab University research students using non-native language and otherwise, and how they should be taught non-native language to acquire language proficiency and enable them to undertake writing research articles systematically.