Assessing and Evaluating Academic Pre-writing Strategies of Third Year English Language Students in the Sudanese Secondary Schools: Omdurman Locality Secondary Schools as a Representative

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess and evaluate the academic pre-writing strategies used by third secondary school students in the Sudanese secondary schools. The study sets out to find ways that help students raise their awareness of academic pre- writing techniques and how to use them effectively to improve their writing skills. The target group of this study is third year Sudanese secondary students represented by Omdurman Locality secondary schools for the school year 2013/2014. To achieve the aims of this study and find answers to the questions of study, the researcher used the descriptive, analytical method to analyse data collected from respondents. The data for this study was collected by using three instruments. These instruments were questionnaires for students and teachers and a writing test for students. After analysis of data, the results revealed that Sudanese third year secondary students rarely used effective pre-writing techniques with very little awareness of the strategies. The study also revealed no significant relationship between awareness of the academic pre-writing techniques and students’ writing outcomes. The writer of the study recommended that Sudanese third year secondary students should be made aware of the academic writing techniques to be used before the writing process.