Learners’ Self-evaluation of their ESL Writing Skill after an Intensive English Program in a Malaysian University

Abstract

The study investigated L2 learners’ self-evaluation of their writing skill, having completed an Intensive English Program (IEP), which was offered by a private university in Malaysia. The focus was on three different aspects of the students’ writing skill, including lexicon, morphology and syntax. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. The data were collected through interviews and a questionnaire. To find out their areas of L2 writing difficulty a group of undergraduate international students (n = 30) in a private university in Malaysia responded to the questionnaire while 4 students were interviewed. The qualitative results indicated that the majority of the students perceived themselves as able to produce correct sentence structures in English language. Overall, the qualitative results illustrated the challenges faced by these students regarding L2 writing skill after completing the course. Additionally, based on the quantitative results, on average the students were at a moderate level regarding the three aspects of their L2 writing skill. Further in-depth research is required before findings of the study can be generalized.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s1p22