An Investigation of EFL Students’ Essay Writing: Problems and Suggestions: Ambo University First Year Students in Focus

Abstract

It is evident that university EFL students strive for mastery of the four basic language skills. As compared to other skills, writing skills needs much time and effort. It is also one of the language productive skills that play a pivotal role. However, it is considered a difficult skill, particularly in English as a foreign language context where students face many challenges in writing.  Thus, the current study was conducted with an aim to investigate problems in Ethiopian first year university students’ essay writing. It primarily aimed at investigating challenges students face in EFL essay writing. It also aimed at obtaining suggestions on how to improve Ambo University EFL students' essay writing skills. For this purpose, writing samples were collected from 60 first year undergraduate students and five of the total students were interviewed to collect data on how to improve students’ essay writing. The data gathered from the essay were categorized and thematically analyzed, and the interview results were qualitatively analyzed. The findings revealed that students encounter various problems such as faulty sentences, mechanical errors, dangling and misplaced modifiers, wrong use of grammatical structures, vocabulary and others. It was found out that a total of 2030 errors in faulty sentences, mechanics, grammar, vocabulary, and others were the common errors students encountered. The highest number of errors (i.e. 51.54%) was made in faulty sentences. Next to faulty sentences, wrong use of mechanics (i.e. 22.46%) was the second frequently occurred error. The third common type of errors was other grammatical error (i.e.9.9%) which was followed by errors in the use of vocabulary (9.55%), and other errors (6.55%). Based on the findings recommendations were given to teachers, students institutions on remedial actions.

Keywords: essay writing, problems or challenges, productive skill, suggestions

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-1-03

Publication date: January 31^st 2020