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Abstract This paper examines essay-writing problems of first-year students majoring in English at Vinh University Questionnaires were delivered to the first-year English majors of the academic to elicit data about (1) students’ ideas about essay-writing process; (2) the difficulties they face when writing essay; (3) their suggestion of what should be done to improve their performance The results of the study show that the students did not employ necessary composing steps They spent very little time writing a rough draft, peer editing, and revising The students suggested that they needed to be provided with relevant vocabulary background knowledge and grammar points, which are important element to make a good essay The study recommends that (1) Essentials composing steps should not be skipped; more time must be devoted to outlining, and the revising of drafts should place more emphasis on ideas and organizational aspects, rather than on mechanical mistakes alone (2) Explicit and concrete instructions on writing a particular type of essays should be given, including vocabulary and background information PART I: Introduction This graduation paper reports the results of a survey conducted investigate essay-writing problems of students majoring in English at Vinh University, with an aim to facilitate their essay writing and improve the quality of their writing This part presents the problem, the aims of the study and the overview of the paper Reasons for choosing the topic When I first started learning writing in the English language classroom, two issues immediately sprang to my attention First, my friends and I were extremely discouraged whenever asked to write in English Second, the product was disappointing and did not seem to correlate with our abilities as displayed in other aspects of their language ability, such as speaking As my learning developed over several years, so did my understanding as to why the students displayed such as a version to writing and why the-end product of the writing they did left something to be desired The subjects of the study are the first-year students who have just started their study in a new learning environment for eight months In the first semester, they were taught sentence structure and paragraph-related issues such as paragraphwriting process, and basic paragraph types such as narration, compare and contrast At present, they are exploring the real writing with essay writing As for the target students of this paper, namely first-year student majoring in English, writing in a key skill, which may lead to success in later years when they move on the second and third or fourth year when most of assignments are in written English Actually, they will stand a little chance of success in their English studies in the subsequent years if they have difficulty in writing Therefore, any carelessness or lack of concentration or, even worse, neglect would result in numerous consequences in the immediate future as well as in the long run If their errors or inappropriate writing practices are not soon corrected, or their essay writing problems are not solved early enough, they will become increasingly deep-rooted and consequently irreparable On the contrary, with effective writing skills, students will find their study in the following years much easier and thus probably more fruitful Furthermore, essay writing does not only promise immediate benefits in the educational setting but also future advantages in students careers later After graduation, many write reports, business letters, memos or professional documents in English While effective writing skill are so important to first-year students, at the present as well as in the future, I have noticed that these freshmen have many problems in essay writing and there are accordingly quite a number of errors in their written works Although these first-year students have made considerable efforts to improve their writing skill, many of them are soon disappointed after series of vain attempts because there are problems in EFL that they not know how to deal with or that they cannot deal with on their own As a result, they are discouraged to practice the skill, On that account, something must be done to assist freshmen’s assay writing and improve the quality of their writing What should be done now is to find out the causes that hinder students from effective English writing in order to work out feasible solutions As far I am concerned, essay-writing problems stem from both their language competence and their composing processes The causes of their ineffective writing may lie in their weaknesses in such features of written texts as grammar, discourse, vocabulary, and/ or inappropriate employment of necessary techniques Aims of the study Since essay writing is important to first-year English majors, entails that due attention should be paid to the learning of the skills of these subjects This paper is one of the attempts to that The aims of this paper is to conduct a survey of essaywriting problems of first-year students majoring in English at Vinh University, and to give recommendations to improve the teaching and learning of the skill to such subjects Overview of the paper There are three parts in the paper Part I, Introduction, shows the problem of the study, its aims and the overview of the paper Part II, Literature Review there three chapters in this part Chapter1, Theoretical backgrounds about essays are introduced Chapter 2, Some of the EFL writing problems of Vietnamese learners are given Chapter 3, Implications and Recommendation, suggests tentative solutions to help students make progresses in their essay writing The chapter provides recommendations to students, and teachers This part gives the theoretical context of the study Part III, Conclusion The author hopes that the paper brings practical benefits to teachers and students by pointing out problems and giving useful suggestions, thus making the learning of essay writing of the students concerned more effective PART II: Literature Review There has been a dramatic evolution in the way that writing is being approached in the English language classroom, with the aim of making writing a more personal and satisfying experience for the learner This has evolved alongside the development of different approaches to learning in general And a greater impetus has been placed on the role of writing in the Language classroom Writing, however, remains one of the most difficult areas for the learners of English This is evident in the way that it has been neglected and/or treated poorly in the past Indeed, many high level English learners cannot write As Baskoff (1990) notes, many writing weaknesses in advanced learners can be traced back to lack of systematic practice during the earlier stages of learning This part will discuss how the concept of process writing has raised the profile of writing, how it differs from the traditional product approach Some theoretical background about essays as well as common mistakes that Vietnamese learners often make will also be presented Chapter 1: Theoretical backgrounds about essays 1.1.What is an essay? 1.1.1.Definition According to Oshima and Hogue (1991), an essay is a price of writing that has more than one paragraph It is divided into three parts: a beginning, middle, and an end The beginning is called introduction, the middle is the body and thee end is the conclusion An essay is nonfiction writing that employs several paragraphs to make a point The paragraphs in an essay all relate to a main point that needs more clarification than a single paragraph can provide An essay is a short piece of writing on a single subject An essay can be short as three to five paragraphs An essay is a piece of writing several paragraphs long instead of just one or two paragraphs It is written about one topic, just as a paragraph is However, the topic of an essay is too long and to complex to discuss in one paragraph An essay is a group of paragraphs It is developed around a main topic An essay is written with a specific audience and purpose in mind, and it has a narrowed topic, supporting details, and unity On the other hand, the essay also contains certain unique elements, such as an introduction, a thesis statement, and a conclusion 1.1.2.Essay Types There are two general types of essay: informal and formal Informal essays are writing from your own experience and knowledge for a general audience They are revised to improve content, organization, and mechanics (spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and grammar) These essays are written in friendly, personal, everyday language and can be handwritten or typed  Formal essays are written for an academic audience for a specific purpose The language is formal Like informal essays, they are revised many times to improve the content and organization and to correct errors in mechanics (spelling, punctuation, sentence structure, and grammar) They might use information from other sources They are usually typed 1.1.1 Essay organization An essay has three main parts: an introductory paragraph, a body and a concluding paragraph (Oshima& Hogue, 1991) The three parts of an essay I INTRODUCTION General Statements Thesis Statement II BODY a Topic Sentence Support Support Support (Concluding sentence)* a Topic Sentence Support Support Support (Concluding sentence)* b Topic Sentence Support Support Support (Concluding sentence)* III CONCLUSION Restatement or summary of the main points; final comment The Introductory paragraph consists of two pasts: a few general statements about the subject to attract the reader’s attention and a thesis statement to state the specific subdivisions of the topic and/or the plan of the paper The first sentence in an introductory paragraph should be a very general comment about the subject Its purpose is to attract the reader’s attention and to give background information on the topic Each subsequent sentence should become more specific than the previous one and finally lea to the thesis statement The thesis statement is the most important sentence in the introduction It performs the same function as the topic sentence but the covers an entire essay rather than a single paragraph It contains a statement of the writer’s approach to the topic (s)he is writing about, i.e a thesis statement that announces the topic and presents the idea will be supported or proved in the body paragraphs An introductory paragraph opens an essay three ways: it leads into the thesis and main discussion, it arouses the reader’s interests, and it sets the tone for the entire essay Many basic introductory paragraphs follow their own common pattern, sometime called the funnel pattern An essay body has several paragraphs supporting the thesis statement Each paragraph usually is a developmental paragraph with a different angle of support for the thesis Just as the sentences in a developmental paragraph are arranged in an order (general-to-specific, chronological, and so on) that is easy to follow and that emphasizes the main point, so are the paragraphs in the essay body The final paragraph is the conclusion, a very important of the essay The purpose of this paragraph is to tell the reader a sense of completeness This is achieved by either writing a summary of the main points discussed in the body of the essay or by rewriting the thesis statement in different words The concluding paragraph consists of a restatement of the thesis and the final comment on the subject, based on the information provided There are many strategies to close an essay, an insightful look backward, and a call to action, a quotation or an evaluation 1.2 Stages of writing an essay As discussed early, compared to the product approach, the process approach is more useful for first-year students in many ways First, students’ creativity is not hindered since a rigid writing model dose not impose them just is their tertiary education begins Second, students who are asked or required to spend more time on paper will think more about their topic, retain more information, and develop insights that are more powerful Furthermore, students’ writing skills need practice in order to develop Last, students will have an opportunity to increase their writing fluency through the process approach There are seven steps, i.e choosing a topic, prewriting, making an outline and writing a rough draft, editing a rough draft, peer editing, revising the draft and proofreading the final draft in the essay writing process 1.2.1 Choosing a topic their face if their friends knew their mistakes and told the others Moreover, as some students said, their friends were not knowledgeable enough to correct the mistakes and the essays might be worse Figure Peer editing Teacher’s remarks seem to be more reliable than friends’ are The majority of students believed that their teachers gave them feedbacks that were more valuable since teachers are usually better than students are They also admitted that feedbacks with compliments were more effective than a mere mistake correction Students felt more motivated to take advantage of their strengths and had a feeling that their efforts were rewarded Figure5 Teacher editing 2.3.2 Writing aspects need to be improved After answering questions about their writing practice, self-evaluation of their writing capacity and the difficulty degree of writing stages, students were requested to raise their voices about aspects need to be improved for the development of essay writing skills The most remarkable feature as can be seen from the chart is a high demand on vocabulary; 70 percent of the students had a common idea about their need of lexical resources This is a comprehensible idea because in the previous question, they said that they were not good at words and phrases If grammar is skeleton, words and phrases are muscle Therefore, a logical and scientific way of vocabulary learning is what they really needed Grammar is another field that students needed to improve, Grammar very importance Students needed more instructions and explanation of grammar points since at University, students focused much on new theories about essay, which they did not touch upon on at high school Meanwhile, they were confident about grammar they learnt at high school, and this leads to worse grammar capacity Writing Need area Vocabula Need least 18 ry most (60%) Grammar 13 (10%) (30%) (23%) 15 (20%) (13%) 6 (23%) Backgrou Figure (27%) Mechanic nd (43%) Style Degree (50%) of vocabulary, grammar, style, mechanic and background This chapter has analyzed and discussed the result of the survey It has pointed out that many things regarding students’ composing process and learning of EFL writing must be rectified It is noticeable of the students did not employ necessary composing techniques to produce an essay in English Clearly enough, something must be done to facilitate students’ essay writing activities and improve their writing efficiency The following chapter will provide a number of recommendations to three important parties in language teaching and learning, teachers and students Chapter 3: Implications and Recommendations This chapter presents the implications of the study and provides recommendations to facilitate first-year students’ essay writing activities and improve the quality of their writing The recommendations are introduced inn two main sections: to teachers and to students 3.1 Implications The study has several significant implications for the teaching and learning of essay writing of first-year students at English department, Vinh University Writing involves recursive composing processes rather than a linear process of writing down ready-made sentences that the writer has already had in mind (Benson & Heidish 1995) In chapter 2, seven steps of writing process have been presented, i.e choosing a topic, prewriting, making an outline and writing a rough draft, editing the rough draft, peer editing, revising the draft and proofreading the draft in the essay writing process (White and Mc Govern, 1994) However, the paper has pointed out that many student writers did not spend enough time revising for anything other than morphological and mechanical mistakes As they thought that revising was simply correcting spelling, punctuation, and some minor grammatical mistakes, due attention has not been paid to the use of words and expressions and organizing sentences to from coherent texts There fore, it is necessary that students should be taught composing techniques, i.e., what and how to in composing processes Sentence skills should from an essential part in the writing instruction programs for first-year students whose English is generally limited Though discourse knowledge is important, it should not be mistakenly assumed that learners would be able to produce effective texts by simply learning how to combine sentences to from texts The organizational knowledge consists of both grammatical knowledge and textual knowledge Therefore, not only should learners know how to organize sentences to from texts, they need to learn how to organize individual sentences Teacher’s help should be available to assist the progress of students’ writing For example, students should be provided with ideas and relevant vocabulary so that they can concentrate more on formal features such as grammar or discourse According to Raimes (1983), grammar, organization and word choice are indispensable in order to make clear, fluent, and effective communication of ideas For that reason, students, especially freshmen need to be provides with rules of verbs, agreement, articles as with vocabulary, tone and so forth 3.2 Recommendations 3.2.1To teachers Teacher should get students acquainted with the habit of revising after writing the first draft To this end, the teacher can revise several drafts as a model for students to follow in initial stages Students should be encouraged to focus on vocabulary use, major grammatical points, and textual features rather than just mechanical mistakes As an indirect measure, when scoring students’ papers, teacher should be more tolerant towards mechanical errors This may help students shift their focus on target features, such as structures of sentences, the use of words and expressions, the arrangement and relationship between sentences In fact, research has now indicated that mechanical errors are a natural developmental phenomenon in second language learning Over emphasis on such errors, may blocks students’ writing flow and/ or mislead the writers who are not experienced enough Diagnostic tests should be conducted to identify students’ thorny grammar areas to focus on This should be of great help in choosing the appropriate extra remedial exercises Because students may have possessed a certain amount of grammar, the teaching does not have to start from zero The grammar instructions should then be directed to the grammatical properties or structures that (1) students are still weak in, and (2) are supportive to their practical writing need Attention should be taken to choose writing topics, which students are familiar with and interested in so that students have enough words and ideas Since the subjects are in the first year, they still lack, quite seriously, what to and the words or expressions to express what they want to say If they were assigned topics that they have very little experience or they are not interested in, students have difficulty in writing or, worse yet, get stuck Wherever possible, specific details and ideas concerning the topic should be supplied to writers Students should not be abandoned alone struggling with the completely writing task Writing assignments are not mere short and general instructions but it should be made more specific so that students have something to begin with 3.2.2To students How good teachers are, students cannot make progress in writing essay without their own efforts and practice Students should accustom themselves to composing subprocesses needed for writing, at least in writing for learning in the classroom Writing an essay is not printing out what already exists in the writer’s mind Rather, it includes recursive processes of brainstorming, outlining, writing drafts, revising and writing again Importantly, students should aware that the pre-writing and post-writing stages are no less crucial than the writing itself Students should understand that revising is an essential step, which considerably contributes to the success of written works First, students should not expect themselves to write correct English sentences at the very first time but the sentences will be revised many times later Second, they should the revising willingly and constantly Third, students should learn to revise for lexical uses instead of grammatical points only Besides, students should erase the idea that peer editing will make friends know your weakness and disrespect you There is no one who has never made mistakes Moreover, mistakes corrected by friends improve our essay quality faster than by teachers since the competition will help us polish our writing It is advised that the writing be handed over friends for feedbacks because we usually find it hard to know problems in our own essay The problems of “not knowing what to write” can be solved by reading Students can read all the documents, books or magazines in English, which are of their interests After reading, students should write impressing words or phrases on their notebooks for further reference Therefore, when the writing touches upon on the topic students have read, they not only have accumulated necessary relevant words but also ideas to make a good essay Another recommendation should be mentioned here is “Practice makes perfect” No writer can be successful right from the first essay but (s) he has to practice Some may say frequent practice can lead to bore So, how to practice effectively? It is feasible to set a goal for writing For example, in one week (s) he has to learn free writing techniques such as writing anything coming up to my mind, next week (s) he should know how to make a good outline Systematic practice helps students recognize progress Conclusion This final chapter concludes the graduation paper by briefly restating what has been presented and discussed throughout the previous chapters This paper has examined essay-writing problems of the first-year students at the English department of Vinh University, in the academic Taking special interest in their writing difficulties and activities, the study has identified what freshmen’s writing problems are, and what must be done to facilitate their writing and improve their writing skills The students’ writing difficulties lie in features of written texts such as grammar, discourse, vocabulary These are problems happening to all writers at varying degrees The solution is that students should have enough practice in the features that students are weak It has been pointed out that the surveyed students still need knowledge of grammar During their composing processes, they should be equipped with vocabulary and knowledge concerning topics to write The recommendations then are to provide first-year students with more practice in vocabulary and relevant ideas needed or their writing Students’ written products are also affected by their composing processes The analysis of the questionnaire responses reveals that a considerable number of the surveyed students did not employ the necessary composing processes Many of them did not spend any time editing or revising, which caused considerably negative impacts on the written products With the problems identified, teachers and students should work out appropriate and effective teaching and learning strategies A number of recommendations have been suggested in chapter However, it should be noted that the findings and suggestions of the paper are certainly reasonable and applicable Justin a limited scope the write of the paper quite aware that differences exist and there are no perfect answers to the question of essay-writing instructions In addition, learning and teaching strategies are not the same to every single person Actually, the study has some limitations Although the total number of the surveyed students is probably large enough, the results of the study might not be highly typical because all the students are in the same course There could have been generalizations that are more comprehensive if the survey had been conducted on first-year students of different academic years In addition, a full and systematic analysis of linguistic and cultural differences between Vietnamese and English that may make mistakes has not been done Further studies, therefore, need to be done for better generalization and comprehensiveness Studies with first-year students being taken into consideration are indispensable and practical for the subjects who are in the very important stage of tertiary education As far as this study is concerned, it is hoped that it bring practical benefits to the learning of essay writing of firstyear students majoring in English at Vinh University, and if much better, students of similar characteristics at other institutions References Bask off, F., (1990), New Composition, HEINLE & Worlds: A Course in Guided HEINLE Benson, P & Heidish, P (1995) the ESL technical expert: Writing processes and classroom practices In Belccher D.&Braine G (Eds) Academic Writing in a Second Language: Essays on Reserch and Pedagogy Norwood, NJ: Ablex: 313-330 Bermudez, A.B & Prater, D.L (1990).Using Brainstorming and Clustering with LEP Writing to Develop Elaboration Skills TESOL Quarterly, 24, Brock, M.N., & Walters, L (1993).Teaching Composition Around the Pacific Rim Bristol: Multilingual Matters Ltd Ellis, R (1992) Learning to communicate in the classroom Studies in Second Language Acquisition 14 Forseth, R et al (1995) Methodology Handbook for English Teachers in Vietnam USA English Language Institute Oshima, A.& Hogue, A (1997) Introduction to Academic Writing U.S.A: Addison- Wesley Oshima, A & Hogue, A (1991) Writing Academic English U.S.A: Addison-Wesley Pincas, A (1994) Learning to write essays What lies behind competent essay writing? Modern English teacher 3, 2, 31-37 Raimes, A (1983) Techniques in teaching writing Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2, 164 Silva, T (1993) Towards an understanding of the distinct nature of second language writing: The ESP research implications TESOL Quarterly, 27, 4,657-677 and its Taylor, B.P (1981) Content and Written Form: A two-way street TESOL Quarterly, 15, White, R.V., and Mc Govern, D (1994) Writing Prentice Hall International (UK) Ltd Survey Questionnaire The following questionnaire is designed to investigate problems in writing essays encountered by students at VINHU Please answer as honestly as you can Your answers must be highly appreciated How often you the followings? Stages Very Ofte Sometim Rarel ofte es y n I brainstorming before I write Why? I make an outline before I write Why? ………………………… ………………………………… n Never I write a rough draft and edit it Why? I ask my friend(s) to read my draft and give feedback Why? I ask my teacher to read my draft and give feedback Why? I revise the draft (react to the comments and make changes) Why? I proofread my essay (grammar, spelling, punctuation errors, etc.) Why? What you think you need (most/ least) to improve you essay writing? Writing area Most Least Vocabulary Grammar Background knowledge Style Mechanics List of figures Page Figure1 Brainstorming………………………………………………………………… … Figure2 Outlining, revising and proofreading…………………………………………… Figure3 Writing a draft…………………………………………………………… rough Figure4 Peer editing……………………………………………………………………… Figure5 Teacher editing…………………………………………………………………… Figure6 Degree of necessity of vocabulary, grammar, style, mechanic and background…