EFL STUDENTS’ CHALLENGES IN WRITING VSTEP ESSAYS

This paper reports the results of a study on the challenges Vietnamese English-major students face in academic writing. The study investigated students’ problems, especially with writing discussion essays in the Vietnamese Standardization Test of English Proficiency (VSTEP), and the internal factors causing these problems. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used in this study. The participants’ writing performance (n = 40) was examined against four criteria of the VSTEP writing test: task fulfillment, organization, vocabulary, and grammar. The internal factors causing writing problems were identified through semi-structured interviews with five students. The results indicated that the participants struggled most with organizing ideas, task fulfillment, and lexical employment. The least challenging criterion was grammar. In addition, four key factors were found to be the sources of writing problems: limited background knowledge, lack of writing practice, high writing anxiety, and low motivation. The study also suggests pedagogical implications for improving the quality of teaching and learning academic writing in Vietnam and similar contexts.