Challenges That Faced by ESL and Native English Speaker in Academic Writing
There are many demanding situations in various element to making academic writing,
not only for ESL, native English speakers experience the same. Academic writing is generally
referred to as logical writing, which is described as a systematic study carried out and used by
analysts at a higher level of education. by using a variety of phonetics and explanatory
alternatives to complete critical tasks in a variety of situations, inexperienced writers can allow
themselves to finish their writing tasks after a thorough analysis of the complicated material.
(Johns, 2008). So many things need to be considered, including choosing the proper words:
making sure to use formal language and avoiding the usage of 2d and 3rd pronouns,
maximizing linking words, using active voice, and so forth. However, we discover difficulties
when making academic writing for ESL or native English speakers and the differences they
experience.
Lack of awareness of genre and academic writing instructions is one of the elements
that each ESL and native English speakers find challenging. In her systematic methodology,
Braxley (2005) involves 5 Asian graduate college students studying at a US university to find
out instructional writing problems in English as a 2nd language and decide how those students
overcome to master the academic genre. Braxley (2005) explains that the most trouble
international students face is their lack of familiarity with the conventions of instructional
writing as what they had been taught and what was expected from them here at US university
had been pretty one-of-a-kind. as a result, as stated the students seek help from friends, writing
tutors and/or instructors, and academic professionals to meet the writing demands in their
degree applications. For beginners, this is quite a difficult element for both ESL and native
English, while instructional writing should be clean, concise, focussed, established, and backed
up via proof. Its purpose is to assist the reader's information, if we are too focused at the content,
it could lead not to paying attention to the features of academic writing.
Grammar seems to be a prime problem both for ESL and native English speakers.
English grammar has some genuinely strict guidelines: don’t cut up infinitives or quit a
sentence with a preposition. A gaggle of words sounds equal but are spelled otherwise, or a
bunch of phrases has spelled the equal but have distinct meanings, or a bunch of various phrases
may have similar meanings but one-of-a-kind connotations. Punctuation is one of the important
reasons people lose their marks in academic papers. It is a top-notch hassle for ESL college
students who may use incorrect phrases and confuse prepositions and conjunctions. Bryne
(1988) stated that linguistics is one troubles that make writing difficult. Linguistics factor-like
grammar, vocabulary, language use, and preference of sentence in writing should have
absolutely tracking. It's proven that having much less vocabulary makes it hard to pick out the
proper phrases when doing academic writing. Besides, Lexical errors are categorized under
this sort of mistake when a lexical item used in a sentence does not match or collocate with
another part of the sentence, these items sound unnatural or inappropriate. In each example,
the students use numerous lexical objects which do not match or collocate with one another.
The next similarity between ESL and native English speakers is no less important, viz
the difficulty in structuring the text well, including providing the idea clearly, coherence
cohesion, and plagiarism. Based on members' responses on academic Writing difficulties of
ESL learners journal article, it's proven that 44.44% of sixty-five international graduate
students experience challenges expressing the ideas right into a text. In contrast, on
international students" challenges in academic writing: A case study from a prominent journal
article said that one of the most frequent issue is coherence cohesion. This is not surprising
because even though those two things are quite difficult for an expert to master, it takes
regularly of practice to make coherent and cohesive academic writing. Plagiarism is a breach
of academic integrity. it is a precept of intellectual honesty that each contributor of the
academic community should know their debt to the originators of the ideas, words, and data
that form the basis for their own work. Sometimes, a reference is misused by not phrasing the
required sentence, although it is not allowed.
Last but not least is the differences between ESL and native English speakers based on
their background. The first is language proficiency, it is clear that this is a significant difference
between the two learners where native English speakers have an advantage from being more
proficient in using English than ESL. The second is knowledge, everyone has their own
knowledge, this also applies to ESL and native English speakers which will affect the results
of academic writing itself. And lastly, culture, having different backgrounds, definitely, having
different cultures that affect the way of thinking for both ESL and native English speakers.
To conclude, both learners ESL and native English speakers have to know that writing
is always about process, but we have to maximize the output by consider the main convention
of academic writing such as paying attention to the academic writing conventions, using proper
grammar, take a look to the structure which those things are the most common problem that
faced by learners whether ESL or native English speaker. Not to forget improve English
proficiency for ESL because it’s a essential thing to making academic writing, while for native
English speaker expand your knowledge regarding the genre of academic writing.
References
Nazmiye Gürel Cennetkuşu. International students‟ challenges in academic writing: A case
study from a prominent U.S. University, Şanlıurfa,Turkey. Journal of Language and Linguistic
Studies, 13(2), 309-323; 2017.
https://www.jlls.org/index.php/jlls/article/view/676
Ibtisam Ali Al Badi. Academic Writing Difficulties of ESL Learners, Spain, Barcelona. WEI
International Academic, 65-76; 2015.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280696919_ACADEMIC_WRITING_DIFFICULT
IES_OF_ESL_LEARNERS