Academic Writing is a skill that plays a significant role in the academic development of university students. On the other hand, speaking represents one of the most required skills by EFL learners to communicate with the English speaking people. Despite the importance of academic writing for undergraduate and postgraduate university students, it is considered one of the most complex skills in English. The purpose of this study is to find out if there is a real gap between academic writing and speaking among the students at Saudi universities and create the required balance and integration between both skills. It also aims to make the EFL students aware of the requirements of academic writing and help them to follow specific steps to become competent academic English writers. To fulfil this aim, two different research instruments: a questionnaire and an interview were used to collect data from 50 EFL learners and twenty EFL teachers at Two public Saudi Universities. The results obtained suggested that academic writing needs to have the same position of speaking for the EFL learners at Saudi universities to get a balance between both skills. The findings also confirm the hypothesis that EFL students face challenges in academic writing compared to speaking.
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