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Teaching EFL Writing in the 21st Century Arab World pp 157–187Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Academic Writing in the UAE: Transforming Critical Thought in the EFL Classroom

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Abstract

Over the past decade, an academic revolution of growing proportions in the UAE has aimed to shift the country from a site of passive knowledge reception into one of active knowledge production (Romani, 2006). Billions of dollars are spent each year to continually improve once-poor standards in higher education by bringing foreign campuses to the Gulf or adapting curricula from outside the region (UNDP, 2003). However, branches of western, mostly American, universities now make up over two-thirds of higher education in the UAE and one of the pedagogical tools fuelling the reform is critical thinking (UNESCO, 2005). This not only requires Arab students to successfully complete core liberal arts courses, such as academic writing, but it demands that they arrive at university already skilled in critical thought. However, many incoming freshmen find critical thinking new and challenging, especially if they come from primary and secondary schools in the Gulf that follow traditional rote-learning systems. According to Hall (2011), these students “are not used to being in charge of their own learning and text creation and they struggle to cope with the demands of critical thinking and independent learning” (p. 430).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Writing Studies, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Lelania Sperrazza

  2. Department of English, American University of Sharjah, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

    Rana Raddawi

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  1. Lelania Sperrazza
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  2. Rana Raddawi
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Core Curriculum Program, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar

    Abdelhamid Ahmed

  2. Rte Agourai, Hay Al Mansour 903, Moulay Ismail University, Meknès, Morocco

    Hassan Abouabdelkader

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Sperrazza, L., Raddawi, R. (2016). Academic Writing in the UAE: Transforming Critical Thought in the EFL Classroom. In: Ahmed, A., Abouabdelkader, H. (eds) Teaching EFL Writing in the 21st Century Arab World. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46726-3_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-46726-3_7

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