Factors Impacting Academic Writing Skills of English Second Language Students

The student writing difficulties cannot be attributed to one factor but a myriad of factors, including colonialism and apartheid, which were instrumental in the marginalisation of blacks in South Africa. The problems of underprepared teachers, ineffective teaching of writing in schools which also provided fewer writing activities and fewer opportunities for learning in a second, third and fourth language, are some of the factors discussed in this article. The article argues that drastic measures should be made to address the scourge of poor writing skills manifested in the writing of English Second Language students