This comparative study investigates the writing performance of undergraduates and the problems that hinders students' perception of good writing skills. There are many factors affecting undergraduates writing performance in ESL, like content, vocabulary, organization, language use and mechanics in writing. The most significant component in writing that hinders their writing proficiency is language use as they have to learn the grammar, syntactic structure, vocabulary, rhetorical structure and idioms of a new language (ESL). Writing is a difficult task for them and the acquisition of grammar and other language structures makes it more difficult and complicated. We believe that students who do not read and write well in their first language need to work harder on the new creative activity of forming ideas and thoughts in English for the readers to understand.

Autorentext

The Head of Department for Modern Languages, Centre For Language Studies & Generic Development, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan. Awarded the British Council Scholarship to do post graduate studies in University of Exeter after her first degree. Editor and writer for international international journals (JLC and IJERT).