1 Paper Critique Summary The article which was published in TESOL Journal in 2010 and written by Mojica, L. entitled, “An investigation on Self-Reported Writing Problems and Actual Writing Deficiencies of EFL Learners in the Beginners’ Level”, sought to investigate on the following: first, writing difficulties of participants; second, consistency between the personal assessments and the raters’ assessments of learners’ writings; third, aspects of process knowledge considered by the learners in assessing their writing; and fourth, learners’ suggested activities that may help improve their writing difficulties. The study adopted the framework of Flavell and Welman’s (1977, in Hacker, Dunlosky, and Grasser, 1998) definition of metacognition and the roles of the two content areas of knowledge – process knowledge and product knowledge (Hacker et al., 1998). Twenty-six ELF learners participated in the study using two questionnaires – one was researcher-made questionnaire to collect participants’ demographics (Part I), a writing task about learners’ writing difficulties (Part II), and suggestions for the improvement of the learners’ writing difficulties (Part III); and the other one was Kamimura’s (2000) questionnaire to check on learners’ thoughts and actions before, during, and after the writing task. Questionnaires were interrated and data were analysed through coding and categorization based on Chen (2002) and Ashwell (2000) studies. Results showed that vocabulary and grammar are the two topmost writing difficulties encountered by the participants. This finding is consistent with that of Chen (2002) who conducted a similar study on Taiwanese students. However, on the side of the teacher raters, they have observed that apart from vocabulary and grammar, organization, supporting details and failure to address the prompt were also problematic as can be seen on the learners’ written output. Evidently, the participants were predisposed to overrate their written output as compared 2 to the evaluation by the teacher raters. In order to improve on their writing difficulties, suggestions include consistent speaking and writing in English; practice speaking in English by talking with students from nationalities different from their own; journal writing; memorizing words and taking notes; and reading good materials will help them improve their English writing skills. Furthermore, the writer concluded that it is a crucial role of every educator to ensure that that their students become self-regulated and skilled in self-evaluation. Finally, the writer emphasized the importance of learners’ ability to look into their own written outputs by using systematic self-evaluation tools and having a set of structured criteria which would help them develop their ability for self-assessment. Review and Evaluation (Critique) The paper was a well-written article on a current topic that could be considered interesting by researchers and scholars who are focusing their studies on strategies to improve the writing difficulties of L2 learners. From the Abstract to the Conclusion, every detail of the paper was well written. The use of high-frequency words like self-evaluation, assessment, questionnaire, and strategies among others, and the detailed descriptions and discussions of the major parts of the paper (Introduction, Methodology, Findings and Discussion, and Conclusion) as well as the subheadings (Framework of the Study, Participants, Instruments, Data Collection, and so forth) enhanced the clarity of the research article’s presentation. I only have two comments on the paper: First, in the presentation and discussion of the “Sample difficulties noted by the raters in students’ papers:” (p.30), on page 31, letter I (Organization of ideas/Addressing the Prompt), it could have been more helpful to the readers if 3 the writer had presented also a sample excerpt of a student’s paper which was rated by teacher raters with 1 or 2 maybe but given a high rating by the participant. This could have given readers a broader idea of the discussion of results stating that “participants have the tendency to overrate their written output” (p.33). Second, the article was published in 2010 in TESOL Journal. Was the article written on that year as well? Looking at the list of references, most of the sources were dated late 1990 and early 2000 which gave me an idea that the article could have been written during this time also. However, since there is no reference as to the exact year of writing, it could be surmised that the references used were out-dated. It could have been a credible research article if the sources used were up-to-date and recent. Overall, this is an interesting and informative article. Not only has the author presented valuable findings from the research activity, she has also presented every detail of the findings in a clear and easy-to-understand words and terminologies that are easy to understand by the readers.
