Perception of Speaking for Academic Purposes among Novice Scholars at University of Khartoum

This paper investigatesnovice scholars' perspectives on the importance of English for academic purposes. A mixed methodology was adopted and two tools were used for data collection: an interview and a questionnaire. The results of the direct interview showed the existence of divergent views and attitudes, featuring the faculty main stream among the sample. However, the results of the data collected by the questionnaire showed a largely unanimous agreementamong the participants on the importance of the skill of speaking for academic purpose and the necessity of attending training courses on it. To explain this drastic change of attitudes towards the courses, a number of factors need to be considered. Among these one might say beforehand offeringof promotional sessionsfor the faculty on the importance of the required courses, and making the contents and the objectives of such course accessible to the faculty.