Investigating the difficulties faced by first year Algerian EFL university students in the linguistics course

الملخص EN

The present study aims at identifying the possible difficulties encountered by a group of Algerian EFL University students when reading and writing in the linguistics.The study also seeks to investigate the approaches followed by students when tackling this content course and the strategies they make use of to overcome their difficulties.

To reach these objectives an exploratory study, comprising three research tools: a linguistics test followed by a post-test questionnaire administered to all participants and a focus group interview conducted with 9 students, was chosen.

The findings indicate that students’ difficulties to cope with the linguistics course relate not only to their absence of strategy use, but also to their lack of familiarity with the course, their teachers’ instructional practices, and their weak reading and writing ability.

Based on the findings of the present study, some recommendations are suggested.