Exploring Paragraph Writing Problems of Second Year EFL Students at Setif 2 University

Abstract

This study is an attempt to investigate the common problems encountered in paragraph writing by second-year students of English at Setif 2 University. A corpus study of 80 students’ essays was employed to collect data using thematic and content analysis.   Results showed that the major writing problem for learners was spelling followed by mechanics of writing, vocabulary and word choice, sentence structure, and grammatical errors including subject- verb agreement, verb tense and form, using prepositions, references use, and pronouns. One of the most recommendations that are proposed for written expression teachers is continuous assessment for the writing process along with the learners’ academic career. Learners should be encouraged by their instructors to extensive writing practices.

Keywords: Extensive Writing, Paragraph Writing, Writing problems, continuous assessment