Writing skills development in L1 and L2: Perspectives of Croatian learners of English

The acquisition of writings skills does not come naturally, it is a skill that needs to be taught, even in the mother tongue. An important question is whether pupils adopt the acquired practices in the second language once the writing skill is acquired in the first language. The aim of this paper is to compare the process of acquiring writing skills and common practices in L1 (Croatian) and L2 (English) from the student’s point of view. The first part of the paper looks into the most important theories concerning the L1/L2 acquisition whilst the second part focuses on the findings of L2 writing theory and research. The third part is the study itself. The approach taken in this study is qualitative, using interviews to question five students, all advanced speakers of English. The analysis of the results suggests that pupils do not get enough instruction for writing in the L2 and therefore rely on the instructions given to them in the mother tongue. The results show that more research in students’ perceptions and attitudes towards various aspects of writing is required