Introduction- Acquisition of skills related to academic writing is highly crucial to ensure students’ competency in producing high quality graduates at university levels. Despite of major needs and demands to acquire skills in academic writing, majority of ESL learners particularly in higher institution are still struggling to meet the university’s requirement for graduation. ESL students in the context of university levels are generally unfamiliar with the mechanisms in academic writing. As a result, these students are unable to write using appropriate structures and contexts. Purpose – The current study aims to analyse ESL students’ current needs and competency in academic writing. Methodology – A total of 65 ESL learners in a public university in Malaysia responded to a questionnaire adapted from Choo (1998) to discover their content-related knowledge in academic writing. Data collected from the study were analysed quantitatively using descriptive analysis. Findings – The findings yielded that majority of the students (76.9%) were currently having difficulty to write academically and almost half of the respondents (46.2%) believed that literature review section is the most difficult section in an academic paper. Significance – Findings from this study provide useful insights for future researchers to design and develop appropriate learning materials for ESL learners to enhance their academic writing skills.

Mastering academic writing is one of the skills to be acquired by all university students. Ability to master academic writing skills enables university students to be more competent in presenting ideas and information related to their field. Inability to master required skills in academic writing will consequently impact the students’ performance in fulfilling the graduation requirement. Generally, students in higher learning institutions (HLIs) are constantly struggling with unfamiliar styles and mechanisms in academic writing. The current situation subsequently resulted students’ incompetency in presenting their ideas and discussion. In this study, the researchers aim to discover the students’ expectation for an academic writing skills course and their current competency academic writing skills. An adapted questionnaire from Choo (1998) was used as the main instrument in this study to 65 undergraduate TESL students in public higher learning institution (HLI) in Malaysia. Analysis of data was done quantitatively using statistical software. Results from the analyses revealed that more than half of the respondents (76.9%) agreed that academic writing skills are regarded as complex skills to be acquired. In addition, the results also yielded that almost half of the respondents (46.2%) believed that literature review section is the most difficult section in an academic paper. Results from this study will be able to guide future researchers and educators in producing more teaching and learning related to academic writing mastery.

Introduction- Gamification, or widely defined as the integration of game elements in a non-gaming context has widely being accepted as an engaging experience induced with fun elements. In education context, the term “game-based learning” is highly being discussed among researchers. Despite of the prevalence of game-based learning among academicians, the implementation of games in teaching and learning remained low particularly in the context of second language (L2) learning. Purpose – Scrutinizing into this context, writing skills are found to be the least researched area among scholars in regards to game-based learning approach. From the aforementioned situation, 32 pre-service teachers have participated in a survey conducted to discover their views on the implementation of games in a writing classroom. Methodology – A survey has been conducted to 32 participants to analyse their views on the use of games in writing classroom. Main data were analysed quantitatively and supported by focus-group discussion with selected participants. Findings – Findings from the study revealed that these students responded positively to the use of games in writing classroom. The students also believed that engagement among peers in the classroom appeared to be less threatening; therefore, knowledge transfer became naturally favorable throughout the pedagogical process. Significance – These results implied a useful insight for writing instructors to further equip language learners with the use of games in classroom learning.

Implementation of game-based learning has been perceived by educators as a means to enhance effective classroom learning. Aspects in games have been identified to motivate learners to actively engage throughout the learning as it provides a fun, engaging, and rewarding experience for the learners. Despite the widespread of games implementation in classroom learning, limited exposure has been noted in the context of language learning particularly in ESL classrooms. In regard to the aforementioned situation, the current study aims to discover the implementation of game-based learning in the context of language learning. Research related to writing skills found to be limited in nature; therefore, the current study has discovered a need to further investigate the implementation of game-based learning in writing classrooms. In this study, a total of 32 pre-service teachers have participated in a survey conducted to discover their views on the implementation of games in a writing classroom. Data were analyzed quantitatively using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) by evaluating the mean value of the findings. The analysis from the data obtained showed that these students responded positively to the use of games in the writing classroom. The students also believed that engagement among peers in the classroom appeared to be less threatening; therefore, knowledge transfer became naturally favorable throughout the pedagogical process. These results implied a useful insight for writing instructors to further equip language learners with the use of games in classroom learning.