A phenomenological study on newly enrolled undergraduate students’ paragraph writing skill

Abstract

Paragraph writing skill is a prerequisite for any academic writing at the tertiary level. However, many students do not have paragraph writing skill even after successful completion of English as a language course in school and college-level education. This phenomenological study explored students’ paragraph writing experiences before enrolling in the pre-university language program at a private university to find out the causes of poor paragraph writing skill and its remedies. Six students were purposefully selected for interviewing considering their struggle in paragraph writing, which were identified in their entrance examination and offered pre-university writing courses. The findings of the study identified several challenges ranging from idea generation, inadequate content knowledge to poor grasp of grammar and vocabulary. Subsequently, students also pointed out causes of paragraph writing problems. Eventually, students also recommend some solutions to overcome these problems, such as learning coherence, vocabulary, grammar and needs of practice. Keywords: paragraph, challenges, academic writing, rote memorization, pre-strategies of writing, student’s perception, cohesion, vocabulary.