WRITING PROBLEMS AND WRITING STRATEGIES OF ENGLISH MAJOR AND NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS IN A THAI UNIVERSITY

Abstract

This study aim of this research was to investigate the writing problems and writing strategies experienced by Thai EFL university students in a public university in Thailand. It also aimed to see whether there was a significant difference between the writing problems and writing strategies experienced by English major and non-English major students. The participants were 80 third-year undergraduate students consisting of 40 English major students and 40 non-English major students. The instruments employed in this study were the Writing Problems and Strategies Questionnaire and drafts of paragraph writing. The participants were asked about their problems they encountered when writing in English and their strategies they used when they wrote a paragraph in English. Also, they were asked to write a paragraph on the topic of their problems when they were about to write in English. It was found that there was a statistically significant difference between the writing problems encountered by both groups of students. The English major students had fewer writing problems than the non-English major students. In addition, there was a significant difference in the writing problems reflected in a paragraph written by both groups of students. The non-English major students had more problems about content and ideas, organizational pattern, the development of ideas, and language use than the English major students. Finally, there was a statistically significant difference between the writing strategies used by both groups of students. The English major students used more strategies than the non-English major students. Keywords : Writing problems, Writing strategies, Paragraph writing