Introduction

Education is a complex process based on teaching and learning. However, these two aspects of education do not take place in one single time; they are rather ongoing processes that evolve and progress. Teaching a foreign language is proved even more difficult for both teachers and learners; therefore, EFL teachers are always in front of many challenges and obstacles, which may emerge at different levels of teaching the foreign language. This reality is not much more unalike than teaching English in an Algerian context.

Although English is introduced as a second foreign language to the Algerian students in Middle School, almost at the age of eleven, and learners study this language for seven years before going to university, many of them find it difficult to handle with this language, and some struggle and get bad scores in tests and exams. One of the reasons behind this hardship is the less amount of exposure to the foreign language.  English is mostly practiced in a formal classroom environment and there are few opportunities, other than in school, to use it for daily communication purposes. Even students, who tend to do well in English and achieve good scores in exams, have certain difficulties in mastering all aspects of this language.

One of the most important areas of difficulty in English language teaching is how to develop the productive skills, namely, speaking and writing. At the level of these two skills, students are in a state of not only receiving the language but responsible for constructing it as well (Harmer, 2007).  Comparing to other skills, writing proved to be hard; students find it easy to learn reading and more enjoying to practice speaking or listening; however, when it comes to writing, they show a kind of frustration or reluctance to be involved. Writing, for most students, is a daunting task and a hard challenge they go through during the process of learning the language.

Students usually are introduced to learn how to write a paragraph after learning how to write correct and meaningful sentences and clauses. At the stage of paragraph writing, they are trained to express one idea through the use of significant and connected sentences. According to Polgers (2000), every paragraph must include two essential elements. First, a topic sentence which summarizes the general idea of the paragraph; second, supporting sentences which provide more details to the topic sentence. To express different purposes, students learn how to write different types of paragraphs including expository, narrative, persuasive, and descriptive.

The narrative paragraph is a type of paragraph that contains a narrative. This latter was defined by Polgers (2000) as “a short story taken from personal experience, using a chronological sequence of events” (p. 260). According to the definition, all what is related to a storytelling and the sequence in which this story is told is considered as a narrative. The act of narrating is not restricted only to some people such as poets and writers, because ordinary people as well, unconsciously, deal with narration in everyday life as Abbott (2008) said:“We use narrative many times a day, every day of our lives” ( p.1).

EFL students learn to develop different types of paragraphs among which the narrative paragraph is one. The mastery of this last improves students’ linguistic competence and boosts their imagination abilities. Although narrative writing seems to be more motivating because it entails telling a factual or fictional story, it is still considered as another challenge that students face in the process of learning writing.

      This research paper discusses the problems and difficulties encountering EFL students in writing a narrative paragraph. In addition, it investigates teachers’ attitudes towards teaching this kind of writing and suggests some solutions to help learners foster their writing abilities.

Literature Review

Writing is taken as a hard task because it entails not only the good use of structure and vocabulary, but also other elements such as audience, purpose, content, and topic. To communicate his ideas, the writer should consider his readers; it is important to write in a language that suits their level, knowledge, and interest in order to be able to convince the audience (Byrne, 1991).

The difficulty of the writing is derived from the nature of writing itself; students go through complex cognitive steps to be able to write a short passage. Thus, the mastery of this skill is regarded to be achieved at a late stage, for both native and nonnative speakers of the foreign language (Hamp-Lyons & Heasly, 2006). Furthermore, Schoonen et al. (2003) claimed that the task of writing in a foreign or second language is more difficult than writing in the native language because it requires from the writer to use a set of skills that he may not have been used to in his native language.

It is not an easy matter to identify the difficulties of learners in writing in a precise and accurate way; however, students’ errors might be good indicators of weaknesses and deficiencies in their writing performance. Errors made by students may be seen at different levels and may occur in many aspects of the foreign language. The current paper focuses on the most common ones made namely in grammar, vocabulary, mechanics, and problems related to L1interference. Moreover, it focuses on the main problems that hinder learners while writing any type of a paragraph, in general, as well as some other problems when writing a narrative paragraph.

Background of the Study

In this part, we focus on the related studies conducted in the field of writing. In addition, we provide a general background about the main problems and challenges facing EFL learners in writing a narrative paragraph.

The influence of Arabic language is one of the problems that EFL students encounter in writing. According to Baker & Westrup (2003), the learning process of foreign languages becomes hard when the rules of the mother tongue are transferred to the target language. Students usually do not pay attention to the language difference which exists between Arabic and English. Starting from sounds and alphabet going to the way of writing, Arabic is written from right to left, whereas English is written the opposite. Arabic uses repetition of some conjunctions and words contrary to English which tends to employ short and precise sentences (Al Fadda, 2012). This is mostly clear when using more coordinating conjunctions such as “for” and “and”, as well as giving more than one synonym to the same word (Abu Rass, 2015). Moreover, learners prefer using long sentences, and repeating the same words rather than using precise terms to convey their ideas.

Problems faced at the level of language system and structure are related to deficiencies in mastering the rules of syntax and morphology of the target language, or what is known as grammar. This latter is regarded as the most complex and important aspect of the language to be learned and taught (Gwynne, 2013). Furthermore, it is taken by many grammarians and language researchers as a crucial and indispensable language aspect fostering the writing skill.  Weigle (2002) asserted that the weak mastery of L2language leads to poor quality writing since the focus of the writer is limited to how to write rather than the content and ideas.

Students have grammatical problems when they produce sentences or clauses which do not conform to the rules of the grammar of the target language, or they produce others which are considered, structurally, as unaccepted by its native speakers. According to Abdulkareem (2013), many Arab students face challenges in sentence structure and word order. Other problems are revealed in terms of using the correct tenses, plural markers, articles, and verbs. In some cases, the problems are crucial and they call for an urgent need to be addressed (Al-Mekhlafi & Nagaratnam, 2011). 

      In addition to grammar problems, many studies showed that students struggle with aspects of vocabulary in their writing production. (Fareed, Ashraf & Bilal, 2016). Vocabulary in any language starts to be formed since the first word learned in this language. Acquiring EFL/ ESL vocabulary is admitted to be a fundamental element of learning, and its position among language aspects is not less than that of grammar (Wilkins, 1972). The good command of vocabulary usually reflects holding a good level in mastering the foreign language. When students have flaws in vocabulary, they display a poor quality of writing or are not able to express themselves properly. In terms of writing, the bad selection of appropriate diction may lead to confusion or ambiguity on the side of the reader. Reasons undermining bad command of vocabulary are ascribed to the lack of reading, the use of words in isolation of context and the method followed by teachers.

On the other hand, some additional problems may appear at different levels such as: content, organization and mechanics. In her study, Abu Rass (2015) found out that most students still struggle with providing good examples and explanation in their paragraphs although they master writing the topic and the concluding sentence. Furthermore, Alfaki (2015), in his study done with 20university students, found out that the common errors in writing among learners were mostly made in punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.

Being aware of the existence of the previously mentioned problems, by both the teacher and earners, is an important is important. Shaywitz (2003) claimed that it is not enough for teachers to know the problems of their students in writing; students had better to know their own problems, themselves, because it fosters their confidence and helps them to overcome their weaknesses.

Aim of the Study

The study in hand aims at highlighting the major problems encountering EFL students in writing. It also attempts to investigate teachers’ perceptions towards teaching narrative paragraph writing. In addition, it takes into consideration providing solutions for students, who struggle to write a narrative paragraph, in order to overcome their difficulties and obstacles. In general, it endeavours to sustain teachers of writing by providing them with effective strategies and essential ways to be used in their writing classes, so as to boost students’ writing performance.

The Study

Statement of the Problem

The objective of any teaching class is to enable learners to have good communication competency. Thus, to achieve this ultimate objective, teachers are highly recommended to teach the four skills of the language in an integrating way.

It has been noticed that EFL students’ achievements in the writing skill are unsatisfying compared to the ones reached in the other skills. The task of writing is not difficult for only EFL or ESL students, but also for native speakers of English. Nunan (1999) confirmed that some English- speaking students find it quite a daunting task to master the skill of writing, though they go through a formal learning process of writing for a given period of time.

The majority of first year students in the department of English lack the ability to express their ideas, in an appropriate written format, though some of them do well in other subjects. Although they have been studying English for at least six years before they come to university, they still struggle to express their ideas in a clear, well-organized and coherent paragraph. Observation of students` narrative paragraphs displayed different types of mistakes and errors in many aspects such as: grammar, vocabulary, and spelling.  The fact demonstrates that students have problems in paragraph writing. The previously mentioned difficulties might be due to some factors such as the lack of effective strategies used by teachers in their writing classes, lack of motivation, or lack of knowledge about the different aspects of the writing skill.

      In this regard, the current study is devoted to focus on identifying the different challenges and difficulties students face in writing a narrative paragraph. It, also, seeks to provide appropriate suggestions to confront those challenges and enhance learners’ competency in paragraph writing.

Questions of the Study

1-                       What are the most common problems and challenges that EFL first year students encounter in their narrative paragraph writing?

2-                       What are the suggested solutions to help students overcome problems and enhance their writing production?

Research Design

This research is conducted by following a descriptive analytical method. The means used to collect data are a questionnaire for teachers of writing at the department of English and a writing assignment for students.

      The objective of the questionnaire is to know teachers’ attitudes towards the different challenges that their students face. It also aims to know the different strategies and methods used to teach the writing skill. The instruction in the assignment is to write a narrative paragraph about a given topic. Its main objective is to determine the types of problems and challenges that students face in order to give a deep insight into those problems. In addition, it seeks to provide both students and teachers with effective remedies and solutions.

Participants

The subjects of the current study are first-year students, enrolled in the department of English at Batna 2University. Their ages range between 19and 23years. The study took place in the second semester of the academic year 2018.

Tools

To gather reliable and valid data, a questionnaire was administered to 10teachers of writing at the department of English at Batna 2University, in addition to a writing assignment for students. The assignment was to write a narrative paragraph. The paragraphs were analyzed in terms of vocabulary, content, organization, mechanics, and language use.

Procedure

The students were required to write a narrative paragraph on “The happiest experience they have ever had”. The time allocated for the whole process of writing was 90minutes. This included the major steps of writing from drafting until proofreading. For each step, the teacher gave instruction and provided guiding. After the task was finished, the paragraphs were analyzed.

Data Analysis

A/ The Questionnaire

The questionnaire was administered to 10teachers who had taught or were still teaching the module of written expression at the department of English. It contained 15questions divided into three sections. The first aim of this tool was to know students’ problems and challenges in writing from teachers` perceptions. The second aim was to know the real factors behind student’ writing problems so as to provide appropriate recommendations. And the third aim was to find out if teachers used some methods or strategies to teach writing. The questionnaire results were presented in the following figures.

The first question was as follows: Which aspect is the most difficult to be mastered by students? The aim of this question is to explore teachers’ perceptions about students’ problems in writing.

Figure N°1:Teachers` opinions about students` writing problems

      As shown in the figure, three teachers (30℅) agreed that students struggled with grammatical problems in their writing. Two teachers (20℅) saw that student’ vocabulary was not good. The same number of teachers (℅ 20) confirmed that students had difficulties in mechanics. One teacher (10℅) stated that students had problems in content; one (10℅) saw that they had constraints in organization, and another one (10℅) claimed that mother tongue interference had a negative impact on students’ writing.

The second question was the following: In your opinion, what are the reasons behind students’ weaknesses in writing? The aim of this question was to determine teachers’ perceptions about the proper factors behind students’ weak achievement in writing. Knowing the factors can give teachers more insights about the challenges and difficulties the students face.

Figure N° 2: Teachers` opinions about the factors behind students` weaknesses in writing              

The results to the question showed that the majority of teachers, four ones (40℅), agreed that lack of reading was a strong factor of not doing well in writing. According to them, reading enhances writing. On the other hand, two teachers (20℅) believed that the reason behind students` weak achievement in writing was lack of motivation; two other ones (20℅) related the same problems to the insufficient time devoted to written expression module; and two teachers (20℅) saw that lack of practice was the main factor to students’ problems in writing.

The third question was as follows: How often do you use new strategies and method to motivate students to write?The first aim of this question was to find out if the teachers used new strategies or techniques in their lessons in order to motivate their students to write. In addition, the second aim was to discover if they were creative in their ways of teaching.

Figure N°3:Teachers` frequency of using new strategies in teaching writing

Teachers’ answers to the question of using new strategies and methods showed that only two teachers (20℅) used new strategies on a regular basis in their writing classes. Five teachers (50℅) answered that they used them sometimes, and three teachers (30℅) stated that they never used innovation in their methods of teaching.

B/ The assignment

Students were asked to write a paragraph since students, at this level of their academic studies, do not deal yet with essay writing. The type of the paragraph they were asked to write was a narrative one because it is the focus of our study.

The results display that the total of 1017errors was found in students’ papers. The distribution of these errors according to their number of occurrence was as follows: 605errors were committed in language use, 207errors in mechanics, 112in vocabulary, 41ones in organization, 38ones in L1interference, and 14ones in content. These problems were explained in details starting from the most frequent to the least ones.

Figure N°4:Writing problems found in students` paragraphs