ESL learners' perception on writing reluctance / Sudha Ahmed

Abstract

This study on students' attitude towards English writing was conducted to answer the question that was constantly being repeated by teachers in the English Department of the target school. This question is: "Why Students of the Target School "Dislike" Writing exercises in English periods?" The seriousness of this problem and the reason for this attitude of the students' were qualitatively examined in this study. The participants for this study were selected using extreme case sampling technique. A total of 9 students from grades 8, 9, and 10, for the study. The participants were selected by considering the marks they achieved from the English test they did in the last semester. Hence, one students who achieved high marks, one students who achieved low marks and a student who scored average marks from each grade were selected for the study. The data for the study was collected using a semi-structures interview, which were analyzed using a thematic approach which followed two steps. These two steps were; coding and categorizing, and interpreting patterns and deriving themes. The finding of this research showed that the participants of the target schools were reluctant to write due to five main reasons; anxiety or writing apprehension, low self-efficacy, ineffective teacher feedback, ineffective teaching methodology and writing task used by the teacher.
Keywords: anxiety or writing apprehension, self-efficacy, teacher feedback, teaching methodology, writing task.