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

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

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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.

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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 nonEnglish 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 nonEnglish 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 %
of grades. However, there is a wide range 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.
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 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.

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CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Introduction
This chapter presents the theoretical framework reflecting the issues involved in the topic of
the research. It examines the literature on writing: its definition, the nature of writing, the
importance of writing, stages of development in writing, approaches of writing, sources of
learners’ errors in writing, and factors that affect writing performance. It also looks at the
previous study and briefly reviews them about writing to form the conceptual framework
for this 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.

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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.

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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
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students’ ways of putting the complicated ideas in a more effectively structured format and
form students the habit of thinking critically and objectively.

Furthermore, writing is considered as a mean of expanding and deepen students’
knowledge, it is called “writing to learn” and it is a skill that draws on sub- skills which are
called “learning to write”. In learning how to write, learners can produce and create
different styles of writing which provide them the feeling of relaxation and confidence in
writing. Graham & Perin (2007) also imply that the role of learning to write and writing to
learn are not separated because language teachers can use the texts to teach students the
reading and writing and then apply writing tasks to offer students opportunities to practice
grammar, spelling, or punctuation. It is undeniable that writing skill helps university
students improve and enhance their various qualities which lead them a successful life after
their graduation or satisfactory in their professional careers in the future (John, 2010).
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.
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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.

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-

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.

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 2.1: 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.

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Step 1: Prewriting (is a way to warm up writers’ brain which
comprises of generating ideas, brainstorming, clustering,

Step 2: Writing (writers begin writing topic sentence,
supporting sentences and concluding sentences)

Step 3: Revising and editing (writers look through the
writing
again2.2
to Blanchard
see how they
can improve
it Writing
and then Model
make
Figure
&Root's
Process

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

Unlike the above researchers, White and Arndt (1991, p.5) stresses that“writing is rewriting 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.
Drafting

Structuring

Reviewing

Generating
ideas

Focusing

Evaluating

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)postwriting (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.
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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
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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).
Swales (1990)
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
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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
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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.

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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
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stresses that “the more learners read, the more they are familiar with the lexical, idioms,
sentence patterns, organizational flow and cultural assumptions of mother tongue speakers
of the language.”

In general, reading and writing are supported each other and the ideal way to help
university students improve their writing skills is that they have to read a lot. Reading is the
pre condition for writers develop their ideas in the writing task. Learners are certain to find
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,
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