An innovative case study of the attitudes of Iranian MA EFL learners towards the academic writing course

Writing is a process of exploring ideas and thoughts and speaking them out through writing. One can write about a topic provided that they should have sufficient thoughts to put into words. However, ideas are not enough by themselves. The reason to write is a vital issue. This paper attempts to make an investigation into the cause of writing. To do so, an effort has been made to unveil the attitudes of EFL learners towards writing academic essays. Having taken an Oxford placement test, 52 MA candidates aged 25-35 both male and female, were given a 5-point Likert scale questionnaire developed by Payne (2012). It was found that the participants were mostly interested in writing, and had sufficient linguistic knowledge for self-expression. The results revealed that the respondents’ main goal in doing academic writing was to meet professional requirements. They also stated that they could express themselves through writing to meet their emotional needs. It was also found that the respondents were motivated in the essay writing course both instrumentally and integratively.