Factors affectin writing skill the non english major learners at hanoi university of home affairs

However, in learning the English language, writing in English which is a form of written communication, is a very significant skill for language production.. 1.4 Aims and objectives of t

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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Introduction

This chapter presents the introduction to the research which comprises (1) background to the study, (2) rationale for the study, (3) aims and objectives of the study, (4) research questions, (5)scope of the study, (6) significance of the study, (7) definition of the key terms, and (8) organization of the thesis

1.2 Background to the study

In the modern society nowadays, it is unsurprising to see that English has been very necessary in important fields of the society As a matter of fact, English has been widely used in the world (Medgyes,2001) However, in learning the English language, writing in English which is a form of written communication, is a very significant skill for language production Hyland (2006) emphasizes that writing plays an important role in the success or failure of the students and it is a complex demand of studying the language How successful learners are at the study of the language largely depends on their improvement of the writing competence However, most of the learners on the path of mastering a language frequently encounter troubles with writing skill According to Grabe and Kaplan (1996), it

is so difficult for people to know how to express their own ideas in the writing form effectively It is undeniable that writing and learning how to write are considered the most difficult and complicated skills for learners to master Hedge (2000) states that in teaching four skills of the English language, teachers frequently follow a certain order: listening, speaking, reading and writing Writing is placed at the final order since it is thought to be the most difficult for learners

Writing is the most complicated skill for both EFL and ESL learners to master because it demands hard work, knowledge of the language, topical or social knowledge, lengthy steps and more practice (Harmer 2007, Nunan 1989) The difficulty of writing lays not only on generating, organizing ideas but also on putting the ideas into meaningful and understandable text (Tribble 1997, Richards & Renandya 2003) It is agreed that writing is

an extremely difficult cognitive activity which requires the learners a lot of training (Harmer 2007, NuNan 1989, Tribble 1997, Richards & Renandya, 2003) How to be good

at the task of writing is always the question posed for both teachers and students These

problems generally come from learners’ incompetence in structures, lack of the knowledge

of the language, lack of ideas, lack of idea organization, coherence, and rhetorical conventions Pineteh (2012) asserts that L2 learners’ sentences are often ineffective since learners not only lack of ideas but also struggle with grammatical aspects such as the agreement between the subject and the verb, tenses, spelling, how to combine sentences to make a coherent paragraph and how to organize paragraphs to make a coherent essay According to Tangpermpoon (2008), lack of vocabulary and syntax knowledge as well as organizational principles in L2 also impacts writers on producing a good text Factors affecting learners’ writing skill are from the teachers’ incompetence as well (Haider 2012, Mansoor 2005, Harmer, 2008) Harmer (2008) mentions that students’ motivation causes them to face problems in writing and inappropriate methodology which arise the troubles for students in writing In addition, Hyland (2002) argues that writing is a skill which learners must master so that they are able to present their ideas successfully in written form

According to Leki (1997), the majority of English learners often confuse between Grammar and Written Expression Many learners think that mastering the rules of grammar can help them create good pieces of writing In this respect, learners tend to focus more on grammatical practice but they forget to practice the specific rules of writing such as planning, drafting, editing and final draft According to Al Fadda (2012), learners’ weaknesses in writing recur when learners misconstrue their writing as not a process, it means that learners do not have the plan for their writing and they do not revise or edit their texts after composing Nunan (2000) also asserts that learners’ poor performance in writing

is caused by their ways of organizing the information to create well-structured pieces of writing, coherent paragraphs or essays He also adds that giving coherent, fluent, extend pieces of EFL writing is a really big challenge for learners Therefore, it is very urgent for teachers to help their students perform appropriately and effectively in writing the foreign language In Vietnam, English is used as a foreign language and writing is recorgnized as the productive skill which creates big challenges for learners as well Writing requires learners to have to kow the way to organize the ideas and it also involves in logical and creavite thinking In addition, among a wide range of writing types, essay writing is the most difficult for learners, however, it is considered as important for students among universities Vienamese EFL learners usually encounter difficulties in writing due to numbers of factors or causes

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1.3 Rationale for the study

Writing is an important but difficult skill in language learning However, students at HaNoi University of Home Affairs need to obtain the English certificate of B1 or B2 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) of which writing an academic essay is a compulsory part It is no doubt that the learners must overcome the difficulties if they want to master the language

Being an English teacher at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs with several years of

experience in teaching English, the reseacher has the opportunity to observe closely

learners’ performance on writing The researcher recognizes that students at Ha Noi

University of Home Affairs are afraid of doing the writing task They find themselves limited, difficult and less confident in performing the writing assignments They can

complete the sentence rewriting task, the ordering task, the gap – filling task or they can write short sentences about something but they are still struggling to produce a composition

or an academic essay effectively Additionally, unlike speaking, listening and reading, students do not have opportunities to practice outside the class Besides, in this context at Hanoi University of Home Affairs, time for learners to practice writing in class is also limited during the course while the complexity of writing made EFL learners face a lot of challenges in writing There are several negative causes or factors which learners encounter when performing the writing skill and these negative factors result in learners’ poor writing Frequently, learners do not have the ideas or the knowledge relating to the writing topic and they are not good at English grammar to put their ideas in written form Besides, lecturers also play an important role in motivating learners in learning the writing skill Students also need to avoid the influence of the culture of L1or the learning situation at the university to study writing better, ect

What is mentioned above increased the interest in exploring all the factors hindering learners behind their writing difficulties or discovering the origin of learners’ problems in writing in order to help learners better improve their writing skill This is the reason why the researcher decided to conduct a case study to cast a light into factors hampering learners’ writing competence

1.4 Aims and objectives of the study

In the hope of helping students improve their writing competence, this study was conducted with the aims of investigating factors affecting the writing skill of the first year non- English major students at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs The objectives of this study are as follows:

 To identify factors which affect English writing skill of the first year non-English major learners at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs

 To find out if there are any differences in teachers and students’ perceptions of factors affecting learners’ writing skill at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs

1.5 Research questions

Despite being well-recognized as an important skill in language learning, writing is still troublesome to EFL learners in general and to students at HaNoi Unversity of Home Affairs in particular A lot of efforts have been poured into the teaching and learning of writing skill, but the expected outcomes are still far to be reached This has led the researcher to generate the following research questions to successfully accomplish the above stated aims

1 What are the factors which affect the first year non-English major learhners’ writing skill

at Hanoi University of Home Affairs?

2 Are there any differences in learners and teachers’ perceptions of factors affecting learners’ writing skill at Hanoi University of Home Affairs?

1.6 Scope of the study

As having been presented, the research was conducted at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs and non-English major students at the school were chosen to participate in the research In order to offer more meaningful and practical implications for teachers and learners, the study focused only on the first year non- English major studentswhoare not used to the way of teaching agnd learning English at tertiarylevel All the second, third and last year non-English major students were not invited to participate in the research since they might get used to the way of studying the English language at this level

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This research focused on the issue of writing with the data collected from 80 first year English major learners and five English lecturers from the campus Writing is a very important but difficult skill in learning the English language At the campus, students must study four skills of the English language consisting of listening, speaking, reading and writing They must take the final tests including the writing part which accounts for 50 %

non-of grades However, there is a wide range non-of challenges that students faced in English writing skill, they were not interested in learning writing and they had a lot of difficulties when performing the writing ability Therefore, this study only focuses on factors that affect students’ writing skill with the hope to help students improve their writing competence

1.7 Significance of the study

The outcome of this research may contribute two aspects of theory and practice on student writing in Vietnam, as well as provide a deeper understanding of factors that affect first year non English major learners’ writing at HaNoi University of Home Affairs

Many researchers (Harmer 2007, Nunan 1989, Tribble 1997, Richards & Renandya 2003) agree that writing is the most challenging skill for both ESL and EFL learners According to Margolis &McCabe (2006), learners with poor self-efficacy may result in ineffective writing skill Theoretically, discovering factors leading students to problems in writing helps both teachers and learners in many ways Hence, the results of this study determined the factors affecting students’ writing performance of HaNoi University of Home Affairs in

Ho Chi Minh city

Practically, the findings of the research might also provide important information and develop viable solutions for supporting not only English teachers’ teaching strategies but learners who have challenges in the process of mastering the writing skill Furthermore, the research also gave learners an insight into their study attitude of the English language

1.8 Definition of the key terms

To make this research easier to understand, the researcher would like to explain key terms

as follows:

 Factor: refers to a negative fact or situation which causes learners’ difficulties in

English writing

 Writing skill: refers to the ways for learners to put their thoughts, ideas and views

into words to communicate with each other

 EFL learners: learners study English as a foreign language

 First year non-English major learners: freshmen who are not specialized in

English language

1.9 Organization of the thesis

This study is composed of five chapters

The study begins with chapter 1 which introduces the background to the study, the rationale for the study, the aims and objectives of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, the definition of the key terms and the organization of the thesis

Chapter 2 presents the literature review of the research which includes the definition of writing, the nature of writing, the importance of writing, stages of development in writing, approaches of writing, sources of learners’ errors in writing, factors that affect writing performance.It also looks at previous studies and identifies the gaps between the research and previous studies

Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the study which consists of the research design, the research site, the sample and sampling procedures, the research instruments, the data collection, the data analysis procedures, the issues of reliability and validity of the study, the ethical issues of the study and the summary

Finally, chapter 5 draws the conclusion of the whole study, pedagogical implications for English language lecturers to help improve learners’ writing skill, some implications for English language learners to learn and practice English writing skill It also provides some implications for the institution with the hope of aiding learners to improve their writing skill Finally, the chapter mentions the limitations of the current study and recommendations for future study

2.2 Definition of writing

Writing in its simplest form, is the way of putting graphic symbols of something which has been heard or read into written form It is stated by Pincas (1992, p.125): “Writing is a system of graphic symbols, i.e., letters or combination of letters which related to sound we produce while speaking” However, writing is more complex and complicated when relating to producing meaningful sentences so as to convey the message of the language because the graphic symbols have to be rearranged well this time to form from words to paragraphs and essays as well Crystal (1999) asserts that writing is not simply a mechanical combination of putting speech down the paper, it is the art of the discovery in the use of the graphic potential of the language Kate and Guy (2003, p.1480) claims that “ writing is a process of exploring one’s thoughts and learning from the act of writing itself from what thoughts are” Byrne (1993) also says that writing is clearly much more than the

production of graphic symbols, just as speech is more than the production of sounds

According to Rivers (1981, p.294), writing is to carry information or toexpress ideas in a sequent way in the new language As written by Brown (2001), writing is a thinking process which can be planned and given with an unlimited number of revisions before its release and it represents what we think in our mind It is a form of expression that writers desire to communicate their different ideas, feelings and attitudes in a written mode, so every writer needs to make his own big effort to achieve one’s aim Cumming (1998) says that producing a piece of writing is to express one’s individuality and personality and it is crucial to remember that writing is also a social endeavor and a way of communication with people

Furthermore, writing is one of the productive skills of studying the language and learners find it the hardest thing to get started with entire writing process It is an essential way to improve people’s communicative competence when learning the language According to Brown (2000), language competence is considered as learners’ necessary knowledge of the language system involving the rules of structures, the lexical, and every piece of language and how the pieces go together Therefore, learners are required to make an enormous effort

to be able to produce writing with good quality because writing skill is actually complicated This complex activity consists of discovering and transmitting ideas, thoughts, and feeling into written form and then carrying out a process of revising to make grammatical and organized texts which are meaningful and readable for people Hampton (1989) indicates that writers are considered to be fluent in their writing when they can write smoothly, easily and it is certain that their writing is understandable and meaningful Writing skills allow people to put their thought into words to create a meaningful form to convey their message to a larger audience Geiser & Studly (2001) stated that learners who are able to write something in a productive way are successful in their process of studying the language Learners are actually in troubles with this productive skill since it shows the evidence of learners’ language competence, recalling and thinking ability It also demands the ability to organize and put the learners’ ideas in coherence and cohesion (Kellogg, 2001)

2.3 The nature of writing skill

Foreign language skills are naturally categorized in two main groups of skills: the productive skills involving in speaking and writing and the receptive skills including reading and listening Nevertheless, their nature does not have the correlation with the above division since the receptive skills are naturally acquired whereas the productive skills must be learnt to have the ability to read or write; that is called “literacy” Furthermore, if speaking skill and writing skill are in the same category, this is not meant that they are similar in some ways Harmer (2007b) identifies that writing and speaking are different in a lot of ways

structure of its language Due to this, it leads writing to a complicated and difficult skill There are a lot of studies which prove that writing skill is very complex and many ideas about the difficulty of writing are pointed out Harmer (2007b) indicates that there are a

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number of reasons which make learners find writing skill the most difficult and complicated A similar point is mentioned, for instance, by Tribble (1997) that it is so difficult to acquire the writing skill because of its complexity This complexity lies on the stages of the writing process, learners’ lack of foreign language capacity or knowledge, etc

At the same time, there is also a variety of factors relating to learners’ L1 or psychology which may make writing skill become more difficult

Along with its difficulty and complexity, writing can be considered as a process of discovery because it permits people work with word and ideas to compose a piece of writing According to Grabe and Kaplan (1996), writing is a skill that must be learned through practice Writing skill does not come to learners naturally or automatically, it comes through each leaner’s cognitive effort White and Arndt (1991) argue that writing is

a problem-solving activity and it requires learners multiple issues to be good at writing

Language transfer also plays an important part in determining the nature of the language According to Friedlander (1997), writers usually transfer their ways of writing by their mother tongue into their second or foreign language It is popular that writers who are good

at writing strategies in L1 can succeed in using writing strategies in L2 or FL In the same vein, Friedlander (1997) also cites that the failure of the writers to use writing strategies in English came from the weakness of the composers to use writing strategies in their first language On the other words, writing conventions are different from this language to another Therefore, writing skill should be learnt, practiced and mastered since no good writer can be naturally become

In summary, the nature of writing demands composers to write for readers who are in charge of deciphering what are coded in the writings It is obviously different from the relationship situation in speaking and listening, there is no interchanging participant in writing That is calculated for the reason why we cannot measure the impacts of the message on the audiences but we can determine the rationale which motivates us to write

2.4 The importance of writing

Writing is a task that involves the connection of many skills of language such as speaking, listening, and reading It is one of the important ways for people to put their thoughts, ideas and views into words to communicate with each others In other words, writing is a means

of communication which is expressed in written form According to Mc Arthur, et al (2008), writing is also a mean of exposing one’s personal self-expression since it expresses the social relationship through each style of performing writing pieces of each composer It

is also stated by Hyland (2003, p.69) that “writing is one of the main ways that create a coherent social reality through engaging with others” Arndt (1987, p 262) states that “a written text is the translation of a writer’s private thoughts into public text” and he also emphasizes that the act of producing a text in written form is actually not easy Suleiman (2000) identifies that writing is a central element or an essential factor of language As stressed by Kamonpan Boonkit (2010), apart from reading and listening which are considered receptive skills in leaning a language, writing and speaking are the other two productive skills which should be integrated in the process of creating effective communication Athannases, S and De Oliveira, L.(2008) argue that writing is an act of communication It is an act of making marks on certain surface in a form of graphic presentation, to make meaning Writing is the fourth skill in English learning language According to Alexander (2008), strong writing skills may enhance students' chances for success Gebhart & Rodrigues (1989, p 1) also assert that “Good writing skills are essential

to one’s success, whether writing reports on reading or lab work, preparing research papers,

or taking essay tests” In other words, writing skills are specific capacities which play an important part in communication As a result, if learners are good at writing skill, they can convey their message with clarity, coherence, logic, conciseness, straight to the point

In this respect, it is so regretful to ignore the importance of the writing skill in teaching and learning English as a foreign or a second language at a university because writing helps learners many ways in their higher studies Writing plays a role in the field of further education since students are frequently required to have writing papers or even academic pieces of writing in English (Fujii & Fukao, 2001, Zhu, 2004) If the practice of English writing can be repeatedly done by the learners, it may help them improve their creation and logical thinking Altiwal (2012) asserts that the importance of the writing skill is to develop

2.5 Stages of development in writing

According to Quintero (2007), teaching writing skill to EFL students is very essential, so it has to be taught through both academic and formal instructions If learners want to learn how to succeed in expressing oneself to the audiences, it is extremely important for learners

to go through five stages of development in writing comprising of copying, reproducing, recombination and adaption, guided writing and composition

2.5.1 Copying

Copying means to put what L2 students of English learnt from their previous lessons inside the classroom into their minds Brookes and Grundy (1998, p.22) claim that “ copying is as much about using writing to support language learning as about teaching writing itself” That is to say that copying is considered as the way to modify L2 learners with the foreign language script According to Rivers(1968), copying is the stage which will help learners perform their writings effectively if teachers pay much attention to some principles about

it They are the principles of students’ working with what they learnt orally or read with the teacher, students’ repetition about what they are writing In this way, learners can deepen the impression of their mind of the sounds or the symbols represent and then they have further repetition practice of basic dialogue or pattern sentences

2.5.2 Reproducing

Reproducing is the stage coming after the copying stage which mainly involves the production of learners’ copies without any references to the primary copies It is stated by Quintero (200), during the reproduction stage, learners will make their big efforts to write without originality from what they learnt orally and read in the textbook They will be more successful in their writings if they have been trained the accuracy in the copying stage It means that learners will repeat what they copy in the first stage and then they reproduce their own pieces of writing without indicating to primary copy but orals or reading with the teacher before reproducing is necessary In addition, training in accuracy copy will be beneficial for EFL students and dictation activity must take place in this second stage

2.5.3 Recombination and adaptation

The third stage of development in writing is “recombination or adaptation” in which EFL students are provided with training in accurate construction of sentences or intelligible transmission of messages In the other words, in this stage, students can make alternatives

in their using of grammatical points For instance, they can replace nouns with pronouns, transform from active into passive form, from direct to indirect speech or vice versa They also add adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions to sentences In the same vein, Quintero (2007, p.248) asserts that “recombination is relegated to firm grounds which are established in substitution, transformation, expansion, and contraction”

2.5.4 Guided writing

“Guided writing” is called the fourth stage of development in writing In this stage, learners are given a limited freedom in choosing lexical and grammatical structures For instance, some elements can be changed by students but within their level They can rewrite, summarize any text In this situation, learners are considered neither controlled nor completely free, they are in between According to the viewpoint of Kroll (1990), the aim

of guided writing is to support learners to improve their writing and build students’ confidence when writing

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2.5.5 Composition

“Composition” is considered as the last stage of development in writing, where learners in this stage have more freedom than the guided stage and their freedom is exposed on their selections of lexical and structures It means that they will think and write more in the foreign language Moreover, they will also focus more on putting their thoughts and ideas into the coherent sentences Sadek (2007) argues that writing a composition is a task which requires learners to manipulate words in grammatical correct sentences and link them to form effective writings which successfully express the communication of writers’ thoughts and ideas on a particular topic

2.6 Approaches to writing

In the history of L2 writing teaching, some main approaches like the product approach, the process approach and the genre approach have been developed to help teaching writing be more effective Although all of the approaches share the same purpose to develop learners’ writing competence, they have their own characteristics The following sections stress on these approaches in great detail

2.6.1 The product approach

Richards (1990) indicates that the aim of the product approach is to produce correct texts According to Pincas (1982), writing is considered as a product and it is to put the emphasis

on the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax and cohesive devices Nunan (1991) also asserts that the main goal of the product approach is to focus on helping students produce coherent and relevant pieces of writing” Therefore, students should know how well the language structures are used and they should concentrate on imitating their teachers’ texts Badger and White (2000, p.154) mention that product based approaches see writing as mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language According to Pincas (1982) and Hyland (2003), there are four stages in the product approach including familiarized writing, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing

- Familiarization: learners are taught certain grammar and vocabulary, usually through a text

- Controlled writing: learners manipulate fixed patterns, often from substitution tables

- Guided writing: learners imitate model texts

- Free writing: learners use the patterns they have developed to write an essay, letter, and so forth

Hyland (2003,p.4)

Nevetheless, Silver and Leki (2004) argue that the product approach to writing does not pay attention to the reader or the purpose of writing According to Zamel (1982), the product approach helps students in the beginning stages to develop and improve their grammatical accuracy According to Prodromou (1995), the product approach undervalues learners’ potential because this approach does not bring opportunities to students so that they can create and express their own ideas It mainly focuses on imitating the model texts and overemphasizes on accuracy and form Zamel (1992) assumes that learning by the imitation makes students tend to look at texts as final products for evaluation more than communication and it leads learners lack the opportunities to write

In sum, the product approach has an emphasis on the final product than the processes of good writing and with such disadvantages mentioned above, a new approach to teaching writing is applied by writing teachers and researchers This approach deals with the processes rather than the product itself which is called “the process approach”

2.6.2 The process approach

According to Hyland (2003), the process approach mainly focuses on how a text is written and how L2 writers actually do when they write In this stage, learning to write is a process which involves series of steps for learners to follow to be able to arrive at the final product The writing process is a complicated and recursive procedure which asks the writers for going through certain stages of developing the text from data collection to publishing it (Arndt, 1987; Harmer, 2004; Hedge,1998;Hyland, 2003; Tribble, 1997; Zamel, 1983) Zamel (1982) believes that writing is a process in which learners can explore their thoughts

to create meaningful texts Leki (1991, p.10) defines that “the writing process is the wandering path learners use to get the final product” For this reason, cognitive strategies

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play an important role while working in this stage and teachers’ role is to help their learners

to develop suitable strategies

There are various researchers approaching the process writing in various ways in this stage For instance, following Tribble’s model of writing process (1997,p.39), it helps learners to concentrate on the process of prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, editing and publishing which are illustrated as in Figure 1 below

Figure 2.1: The process of writing by Tribble (1997)

In the same vein with Tribble’s model, the next model is presented by Blanchard and Root (2003) which includes a set of certain stages such as pre-writing, writing, revising and editing This model can be presented as in figure 2

Step 1: Prewriting (writers plan what they are going to write, make detailed notes, think about the purpose, the audience

Step 2: Drafting/Composing (writers begin to translate plans and move ideas to writing

Step 3: Revising (writers read the text again so that they can reorganize, emphasize or focus on information or readers’

Step 4: Editing (writers act on doing any correct if necessary)

Step 5:Publishing (writers send their writing piece to its intended audience)

Figure 2.2 Blanchard &Root's Process Writing Model

Figure 2.2: Blanchard & Root’s Process Writing Model (1997)

Unlike the above researchers, White and Arndt (1991, p.5) stresses that“writing is writing that revision – seeing with new eyes has a central role to play in act of creating text” They share the model of writing which focuses on the topic, the purpose and audience including drafting, structuring, reviewing, focusing, evaluating and generating ideas Their model can be shown as in figure 3 below

re-Figure 2.3 White and Arndt's Process Writing Model

In general, despite dissimilar models, the steps of the writing process can be categorized into tree main stages which are called pre-writing, drafting and revising (Smalley, 2001) In other words, these stages can be named as (1)pre-writing, (2)while-writing and (3)post-writing (Holt & Winston, 1988):

(1) Pre-writing comprises of using structure activities to help students collect and organize data for writing and become engaged with specific topics

(2) While-writing involves of writing a first draft, reviewing and revising

Drafting

Focusing

Evaluating Generating

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(3) Post-writing concludes reading through and trying to apply audience’s perspective

so as to make it easy and clear for readers to enable to follow

From what has been mentioned above, it can be said that the process approach brings plenty

of benefits to teaching writing for L2 writers One of the best advantages is that this approach concentrates much on l2 writers as if they are independent producers of text With this tendency, it makes students have more time and opportunities in order to improve their abilities to plan, define rhetorical problem, a purpose and evaluate a solution According to Hyland (2003), learners also have chance to explore their thoughts, discover meaning and develop a sense of readers by experiencing the stages of writing

Nontheless, this approach suffers from an argument about its disadvanges (Myles, 2002) First of all, with the process approach, all writing is considered to be produced as being the same set of processes, regardless of what topic is and who the author or the audience is The next disadvantage is that putting the importance to the kind of text writers produce and why such writings are produced is insufficient Badger and White (2000) also claims that this approach does not supply writers with effective input, particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge to help students write successfully Hedge (2000) states that this approach requires much time for learners, especially L2 learners who are in examinations because much of the time required to the exam will be consumed in the draft stage Additionally, in the view of Harmer (2001, p.258), “draft stage is time consuming especially for large class and learners will be unable to have chance to be followed by the instructor”

In summary, the process approach aims at mainly focusing on the skills and processes of writing in the classroom itself, so it fails to relate to the social and cultural aspects which affect various kinds of writing (Atkinson, 2003) The disadvantages urge writing researchers to attempt to develop the genre approach which is very beneficial for L2 writers

2.6.3 The genre approach

Since the mid 1980s, there has been a consideration to the genre approach This approach was developed in response to the process approach which mainly has an emphasis on the

processes of writing and offers L2 writers ineffective input of linguistic knowledge (Badger

& White, 2000) Hyland (2003) also mentions that the genre–based approach considers writing as a social and cultural practice since its aim is to much focus on language and discourse features of particular texts and contexts in which the texts are used

According to the Oxford Dictionary (1991), the genre is defined as “a style or kind” which means that each text conveys a purpose For instance, Harmer (2001) has a point of view that newspapers have their own genre Hedge (2000, p.320) also indicates that “telephone, dialogue and information conversations own other genre” In addition, the genre approach

to teaching writing is beneficial and a general view of it can be defined by different scholars

as mentioned below:

A genre comprises a class of communicative events, the members of which share some sets of communicative purpose There are recognized by the expert genre.This rational shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influence and constraints choice of content and style (p.85)

The genre approach is more socially oriented and focuses on the ways in which writers and texts need to interact with readers In this approach, writing is seen as an essentially social activity in which texts are written to do things, the assumption being that if the reader cannot recognize the purpose of a text, communication will not be successful (Tribble, 1996, p.37)

Paltridge (2004) sates that this approach gives an emphasis on teaching particular genres which learners need so as to succeed in particular settings According to Hyland (2003), the genre approach which teaching writing based on genres is considered the way of teaching learners what to do when they write It isan attempt to help writers communicate with readers effectively since the language patterns which are used to accomplish coherent and purposeful writings make the audience better understand The genre-based writing is a way

of putting the language, the content and the context into a correlation

The genre approach can be considered as an extension of product approach since it not only emphasizes on writing as pre-dominantly linguistic like the product approach but it also focuses on writing relating to the social context in which the text is produced as well

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However, according to Badger and White (2000), one of the negative sides of the genre approach is that learners may not have enough knowledge of appropriate language to convey what they want to communicate to the audience in a specific context Another disadvantage is that this genre approach insufficiently evaluates the writing skills which writers need to produce pieces of writing and this approach also ignores the writing abilities that students have in other classes

2.7 Learners and teachers’ perceptions towards writing

According to Bandura (2000), he puts the emphasis on two reasons why teachers’ perceptions towards writing play an important role in students’ writing Firstly, the perception of the teacher can have the impact on how learners feel about writing Secondly, the perception of the teacher to all learners during their writing and after writing involving

in revising and correcting is also sufficient to learners’ attitude in writing That is to say that when the teacher considers EFL writing important but difficult, the instructor will focus on teaching writing and improving learners’ writing As a result, learners who are studying writing will get benefits and they will have opportunities to become better in their writing Little and Kobab (2003) argues that learners will gain more encouragement in writing English when they are well supported from their teachers or instructors Due to teachers’ enthusiasm and help, learners tend to study harder, to become more enduring and try to follow guidance and feedback and pay more attention to their teachers

There are several studies investigating the teachers and learners’ perceptions on some aspects and issues involved in English writing activities As above mentioned, learners’ interactions and teachers’ feedback during writing lessons are outstanding factors in improving learners’ writing skill Thus, instructors and learners’ perceptions on the learners’ needs, some matters faced by writing instructors such as time limitation, the role

of collaboration and feedback in the process of teaching English writing are observed in different contexts (Storch, 2005; Hyland & Hyland, 2006; Shehadeh, 2011; Cummins, Gass,Hudelson, Hudson, & Master, 2013; Veiga et al., 2016) Adopting a collaborative writing approach in teaching permits learners to develop their writing competence by obtaining the knowledge and assistance from the model text Storch (2005) makes the effort

to discover the technique of collaboration during writing and learners’ perceptions on pairs and individual writing The research compares the text quality which is written collaboratively with individually written texts to examine the effectiveness and the disadvantages of both writing activities The comparison between pairs and individual writing shows that pieces of texts written by pairs are stronger and more complicated although they were short texts As a result, learners who express their positive perceptions

on the collaborative writing technique are offered with the chance to investigate others’ ideas and to have constructive interaction during generating thoughts

Similarly, in the study of Shehadeh (2011), the researcher discovers that collaborative writing positively affects learner’ composing, but the effects of collaborative writing are different according to the learners’ proficiency levels in English Learners with low proficiency levels may not get the benefits from collaborative writing since they are impossible to offer accurate assistance for other learners thanks to their low levels of proficiency in English In sum, even though some learners reveal that they are not used to writing collaborative texts in their past education, they express their positive ideas about collaborative writing and then they gradually realize a wide range of benefits The students assert that the collaborative tasks give them several benefits that positively affect their final writing production The benefits can be in terms of cooperation, motivation, and feedback presented during collaborative writing tasks (Storch, 2005; Shehadeh, 2011)

Furthermore, a study by Cummins et al (2013) reveals that students’ writing needs and their ideas on different aspects of the writing instruction to efficiently address their requirements into writing tasks The research shows that most learners face challenges during writing lessons since they lack the topic knowledge of the task, lack confidence and motivation, and their limitation of English proficiency The research also discovers the importance of improving the learners’ confidence and awareness, along with training them

on how to successfully analyze and deals with challenges in writing tasks In conclusion, the research centered on the EFL writing instruction and related approaches are conducted

to supply new pedagogical insights and suggestions for solving related problems and developing students’ writing skill

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2.8 Factors affecting the writing skill

2.8.1 Psychological factors

According to Brown (2000), psychological factors are the factors coming from the learners

by themselves including affective domain, motivation and neurobiology of affect or interest

First, Brown (2000) argues that the affective domain is the factor which belongs to the emotional side of human behavior including confidence, inhibition, risk taking and anxiety Some students are not interested in the writing activity since they are afraid of making mistakes and they have no feeling at ease and relaxation when being allowed to write Byrne (1991) claims that some L2 learners feel unsecure and less self- esteem when they are required to write Harmer (2006) indicates that the instructors should improve learners’ self-confidence through the writing habit Moreover, anxiety can lead to chronic worry and negative thoughts which make learners distract from making their big efforts to do the writing task According to Harmer (2006a, p.55), the writing anxiety is the extremely dangerous sense which can cause the negative attitude towards writing In the same vein, Hidi (2008) also discusses that learners consider writing as a risky adventure and they regard the results from their writing as being likely anticipated Learners’ fear of writing increases from the phobia of being corrected by the teacher, the fear of unsatisfying and pleasing the teacher and then learners are easy to confront the fear to learn and improve their writing skill

Second, motivation is probably the most essential for explaining the success or failure of any complex task (Brown,2000) According to Harmer (2006a, p.3), he stresses that “it is believed by the people involved in language teaching that learners who really desire to study will be successful whatever they learn” This means that the simplest but biggest factor influencing learners’ writing achievement is the motivation of learning writing that they have in the class Their motivation makes both teachers and themselves do the mission more easily and comfortably

Lastly, According to Brown (2000)the neurobiology of affect causes several areas of interest in the road to the language acquisition Boscolo and Hidi(2008) also believe that the interest in the psychological concept makes learners feel motivated in studying the

language It means that interest is also an issue accounted for the success of writing the language

2.8.2 Linguistic factors

Many researchers and language experts revealed linguistic factors that challenge learners’ writing competence and many of which are going to be discussed underneath

2.8.2.1 Lack of grammatical knowledge

Learning how to use grammatical points in English is extremely important in studying the language According to Rodby & Winterowd (2007), they argue that the knowledge of English grammar can help L2 learners use language effectively and understand how language structures applied to master the meaning easily That is to say thatlack of grammatical knowledge makes learners confused in understanding the right meaning of the words and they are prone to make errors in the use of prepositions, articles, tenses, singular/plural, verbs, sentence structure, and the use of informal and formal expressions According to Quintero (2008), learners struggle with the structural components of English because an inappropriate structure complicates the content and comprehension of the text, which a reader deciphers through the involvement of a mental process

Furthermore, Hyland (2003) mentions that those who lack of punctuation skills find it difficult in making their writing production easily understood by the audience Incorrect and inappropriate punctuation in writing make readers have to stop reading or even read but they have to try to interpret the sentences again and again to comprehend them Another issue relating to the grammatical knowledge which affects learners’ writing skill is the spelling It is essential to overcome difficulties in spelling so as not to make readers misunderstand what the writer wants to express since if the word is wrong, it means something changes completely Thompson- Panos & Thomas-Ruzic (1983) discuss that both EFL learners and native learners who trouble in spelling cannot produce good pieces

of writing

In sum, mastering the grammar of the language helps learners writeeffectively There have been several previous studies which showed that poor grammar influences university

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students’ performance in writing assignments (Myles, 2002) Truscott (1996) asserts that grammar is the most difficult for L2 learners Apart from difficulties in using correct structures in the sentence or paragraph development, learners also trouble in creating coherent and cohesion text (Hyland, 2006) It is true that grammar is not only a set of rules but it also involves in the structure of the language and learners may have difficulties when applying such knowledge in their writing tasks (Myhill, 2005)

2.8.2.2 Lack of lexicon

In discussing issues affecting the writing skill, Dar and Khan (2015) argue that learners’ weaknesses in writing also come from the lack of vocabulary, inappropriate use of vocabulary, apart from incompetence in syntax, coherence, idea expansion and rhetorical conventions There are some studies which conducted about the effect of vocabulary shortage on learners’ writing skill For instance, in his research, William (2004) showed that learners’ writings are ineffective due to lack of vocabulary and misuse of lexical in their writing productions Knowing the words, the basic form and the meanings of the words in general is not adequate and this makes learners embarrassed in different situations which prevent them from producing good pieces of writing (Lado,1995) Therefore, it is important to require learners to have enough lexical and the correct usage of lexical which help them to write effectively

Apart from the lack of the lexical, the complication of the collocations is also considered a serious issue which makes writers face difficulties in composing good writings According

to James (1998), if learners want to master the English language, it is crucial to be competent in using various kinks of collocations In the study of Fan (2009), he did the research about the comparison of the use of the collocations between L2 learners from Hong Kong and L1 learners in their writing The findings revealed that L2 learners’use of the collocation might be affected by their native language and their ineffective ways of using the lexical and grammar of the target language In the study of Li (2005), he discovered that Taiwanese EFL university learners made a great number of errors in their writing comprising of 188 collocational errors, 121 grammatical errors and 67 lexical errors

2.8.2.3 Lack of reading

Another factor which causes learners’ challenges in writing is the lack of reading input Yagoda (2006) mentions that reading is the only way to have a deep understanding about the use of punctuation, correct spelling, construct complicated sentences and get the correct meaning of the words which may much help students in their own writing Learners facing challenges in written expression is resulted from not reading practicing at university Yagoda (2006) also argues that learners who have much reading practice may become skilful writers more than those who do not reading a lot Krashen (1984, as cited in Harmer 2006b, p.224) reports that in comparisons of classes, the group which practiced more reading than writing showed more progress than the writing group in their writing test It is obvious to conclude that although reading and writing are two separated skills, for one is a passive activity (reading) and the other is the productive activity (writing), they are complemented each other and they are able to be closely developed Byrne (1991) argues that reading is certain to have its own goal, so it can be more important than writing in some cases However, both skills should be improved in close cooperation

In this respect, there are many studies conducted to confirm the presence of the relationship between reading and writing According to Eisterhold (1997), better writers are frequently better readers, better writers practice reading more than poorer ones, and finally better ones can write more naturally and syntactically than poorer ones That is to say that the question posed for learning English as a second language or foreign language is the directionality of the skills transfer which is from reading to writing However, some surveys (e.g., as in Kroll 1997, Sadek, 2007) show that writing activities are helpful for developing reading comprehension This means that the bidirectional hypothesis clearly indicates the relationship between reading and writing, they are not dependent but they are interactive

Furthermore, reading can be considered as the appropriate input for helping learners perform their writing competence effectively (Kroll,1997) That is the reason why Raimes (1994) says that using reading technique when teaching writing skill to learners is extremely important since learners can do much better in their writing Instead of only engaging with the subject matter for discussion or for comprehension topics, writers can be very active with the new language or culture if they read a lot Raimes (1994, p.66) also

it difficult to make any progresses in their writing performance if they lack of reading input

2.8.2.4 Lack of writing practice

Lack of writing practice also causes challenges in performing writing skills for students Lecturers should not only teach students the theoretical part of writing but also give them opportunities to practice writing in class Nevertheless Chokwe (2011) claim that lecturers are unsuccessful to do so since the classes they are teaching are large Pineteh (2012) also argues that writing practice which is mainly dependent on what is done during the class is not enough for students He also adds that not practicing writing frequently puts students in

an awkward situation when expressing ideas in written form Javid & Umer (2014) argue that having limited opportunities to practice writing outside the classroom is one of the reasons for students’ weak writing performance

2.8.3 Pedagogical factors

2.8.3.1 Teachers’ strategies of teaching writing

Pedagogical factors are factors coming from the teachers who are not good at employing appropriate strategies in teaching writing skill Engstrom (2008), Moutlana (2007) and Niven (2005) state that learners’ writing problems are caused by the teaching staff members who are less qualified, underprepared and inefficient in their knowledge and strategies Rico (2014) argues that some teachers do not have the ability to motivate students’ desire of writing performance or to make learners feel confident to show their writing ability.Ahmad

et al.(2013) also mention that students’ lack of confidence is also caused by a teaching strategy which does not conform to students’ learning styles and cultural background Students’ writing ability can be improved by fostering their interest, motivation and enjoyment for writing, through technology (Graham & Perin, 2007) In other words,

motivated instructors can produce motivated learners The teachers should have a number

of crucial tasks so that their students can be helped to improve writing competence According to Harmer (2007b, p.41), “the main task of the teacher is to motivate and provoke the students” Learners frequently find themselves struggling with lack of words or dealing with creation in their writing In this case, the role of the teacher is to evoke writers

to expand ideas and encourage them with the significant of the task or even help them value words which are necessary for them to begin in writing In the same vein, Harmer (2007b) proclaims that there exists another issue which is associated with the role of the teacher as a motivator or a provoker It means that learners still need assistance and reassurance and teachers must be contributors when students face difficulties in writing to help them overcome troubles

2.8.3.2 Teacher’s corrective feedback

Feedback is very essential in teaching the foreign language since feedback refers to comments or other information learners need to perfect their task It is stated by Rico (2004) that teachers’ neglect in providing prompt and effective feedback to students prevents these students from improving the writing task Furthermore, Graham & Perin (2007) discuss that the common practice of giving grades for students’ writing is considered

as a type of giving feedback It is obvious that this kind of feedback is blamed for motivating students in studying the writing skill since its focus on the performance this student in relation to the others According to Harmer (2007b, pp 108-113), lecturer’s reaction to their learners’ work can be divided into two ways including of correcting and responding Correcting is taken to mean that the teachers have to correct the mistakes relating to the issues of syntax, grammar, collocation, etc in their learners’ written production Teachers’ intervention is made to aims at aiding learners to edit and reach to another new draft By “responding”, it means that teachers not only simply say what right

or wrong but also ask questions, make suggestions and instruct where students should correct either in the content or the manner of the expression to improve their writing pieces Correcting and responding are two ways of teachers’ reaction which makes the teachers become evaluators or examiners Meanwhile, learners feel very interested in numerical grades but they still recognize their weaknesses as well as their strengths Thus, it is advisable for teachers to write brief comment on their students’ written performance so that

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students can understand where they should improve to achieve the task (Harmer, 2007) Teachers’ comments will motivate the students if they are positive comments because students will revise again their production and then they make bigger efforts in the future

In contrast, one example of negative comments is that if teachers overuse the red pen on students’ work, they will feel frustrated Harmer (2007a) states that most of students find it very disappointed if their written performance is given back with a lot of red ink marks It means that overcorrection also affects students’ writing motivation Therefore, teachers should balance between correcting and treating learners sensitively and sympathetically

Nevertheless, Harmer (2006b) claims that correcting consumes a lot of time for teachers and sometimes correcting is worthless if students neglect the corrected writing That is to say that the teacher should recognize that their students should understand the issues commented in writing and then rewrite the work again because this is the main aim of the correction Black and William (1998) strongly argue that giving feedback is extremely important because it gives learners clear understanding about their strengths and weaknesses Giving no feedback means giving students no experience for their preparation

in future exams Thus, giving appropriate and effective feedback to student’ writing production will encourage them to improve their writing (Leki, 1997)

2.8.4 Sociocultural factors

According to Cumming (1998), the social cultural factors play an extremely important role which affects students’ writing experience since it is a social act and a social construction Writing must be done in a specific context and it must be for a particular reader Therefore, when performing the writing work, it is crucial for writers to focus on the social and cultural contexts where writing is being conducted Grabe and Kaplan (1996) also mention that learning to write in a second language is a very complicated process since it does not only belong to each individual but it also involves in the interaction with the context and environment where the writing is happening Many researchers have been aware how social cultural factors influence learners’ studying writing Thus, in what follows, the researcher will present some of the factors relating to social cultural issues

2.8.4.1 Past educational experience

Roca and Murphy (2001) declare that writing process can be influenced by learners’ educational experience They point out that L2 writers who inherit their training and experience in a certain educational context are affected on their own writing production The particular educational context involves the culture, historical and institutional setting where the writing is happening Different educational contexts form different situations and have certain demands which lead to a variety of learning opportunities According to Cumming (1998), L2 writers with various educational backgrounds employed various strategies in controlling their texts For instance, L2 writers who own a technical writing background resorted to frame their texts in advance At the same time, L2 writers with a literacy background had the tendency to increase their metal representations when the writing work took place

The research by El-Mortaji (2001) gives the strong evidence of the past learning experience which impacts on learners’ writing process Her findings demonstrated that writers mainly relied on the rules and knowledge which they had studied before and they used their retrieved knowledge in different stages of the writing process El-Mortaji’s participants were dominated by their previous knowledge to make a decision in what to consist in their paragraphs or essays in terms of the number of lines or sentences Similarly,

in the study of Sasaki and Hirose (1996), writers’ past educational experience obtained through explicit instruction also had the impact on the information organized in learners’ compositions In his research, Leki (1997), he reported that all her participants depended on the past educational experience when performing the writing skill

2.8.4.2 The influence of learning situations

Riazi (1997) conducted a study in which he found out that there existed the influence of the immediate learning situation to learners’ writing skill His research revealed that the contextual issues of the immediate learning situation could donate the participants’ perception of the task and the goals which learners decided to include in the writing as well

as the strategies they applied to achieve these aims The participants received the writing assignments in a way that created the effect of their context Riazi (1997) also argues that writers’ perception of the task was affected by the environment they were working This

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conveyed participants’ thinking in a particular direction, contributed to a particular goal and guided learners certain sets of strategies in producing the writing task He also claims that the kind of knowledge and learning situation which the writers acquired indicated the disciplinary literacy expected for writers in a certain context, aiding them accomplish the text

In a research about the relationship between the educational context and written production

in a university, Dalbani (1992), found that there are a lot of contextual factors affecting her students’ writing performance and among these factors are factors relating to the writing course which mainly emphasize on teaching form, grammatical correctness and avoidance

of errors Dalbani also pointed out that apart from writing which is not only taught on discursive level, teaching students how to combine correct words in sentences, correct sentences in paragraphs makes students have wrong ideas in what an actual text entails Other factors which were mentioned by the researcher are factors involving in the teachers and teaching practices In this case, teachers tend to make their students become passive recipients because they do not let their learners join in the learning process For instance, teachers’ not providing constant feedback made the majority of learners refuse to participate during classes, only a few persistent students who seemed to be active in the classroom Dalbani confirmed that the lack of teaching staff’s cooperation regarding what learners have already known caused students to deny opportunities to practise writing regularly One example for this is that each teacher introduced each teaching material he/she thought the best.From all this, it is concluded that the writing process must not be isolated from the educational context

2.8.4.3 The influence of the discourse and task types

Many writing process studies have dealt with various kinds of composing such as expository, narrative and argumentative (Jones and Tetroe 1987) Cumming (1998) argues that differences in composing task can influence writers’ writing behavior In Cumming’s study of composing expertise and L2 proficiency, he asked his participants to write three kinds of writing including an informal letter, an expository argument and a summary of a booklet The results showed by Cumming suggest various composing tasks arrange various cognitive loads on learners that lead to different writing habits

Another study by El-Mortaji (2001) which focuses on the influence of discourse on learners’ composing reports that her participants had various composing behaviors through two writing tasks of expository and narrative Typically, writers applied more composing strategies on the narrative task when writers were asked to write a story about something which was familiar with them Nevertheless, the expository challenges writers so much when they were asked to write an article which they did not have any previous knowledge about it to retrieve and they were also not familiar with it in their classes before

2.8.4.4 The influence of L1 culture

It is no doubt that apart from these above obstacles, there is another factor which hinders learners’ competence to write correctly is the influence of the L1 culture According to Kobayashi & Rinnert (2008), a lot of different aspects of L1 which include writing ability, proficiency and writing experiences have the impacts on the development of learners’ L2 writing Scollon (2001) states that learners from different L1 backgrounds have different ways of writing English since they depend on how they learn writing styles in their L1 culture When writing in L2, learners are affected by their first language in the way of translating word by word which is different from English language Ellis (2003) states that learners frequently depend on their mother tongue structures to produce responses when composing or speaking in L2 language situation If the structures of two languages are not the same, it is unexpected that there might be high frequency to have errors in writing the second language In the same vein, Cook (2001) argues that the interference of L1 importantly implicates for expressing L2 Mother tongue language helps writers in many ways if it has similar features with the second language On the other hand, writing L2 language becomes more difficult for learners when L1 and L2 systems are different from each other

Additionally, Nunan (1999) claims that learners’ arranging ideas correctly and fluently in producing writing pieces extremely challenges them He argues that it is caused by the fact that rhetorical conventions, writing conventions, meaning structure, style and organization

of English frequently differ from the other languages Connor (1996, p 5) asserts that “ the field of contrastive rhetorical regards language and writing as cultural phenomena, each language is unique in its rhetorical features and conventions that affect or even interfere

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with writing in a second language” According to Leki (2001), the lack of effective instruction in L1 writing in some cases also makes L2 writers be exposed to the rhetorical preferences of their first language and then they are unable to remove the influence of L1

on L2 writing Kaplan (1987) mentions that differences in rhetorical features are not essential issues to reflect different thoughts but they reflect learners’ ways of cultural learnt and practiced writing conventions

The first language can affect L2 learners’ writing in terms of the cultural values and logic since the culture of L1 and L2 are different In this case, Shen (1989, p.460) argues that

“learning to compose in English is not an isolated classroom activity but it is a social and cultural experience” She struggled to adopt a new system of logic in English composition

by adapting her composition to the English way of introducing the topic sentence right from the outset of the written piece

Therefore, it is important for lecturers to help their learners aware of the differences between L1 and L2 structure Teachers also need to spotlight which rules in L1 are not appropriate for L2’ use so that their learners can employ correct strategies to provide good L2 writing pieces and abandon the existence of errors which might occur while writing in the target language

2.9 Previous studies

First of all, Taghreed (2018) undertook the research to explore the challenges that the

students in Jordanian public high schools face in writing English Toachieve the goal of

thestudy, the researcher used the close-ended questionnaire with the sample of 50 teachers

of English language.The study found that the teachers were overloaded with duties and

responsibilities, so they were not able to pay much attention to their teaching The study also found that the big size of the classrooms made the teachers unable to control activities

in the classroom Also, English language curriculums discarding individual differences among students prevented them from performing well The research mentioned that the shortage of motivating students to learn English was considered the reason for the students’ poor writing

Relevant to the current study is another study conducted by Hui-Fang Shang (2013) His study aims identifying the construct of students’ anxiety about their ability to successfully

communicate in English writtenform and the possible relationships between foreignlanguage writinganxiety, gender, year of writing experience, writing self-efficacy, and actualwriting competence of a group of 146 participants The results showed that students became nervous when being asked to write an English composition in class, partially because they fear of making mistakes in writing, receiving negative evaluation from teachers Male students were found to be the ones who feel much more anxious than female students do The study suggested that it is essential for teachers to recognize the source of students’ writing anxiety and to help them reduce the anxiety so as to enhance university their writing competence Nevertheless, the author did not investigate the factors coming from students and offer the solutions for learners to overcome the difficulties in learning the language

Almas & Muhammad (2016) conducted a research to explore undergraduate PakistanESL learners’ writing troubles in the hope of providing the learners with some solutions to improve their writing skill The researchers employed both qualitative and quantitative method to analyze the data generated from four focus group interviews with 11 undergraduate students and 10 teachers of English The results of the study revealed that major problems of undergraduate ESL learners in writing skill come from different linguistic proficiency, writing anxiety, shortage of ideas, the influence of the native language and structure organization The findings also showed that these problems are caused by different factors such as untrained teachers, ineffective methodology, examination system, less writing and reading practice, big size classroom, lack of motivation and ideas However, the number of students recruited for the interviews and the number of the writing samples is slightly small The participants are ESL learners and they are undergraduate students in general h

Regarding the methodology, Almas & Muhammad (2016) generated the data by conducting the group interviews with both teachers and students, which is better than conducting the only questionnaire to the students as in Taghreed’s (2018) and Hui-Fang Shang’s (2013) study because more problems and factors relating to writing skill can only be found when meeting face to face Furthermore, employing the writing task for students also helps the researchers easily find out more students’ problems in their writing

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In another study, Amina (2015) focused exclusively on linguistic factors which affect students’ written paragraphs To address the research questions of the study, the researcher conducted an error analysis of 40 students’ written paragraphs and a questionnaire to 60 teachers The analysis of the written paragraphs helps the researcher discover learners’ main errors while writing and the questionnaire to teachers helps the researcher discover more problems students face when writing The findings of the study reveal that there are numerous errors occurring in students’ writing production These errors have been included

in the use of tenses, propositions, punctuations, spellings and the negative interference of L1 However, this study has provided no discussion pertaining to other factors which might affect learners’ writing skill such as psychological factors, pedagogical factors and social cultural factors

Tran Hoa Mi (2015) undertook the research on factors accounting for writing apprehension

of Vietnamese undergraduate students who major in English language The aim of the study

is to discover the extent to which learners experience writing apprehension and factors behind their apprehension This study employed a questionnaire to 120 students and semi-structured interviews to 16 students to understand how the factors influenced learners’ writing apprehension The results of the study showed that there are three issues relating to students’ writing apprehension First, students who did not learn how to write before avoid writing Second, teachers’ inefficient feedback makes student feel unpleasant when writing Third, students’ inadequate linguistic knowledge leads them to achieve writing production negatively

Also relating to writing problems, Nguyen Le Minh Tho (2000) conducted asurvey to investigate difficulties that first year English students face in writing and draw out some reasons for these troubles The researcher used a questionnaire to 160 students and 16 teachers to identify the problems students meet when composing The results revealed a lot

of students did not apply necessary writing techniques when composing their writing Students have problems with giving correct and sufficient sentences and knowing exactly what should be done to compose a particular kind of text The study found out the problems

in writing but did propose any reasons that cause these problems

Generally, a lot of studies about how to write well and the factors affecting writing skill in learning English language were conducted by different researchers There is, however, no research deeply exploring the factors which cause EFL students’ weaknesses in performing the writing skill In other words, there are numerous studies addressing the problems and factors relating to learners’ competence in their writing performance but there has been no study deeply and absolutely undertaken to find out the issues which limit the EFL students’ writing competence Hence, as stated above, research investigating factors affecting first year non – major English students’ writing skill needs to be carried out

2.10 Conceptual framework

Given the discussion in the above sections about factors affecting learners’ writing skill, a conceptual framework of the current study is constructed The conceptual framework is illustrated in Figure 4 (Factors affecting learners’ writing skill) below

Factors affecting learners’ writing skills are grouped into four groups: psychological factors, linguistic factors, pedagogical factors and social and cultural factors Psychological factors are issues relating to affectivedomain, motivation and interest Linguistic factors are involved in the lack of vocabulary, grammatical knowledge, reading practice and writing practice Pedagogical factors involve teachers’ strategies in teaching writing and teachers’ corrective feedback Apart from the above groups of factors, social cultural factors are also considered a group of factors that poses difficulties to learners’L2 writing They comprise past educational experience, the influence of the learning situation, the influence of the discourse and task type and the influence of the L1

Linguistic factors

Pedagogical factors

Sociocultural factors

Conceptual Framework

Figure 2.4: Factors affecting learners’ writing skill.

Affective domain (Brown (2000);

Byrne (1991); Harmer (2006))Motivation (Harmer (2006);

Hidi (2008);Brown (2000))Interest Hidi (2008);Brown

William (2004);Fan (2009); Li (2005)Lack of reading practice ( Yagoda (2006); Harmer (2006); Raimes (1994); Kroll (1997),

Lack of grammatical knowledge (Quintero (2008);Rodby&

Winterowd(2007)

Teachers' strategies in teaching writing ( Engstrom(2008); Moutlana(2007); Niven (2005); Rico (2014);Harmer (2007); Ahmad et al (2013);Graham & Perin (2007))

Teachers' corrective feedback ( Harmer (2007);

Graham & Perin (2007); Rico (2004))

Past educational experience (Roca &Murphy (2001);

Cumming (1998);El-Mortaji (2001);

The influence of the learning situation ( Riazi (1997);

Dalbani (1992))The influence of the discourse and task type ( Cumming (1998);El-Mortaji (2001))The influence of the L1 culture (Kobayashi & Rinnert (2008); Scollon (2001); Ellis (2003); Cook

(2001); Leki (2001); )

ers’ writing skill

Lack of writing practice (Chokwe

Lack of lexicon (Dar & Khan (2015);

William (2004);Fan (2009); Li (2005)Lack of reading practice ( Yagoda (2006); Harmer (2006); Raimes Lack of grammatical knowledge

Teachers' strategies in teaching writing ( Engstrom(2008); Moutlana(2007); Niven (2005); Rico (2014);Harmer (2007); Ahmad et al (2013);Graham & Perin (2007))

Teachers' corrective feedback ( Harmer (2007);

Graham & Perin (2007); Rico (2004))

Past educational experience (Roca &Murphy (2001);

Mortaji (2001);

The influence of the learning situation ( Riazi (1997);

The influence of the discourse and task type (

Mortaji (2001))The influence of the L1 culture (Kobayashi & Rinnert (2008); Scollon (2001); Ellis (2003); Cook

2.11 Summary

In general, writing plays an important role in English learning With good writing, learners can have a better communication in words However, writing is not easy for all English learners to perform There are a lot of factors that affect learners’ writing skill such as factors relating to psychology, linguistic, pedagogy, and social cultural factors The researcher realized that these studies were only conducted in foreign countries on different groups of learners’ backgrounds There are still some studies undertaken in Vietnamese context but these studies were not carried out to deeply explore possible factors affecting freshmen’ writing skill Therefore, it is necessary to have concerns to discover as many factors as possible to help learners improve their writing skill Moreover, investigating the differences in teachers and students’ perceptions of factors affecting learners’ writing skill

is also highlighted which previous studies did not do

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Chapter 3: METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction

As mentioned in the Introduction and Literature Review, this research deals with some factors that hamper learners’ achievement in writing Hence, the aim of the study is to identify and analyze the factors affecting EFL learners’ writing skill and then some implications of the study will be drawn with the hope of improving learners’ writing skill This chapter, then, is dedicated to describing the research methodology used to conduct in the current study First, it introduces the research design Next, research site, sample and sampling procedures, and research instruments are presented Then, it further reports data collection, data analysis procedures, the issues of reliability and validity Finally, the ethical issues for the study and summary were also presented at the end of this chapter

As mentioned earlier in Chapter 1, the current study aims to discover the answers to the research questions as follows:

RQ1: What are the factors which affect the first year non- English major students’

writing skill?

RQ2: Are there any differences in learners and the teachers’ perceptions of factors

affecting the learners’ writing skill?

3.2 Research design

In this current study, in order to find out and analyze the factors affecting EFL learners’ writing skill,a mixed- method design which involves a process of generating and interpreting quantitative and qualitative data was embraced Mixed method is a procedure for gathering and analyzing data through the use of quantitative and qualitative methods in

a single research (Cresswell, 2012) As stated by Tashakkori & Teddlie (2010), because of the elaboration, it is necessary to employ a mixed methods approach instead of a single set

of data to enhance the reliability of answers to the research questions According to Fraenkel andWallen (1994, p.174), “mixed method aims to clarify and explain the relationships found to exist between variables”

Moreover, Cresswell (2011) indicates that employing an incorporation of different data sets which are gathered at distinct phases in the research can help to provide a better

understanding of one’s research problem Therefore, in this study the mixed methods can provide a better and more insightful understanding of the research problem than employing one method alone

In particular, different research tools were used to generate data for the study such as questionnaires and face to face interviews With both research questions, the survey questionnaires and the interviews data of both students and teachers were generated so as to investigate the factors which affect learners’ writing skills The study comprises two phases The first phase was to collect quantitative data generated from the questionnaires which was designed with Likert-scale questions This quantitative phase was to help the researcher shed light on the level of factors that cause learners’ difficulties in writing This phase aims at giving a general picture of the research problems in a large sample

Following the survey questionnaires is the second phase, which involves generating qualitative data In particular, the interview with both teachers and learners was utilized to discover factors which hamper learners’ troubles in writing and the differences in learners’ and teachers’ perception of factors affecting writing skill The purpose of this stage was to collect the data which was together with relevant research laid in the literature review and the construct of the questionnaire in the above phase

3.3 Research site

The study was undertaken at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs with its southern campus

at 181 Le Duc Tho street, ward 17, Go Vap district, Ho Chi Minh City The school mainly specializes in training four educational fields including State Management, Law, Archive and Office Skills This southern campus was established in 2017, therefore, the total number of the students is about 500 students All of the students are acquired to have the certificate B1 of the CEFR to meet the condition for their graduation They are taught English by 6 Vietnamese teachers

According to the curriculum, students have to study general English and the textbook they

have to study at the university is Face2Face at pre-intermediate level With this textbook,

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students are required to study within 240 periods which are distributed into two semesters

in the first year and the other two semesters in the second year It is meant that the English program which is designed for non - English major students consists of 4 levels: English 1, English 2, English 3 and English 4 Each English level lasts for 60 periods which are equally divided into 6 weeks for each semester At the beginning of the academic year, the freshmen have to take the placement test If they can pass the test, they will begin with English 1 When they study English 1, English 2 and English 3, and English 4, they have to study all four skills concluding listening, reading, speaking and writing For the midterm and the final exams, writing a paragraph or writing an essay is always consisted in the test and it accounts for 50 % of the total grade If students fail English 1, they can not study English 2 and it is certain that they can only continue with the next level when they pass the final exam of the previous level In addition, in this campus, students are required to submit the certificate B1 of the CEFR and writing is a compulsory part in this English anility exam

However, students always have challenges in writing English and they have a tendency of avoiding writing Therefore, it is necessary for students to focus on writing at the beginning

of the academic year so that they can first write well for their exams and then writing skill will help them success on the road of mastering the English language That is also the reason why the researcher chose first year students to be participants in this study to investigate reasons why students have problems in writing and they are not interested in doing the writing assignments In addition, students at this semester (2019-2020) were the subjects of the study and they should learn how to write at the beginning of the course to be competent in paragraph or essay writings

3.4 Sample and sampling procedures

Fink (1995, p.67) defines that “convenience sampling is a group of individuals that is ready and available” According to Griffee (2012), convenience sampling is easy and convenient for the researcher to conduct the study since it includes intact classes, participants at a conference workshop or volunteers In the other words, the participants are there and they are willing to participate Therefore, the researcher used the convenience sampling strategy

in this study to select the participants easily and conveniently

The target population was the first year non-English major students at Ha Noi University of Home Affairs with its southern campus in Ho Chi Minh city The target participants are first year university students and teachers teaching four skills of basic English.They were targeted as participants in the research since English essay writing is always compulsory in their final examination and international English competence exams The most important finding to be expected is the factors affecting students’ writing skill

The participants of this research consisted of 80 first-year students coming from 4 classes(20 students for each class) and 5 English lecturers of the school.Most of the participants are aged about eighteen or nineteen and they have been studying English since secondary school.These students are conveniently selected from approximately 160 students of 4 classes of State Management, Law, Archive and Office Skills They were chosen because they studied the same program of general English in the second semester of the school year 2019-2020

The table 3.1 also illustrated some more general information about students answering the questionnaire In table 3.1, it showed that this study involved 52, 5% of female students and

47, 5% of male students When being asked if the participants often write emails, paragraphs, letters or essay, etc or not, only 38,8% of the participants answered “Yes” while 61,3 % of them had the same answer with “No” Additionally, for the number of weekly hours of spending on English self-study, 65 % of the students allocated less than one hour, while 22.5 % of students spent from one to three hours 7.5 % of them spent from three to five hours, only 5 % of them spent from five to seven hours and there were no students spent more than 7 hours a week on writing

Table 3.1: General information about students answering the questionnaire