Challenges of Teaching Academic Writing Skills in EFL Classroom

Abstract

Writing is one of the compulsory modules in the program of English linguistic training which students have to take at any university. In fact, students have many difficulties in understanding and writing all kinds of documents in English, making their learning results not as expected. Writing skills include conceptual development, language expression, and experience in a wide range of writing topics and the fact that each student has his own ideas, language proficiency makes teaching writing skills become a big challenge for English lecturers. To properly assess the current situation, the author has conducted an investigation in which students are surveyed and taught in a writing class and found that students had difficulties with vocabulary, grammar and writing skills. The cause of these difficulties stems from both subjective and objective reasons. Through that, the author proposes a number of solutions that teachers can apply to help students improve their writing skills through describing and contrasting two popular, yet very different approaches – a product approach and a process approach: advantages, disadvantages and some recommendations in the hope that teachers can find the most effective direction and method of teaching writing skills, contributing to successful completion of the subject as well as the need to use in future work.