Academic Writing Skills in University: Analysis of ESL Students’ Current Needs and Competency

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.