Prof. Enam Al-WerKHALID NIDAA KHALAF ALANAZI2022-05-282022-05-28https://drepo.sdl.edu.sa/handle/20.500.14154/36988This study attempts to investigate Arab international students’ academic writing challenges at different universities in the UK. It aims at exploring the difficulties faced by these students while writing, the reasons behind and the solutions suggested to overcome these challenges. For that end, the study used a diverse range of Arab students, both MA and PhD, undertaking study and research at different universities in the UK. Data collected through an online questionnaire distributed to 30 students, from an Arab ethnic background, studying in the UK were subject to descriptive and qualitative analyses. The findings of the study reveal that Arab international students seem to agree that they face serious problems in academic writing, both at the level of sentence structure and paragraph coherence. Spelling, vocabulary, linking sentences and paragraphs, lack of research skills, grammar, punctuation, coherence and unity, referencing and plagiarism were the major challenges encountered. The main reasons reported for that were: lack of practice, lack of training in the home country, linguistic interference between Arabic and English, lack of editing and critical thinking skills, and the educational background. Finally, the participants of the study strongly recommended that it is essential to practice more writing and reading and to get engaged with writing centres and academic writing courses provided at the university to strengthen their writing skills and equip them with the needed tools and techniques to overcome grammatical, syntactic and pragmatic mistakes, particularly at the early stages of their studies at the university. They have equally stressed the importance of transforming the higher educational systems in their respective countries to be able to meet the demands of the language nowadays through shifting their teaching techniques, tailoring their course contents to students’ needs, introducing peer discussion and reviews. The study concludes with some pedagogical/policy implications and recommendations on how to address this issue of academic writing across Arabic-speaking countries.en