Investigating the English Language Structural and Rhetorical Needs of Engineering Students at King Abdul-Aziz University

Abstract

This study aims at investigating the English language structural and rhetorical needs of engineering students at King Abdul-Aziz University. The instrumentation of the study is a triangulation of: a detailed analysis of the engineering students’ final and most important documents (assignments, senior projects, MS theses and PhD dissertations) in terms of the common grammar and rhetorical mistakes, semi-structured interviews with instructors in the faculty of engineering especially those teaching (X499) (a course in which graduate students develop their senior proposals), and a questionnaire based on previous literature about engineering students' structural and rhetorical needs to be filled by engineering students taking X499. The findings of the study revealed that there are many common mistakes frequently repeated by students in their writings. These findings were confirmed by the interviews with the professors teaching 499 and the results of the questionnaire.  The study concluded with a recommendation that all the common mistakes in students' documents, instructors' suggestions and the common structural and rhetorical needs resulted from the questionnaire should be included in a well- designed motivating syllabus to be taught for engineering students.