A Descriptive Study on the Difficulties that EFL Students Encounter in Writing Essays at a University in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam

Abstract : Nowadays, it goes without saying that English has become the most popular language in the world. However, a lot of English learners in Vietnam, especially in the Mekong Delta sub-region have to face serious problems in writing skills, especially essay writing. For this reason, the study was conducted to figure out common obstacles in writing English essays encountered by EFL sophomores. The research participants were 62 second-year students of English at a university who finished their essay-writing courses already. To achieve the desired aim of this study, the researcher combined both qualitative and quantitative methods, using questionnaires and interviews as the main instruments. The SPSS version 22 was used to analyze data from the questionnaire and thematic analysis was adopted to treat the qualitative data. The results showed that these participants had various problems with their English essay writing including vocabulary, grammar, background knowledge, and idea organization. From the findings of this study, some suggestions were given to help teachers and learners in order to improve their English writing and learning experience.