Abstract

This study investigated first year civil Engineering students attitude towards Basic writing Skills course The study used descriptive design and both qualitative and quantitative research approaches The participants of the study were 60 first year Civil Engineering students of Hawassa University The main data collection instruments used in this study was questionnaire and unstructured interview The results of the study indicated that first year Civil Engineering students have positive attitude towards the contents and topics provided in the writing course and the teaching approach applied in the writing class The study also confirmed that among the four major language skills writing is the second difficult skill Majority of the respondents prefer to practice writing outside the classroom The study found out that there are six basic difficulties shared by the participants The most frequent difficulty is vocabulary followed by grammar and fear of negative comments The remaining ones lack of motivation to write insufficient time and teacher s role are reported to be the least problematic