Improvement of University Student’s Writing Skills Through Self-Assessment

Abstract

Writing is one of the abilities that allows us to express ideas, feelings, and thoughts to transform them into words. Teacher monitoring and assessment guide students to become competent in their writing skills. However, building this writing ability may be challenging for students at the A1 level. Since A1 proficiency is initial, indicates limited vocabulary, simple sentence structures, and a limited understanding and use of English. The participants of this study had limited vocabulary and grammar usage to express their ideas in a writing form while studying in virtual classrooms. Likewise, candidates found writing activities complex to communicate with classmates and the teacher in class sessions. One of the components is the organization of ideas. Candidates had difficulty writing coherent ideas and well-structured texts because their comprehension of vocabulary or grammar limited their progress in class activities. Likewise, the lack of practice in writing paragraphs, students transferred an incorrect message by putting their sentences that did not have a well-designed sequence. The observation of participants’ limited comprehension of grammar and inaccuracies in sentence structure affected the overall coherence and cohesion of their writing production. Moreover, capitalization and punctuation errors in writing are problems that teachers observe in the classroom. Student’s writing assignments present common errors in applying an inappropriate use of punctuation to express their ideas. Therefore, candidates struggle to implement basic capitalization at the beginning of sentences when writing personal pronouns, and proper nouns. Even though the teacher’s explanations, students are predisposed to make mistakes due