Cotabato City National High School Main Campus

Sinsuat avenue; Cotabato City

Practical Research 2
September 23, 2019

Academic Writing: Competence and Difficulties of Senior High School Students at Cotabato
City National High School-Main Campus
Mudaresa M. Apit, Uzair M. Kudto, Amiroden T. Sultan, Jamillah A. Yusoph
mudaresaa@gmail.com
uzair.kudto28@gmail.com
amirodinsultan@gmail.com
yusophjamillah02@gmail.com
Cotabato City National High School Main Campus

professional communication. This is determined the students prior

1. INRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the study
This study concern with Academic Writing in
line with their difficulties and competence specifically in Senior High
School Students. the literature on academic writing in higher learning
contains a wealth of research and theory on students writing
competence and difficulties. Kempenaar (2016). More over this study
aims to understand the academic writing practices of the student as
well as their competences and difficulties in academic writing.
Academic writing refers to the style of expression the researchers will
use as intellectual boundaries of their disciplines and their specific
area of expertise. The characteristics of academic writing usually
focuses in formal tone, used third-person rather than first-person
perspective, diction, language, punctuation, academic convention,
reasoning Routledge (2008).
The efficiency of the students in academic writing has many
benefits. Its helps the students to think critically, present complex
ideas logically, boost creativity, confidence and writing skills.
Students life(2016) this will give emphasis such as useful information
relating to writing skills, thus the study concern in recognizing and
analyzing the difficulties and problem that will give the students
competence in academic writing Megaiab M.( 2014). Emphasize in
learning in English, there are four language skills; listening, writing,
reading, speaking skills. Oral mode of skills, and writing and reading
are written. This will give key factor which will view the difficulties
of the student in academic writing.
academic experiences regarding on academic, as well s their strength
and weaknesses and their communicative competence. Aside from
criticizing to expand the knowledge of the student in Academic and
other linguistic skills it is important to know how to improve student
in field of academe. National Research Council (2005). It is
important to practice the student development automaticity in
understanding text and question into particular subject like English
academe since it was taught as an international language in terms of
communication. It may appear as hard as to study and understand on
first hand but it’s understandable in countries like Philippines since it
is not a first language or mother tongue.
Many of it can be improve by understanding and
enhancing grammatical structure and focused on the learners needs to
improve their communicating style this is a one way of having
competence in Academic Writing, Aurkerman (2006). It is necessary
to rethink teaching practices in order to allow the student to ne the
main actor or modeler for their learning process De Brusa et al.
(2019). Writing academic paper like essays, journals, literature
reviews, term papers research papers are thing that will boost your
competence in academic writing. Students Life(2016). In terms of
academic writing competences this may varied your papers has no
errors in terms of grammar, punctuations, language, or style, however
there is inflict of difficulties in academic writing this those student
have difficulties in using the right words in the right places. This in
turn, has direct affect on their sentences structure. As a result, their
academic papers is filled with errors. Lexical difficulties can be solve
by reading more, reading increases exposure, knowledge,
experiences, and give you a nice idea of what content is engaging.
David E. (2019).

The academic writing is one way to enhance
student efficiency in English Language focused on critical reading,
writing, analyzation, and research skills placed on developing
communication skills in preparation to
Motivating the interest of the students in topics
and raise attentiveness by providing reasons for knowledge. Most
students are focused about the subjects in terms of grammar,
vocabulary and reading efficiency. Now the question is, how to get
better in these parts?Is it the biggest deal for students who are below
average level or state in reading, comprehension a21nd proficiency
on how to enhance them with this problem. Once those needs are
understood, it is a lot easier to classify potential solutions motivating
the learners to learn comprehensions. Gammill (2006)

1.2 Review of Literature
The study of writing competence efficient and student’s
performance in Academic Writing of Senior High School student
used to determine the levels of the writing competence and
difficulties of the student in construction of word and organizing of
idea. Writing skills enhance the students to communicate using their
imagination and exchanges of ideas in social lives. It is commonly
used in language competence and comprehensive quality. Academic
writing is a big problem in senior high school students from suffers
from limited knowledge and weak formation of idea. Therefore, some
student lost their confident in writing because of lack of organization
of sentence, accurate use of punctuation marks and capitalization of
words. Process Writing. Donald M. Murray(1972) published a brief
manifested titled “ Teach Writing as a Process Not Product”, which
awaked from many writers that writing can be learn by a process.
However Maxine Hairston(1982) argued that teaching of writing had
undergone a “ paradigm shift” in moving from a focus on written
product to writing processes. Mahon(1992) pointed out that process
writing approach involves teaching pupils strategies to help them
express themselves in writing. Students developed their interest by
the help of teacher this means the in writing skills it’s very important
to guide the student to improve the writing ability, speaking, reading,
to improve their ability in terms of communicating.
According to Belloni and Jongsma’s(1978) study stated that
“Student comprehend better when they are interest in what they are
preferred”. However; Jarvis (2000) emphasizes that many students do
not enjoy writing because they feel that if they cannot do it correctly
at the first time then they will never get it. To understand how the
student get their attention in and writing skills it’s important to
provide a learning material to enhance the students to read and
analyze the text either non-fiction or fiction and look the relationship
of the student in what they read in the text. This information was use
to understand in order to see what are the student’s preferred to read
and how affected their abilities in writing skills. Gebhard(1996)
pointed out that the useful things in writing are word choice, use of
appropriate grammar, syntax, mechanics and organization of ideas
into coherent and cohesive form. In Senior high student specially
Humanities and Social Science track in reading and writing works as
an essential processes in learning new information, in translating
massage, in making sense of new ideas and for exchange those idea
with others.
According to Heald-Taylor(1986) describes process writing is
an approach which encourage the ESL youngsters to communicate
their own written massages while simultaneously developing their
literacy skills in speaking and reading rather that delaying
involvement in the writing process, as advocated in past, until
students gave perfected their abilities in handwriting, reading,
phonetics, spelling ,grammar, and punctuation. Therefore a student
needs to identify the different usage of the literary devices in order to
Cotabato City National High School Main Campus
Sinsuat avenue; Cotabato City
Practical Research 2
September 23, 2019
make a good quality of sentence. this means that we should engage
the student to read using the “Iqra techniques” since that it’s the first
word in Holy Quran that comes upon the Prophet Mohammad(SAW)
Rosmaniand AbdulWahab(2011) the word “Iqra” means read or
recite[7] to understand the relationship between reading
Comprehension and writing Competence, however some student’s
they know how to write but they can’t read base on observation of the
scholar.
A number of studies also highlight the importance of
linguistic knowledge and processing ability skills for proficient
reading. Pang (2008) refers those students’ have appropriate
knowledge of vocabulary and critical thinking in the field of literal,
Evaluate, Essential, Critique, inferential are helpful in terms of
forming a sentence. Pretorius(2002) investigated the relationship
between reading skills and academic performance of the student
undergraduate level. The findings of study indicated that
underperforming students had serious reading problems. In that case
most of the students have difficulties in reading, similarly in the
semantic role of word that result difficulty to the students to
understand the text they read. The main focus of this study is to
develop the student’s interest in the field of writing skills.
According to Heaton(1988:135) that writing skills are
complex and sometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only
of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also of conceptual and
judgmental elements. Also Ghazi ( 2002:1) says that writing is a
complex process that allows writers to explore thoughts and ideas,
and make them visible and concrete. Writing encourages the student
in thinking and learning to communicate effectively and makes their
thought credible. In Academic writing needs some skills such as ;(1)
using vocabularies in writing;(2) generating the ideas;(3)using tenses
or grammar for writing. Masjhari(2010).after doing this tree skills,
the statement should examined , scheme, structure of sentence to
make perfect writing, it also required the student have a stuck
knowledge to easily create a good quality of writing.
1.3 Theoretical and Conceptual Framework
Independent Variable Dependent Variable
Academic Writing Student
performance

Figure 1: Theoretical.
This study shows the relationship of Academic Writing as
independent variable and student’s performance as dependent
variable. Tierney and Pearson consider both reading and writing as
analogues process of composing. That although reading and writing
are strongly interconnected, they are frequently treated as discrete
subject.
This figure shows that Academic Writing of the students
have significance effect towards reading comprehension of the
students to build their English competencies.
1.4 Statement of the problem
These study concerns gathering standard data and exploring
the academic writing: competence and difficulties of senior high
school students an Cotabato city National High School Main
Campus.
1. What is the level of the student performance in academic
writing in terms of:
1.1 Grades
1.2 Academic Performances
1.3 Writing Skills
2. What the level of the student in academic writing in terms of;
2.1 Grammar
2.2 Vocabulary
2.3 test score
3. What are the difficulties and competences of the students in
senior high school in field of writing?
1.5 Hypothesis
The null hypothesis of the study that is presented below:
There is significant relationship of writing competence of
the students towards their performance in field of academic writing.
1.6 Significance of the study
Cotabato City National High School Main Campus
Sinsuat avenue; Cotabato City
Practical Research 2
September 23, 2019
This study concerns with exploring the student’s
performance in English in field of academic writing. To explore the
importance of academic writing to establish student’s competences as
well as to determine the reasons of the student’s strength and
weaknesses of field of academic writing.
2.1 METHODOLOGY
2.1 Design
The study utilizes mixed method specifically quantitative
and qualitative research design to gather the information of the senior
high school students writing competence. This research design sought
the impact of writing competence and difficulties in field of academic
writing. This study is to determine student strength and weaknesses
in different areas like reading, writing, speaking and oral
communication.
2.2 Respondents
The respondents of this study were the students from
Humanities and Social Science(HUMSS) of Cotabato City National
High School Main- Campus, Sinsuat Avenue, Cotabato city during
the school year of 2019-2020.To know the level of their Academic
Performance: Competence and Difficulties of Senior high school
Students.
2.3 Measurement
The researcher utilize questionnaire to determine the
academic competence and difficulties of the students in field of
academic writing. It is list of survey questionnaire to gather the
information that being asked to the respondents. The researcher
instrument is used to collect price typical data over a large number of
populations.
2.4 Sampling Technique
The researchers exploit purposive technique. A non-
probability sample that is selected based on distinctiveness of a
population and the objective of the study. The participants are
selected according to the need of the study.
2.5 Procedure
The researchers used to start the study on consulting to our
research adviser to allow us to conduct the study about “Academic
 Cotabato City National High School Main Campus
Sinsuat avenue; Cotabato City
Practical Research 2
September 23, 2019

Writing: Competence and Difficulties of the Senior High School

Students.To determine the impact of level of writing skills and
students performance specifically at Cotabato City National High
School Main-Campus. After the consultation our research adviser
allowed us to start the study and to be part of it.

More over the researchers start to collect the standard

information such as article to that is related in the study to gain
specific information and start the study precisely. The researchers
provide article, questionnaire to gather the information and the
purpose of the study is to explore their respondents,

After the necessary assessment was completed the

researcher will analyze and standardizes the data through statistical
treatment

2.6 Data Analysis

Direction: Please rate the fallowing questioned in title “Writing

competence and Student’s Performance in Academic Writing. Using
the rating tool below by encircling.

Scale Description

4 Strongly Agree

3 Agree

2 Disagree

1 Strongly Disagree

2.7 Limitations of the Study

This study focused on exploring the impact of academic writing

to determine the students in senior high competences and difficulties
in field of academe. This study was conducted only for HUMSS
students at Cotabato City National High School- Main Campus. The
participant selected according to the needs of the study.
Cotabato City National High School Main Campus
Sinsuat avenue; Cotabato City
Practical Research 2
September 23, 2019