Writing Problems and Strategies: An Investigative Study in the Omani School and University Context

The aim of this paper is to identify and investigate the gaps in English language teaching and learning that exist between post-basic schools and universities in the Sultanate of Oman. The gaps were examined in relation to the problems that school and university language learners encounter when writing in English and to the strategies they follow to overcome these problems. The examined problems concerned writing a correct English sentence; putting the ideas together in a coherent way; choosing the right vocabulary to express ideas and having ideas about the suggested topics and deciding how to start an essay/paragraph. Approaches to writing in the context of English as foreign language informed the study. The study involved a sample of randomly selected 1114 school students and 317 university students from Muscat, Batinah South and Dhakeleya regions of Oman. The results indicate that both groups of students acknowledge that they have problems when writing in English (mean score 3.78 and 3.85). Data regarding writing problems suggest that majority of school and university students struggle with lexical and content aspects of writing, however university students’ perceptions of the kind of problems they encounter and of the strategies to address them are more assertive. The study recommends alignment of school and university writing curricula with emphasis on ideas’ development, content knowledge, critical and creative thinking.