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100 

 

 
ELT FORUM 10 (2) (2021) 

 

Journal of English Language Teaching 

 
http://journal.unnes.ac.id/sju/index.php/elt 

 
 

EFL college students writing anxiety of English language education at  

Universitas Internasional Batam 

 

Theodesia Lady Pratiwi 

 
Universitas Internasional Batam, Indonesia

 

Article Info 
________________  
Article History: 

Received in 29 

November 2020  
Approved in 2 July 2021 

Published in 28 July 

2021 

________________  
Keywords: Writing 

anxiety; EFL learners; 

levels, types and causes  
____________________ 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Abstract  
___________________________________________________________________ 
Writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master for EFL students. This 

experience was faced by English Language Education (ELE) students at Universitas 

Internasional Batam (UIB). Based on the observation, the results of their writings were 
not satisfying. This study assumed that the students might feel anxious when they 

were writing in English. Therefore, this study aims to examine the types and causes 
of writing anxiety of ELE students at UIB. This study employed explanatory design 

of mixed method research. The research instruments were questionnaires adopted 
from SLWAI and CWAI developed by Cheng (2004). To extend the deeper analysis, 

this study conducted interviews to the high- and low-level writing anxiety students. 

This study found that the most dominant levels of writing anxiety is high-anxiety 
(71.43%). In terms of writing anxiety, this study found that cognitive anxiety is the 

most dominant type with the mean of 26.37. Next, when studying the cause of writing 
anxiety, the most dominant cause was linguistic difficulties. This result was in line 

with the interviews with high-and low- writing anxiety students. Students with both 
high and low writing anxiety still found that linguistic difficulties affect their writing 

anxiety. Therefore, the learning process at English Language Education needs to be 

equipped with sufficient linguistic competences in the first year, such as vocabulary, 
grammar, and punctuation.  

    
 
  

 Correspondence Address: p-ISSN 2252-6706 | e-ISSN 2721-4532 
Jl. Gajah Mada, Sei Ladi, Tiban Indah, Sekupang,  
Batam, Kepulauan Riau, Indonesia 29442  

E-mail: theodesia@uib.ac.id  

http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1333515478&1&&
http://issn.pdii.lipi.go.id/issn.cgi?daftar&1576658845&1&&


Theodesia Lady Pratiwi/ ELT Forum 10 (2) (2021) 

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INTRODUCTION 

English as a lingua franca has generally four skills, namely listening, reading, speaking, and writing. 

Listening and reading skill are receptive skills, meanwhile speaking and writing is a productive skill. 

When it comes to productive skills, students will have to face some difficulties.  

Talking specifically about writing skill, writing is considered demanding, especially for EFL 

(English as Foreign Language) and ESL (English as Second Language) learners (Daud et al., 2007). 

It is demanding since English is not their first language. When writing, they need to think first with 

their own language and then translate it into English. Furthermore, requirements of good appropriate 

grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary make it more difficult for EFL and ESL Learners. This study 

already observed that English Language Education students at Universitas Internasional Batam found 

difficulties to fulfill the requirements. The difficulties lead to students’ anxiety to apply the writing 

skill.  

Zhang (2011) claims that when students are required to perform certain activities of productive 

skills, they will experience anxiety. Spielberg (1983, cited in Horwitz, 2001) defines anxiety as a feeling 

of pressure, uneasiness, nervousness, and worry. Furthermore, MacIntyre & Gardner (1994) define 

second language anxiety as “the feeling of tension and apprehension specially associated with second 

language contexts, including speaking, listening”. In other words, related to language skills, anxiety 

is a feeling of pressured, worry, and uneasiness that is related to language skills.  

Specifically, Takahashi (2009) states that writing anxiety does not emerge because of the 

students are lack of writing ability, but it is caused by a feeling of fear in the writing process.  Al-

Sawalha & Chow (2012) also add that writing anxiety is feelings that affect someone’s in the process 

the writing; started from the brainstorming the idea, drafting, revising, and finishing the writing; even 

though he/she is actually possess the skills. In other words, writing anxiety is more related to students’ 

fear to the writing process. Writing anxiety is not caused by their lack writing competence. 

Specifically, writing anxiety that is experienced by students of English Language Education at 

Universitas Internasional Batam may affect their writing performance during the class.  

Cheng (2004) categorizes writing anxiety into three types, namely somatic anxiety, cognitive 

anxiety, and avoidance behavior. Cognitive anxiety related to how someone thinks of other people 

judgments on their writing skills that affects their achievement on writing competencies. The 

judgments may come from teachers, partners, and colleagues. It leads them be afraid of not being able 

to accomplishing those judgments or expectations. Somatic anxiety is dealing with psychological 

aspects which are caused by their anxiety, such as the pressured and nervous feeling. The last, 

avoidance behavior is the anxiety that leads someone not willing to write. These anxieties may be 

caused by several reasons. Zhang (2011) mentions that writing anxiety may be caused by higher 

expectations of the teacher, fear of the tests, lack of writing competence, and etc. 

Anxiety commonly happens to EFL learners. Horwitz et al. (1986) proposes a concept of 

foreign language anxiety which means a complex feeling, behavior, and attitude toward distinctive 

language learning process. This anxiety, then, leads the students to be reluctant to produce the 

languages.  

Among the four skills of English language, writing is the most difficult skills that students need 

to struggle. When writing, it is necessary to find appropriate words, apply correct grammatical 

conventions, and link their ideas into a coherent text (Chamot, 2005). Writing anxiety is defined as 

feelings of someone toward their ability when dealing with writing that affect their writing ability (Al-

Sawalha & Chow, 2012). Further, Hassan (2001) states that writing anxiety is an anxiety that 

potentially happen to individuals when writing because it contains some writing requirements and 

evaluation. In other words, writing anxiety is someone’s feeling, behavior, and attitudes toward 

writing because of the writing process and evaluation. Writing anxiety may lead the students to a poor 

performance. Horwitz et al. (1986) found that there was a relation between writing anxiety and 

students’ performance; in other words, students who possess higher levels of anxiety may result in 

lower grades than students with lower levels of anxiety. 

Several studies were conducted to discover the causes of writing anxiety. According to some 

researchers, there are some causes of writing anxiety. The first cause is fear of negative evaluation and 

fear of test. Zhang (2011) states that students will feel anxious if they know that their writing is being 

evaluated. It can be caused by teachers’ high expectation and inability of the students to achieve 

teachers’ expectation that may cause teachers’ negative feedback or evaluation. The second cause is 

time pressure. Regarding time pressure, students may feel pressured with the allotted time during the 

test since writing is a productive skill (Rezaei & Jafari, 2014). Therefore, they find that they need extra 



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time to write, especially they are writing in a language that is not their mother language. Even, they 

need to ensure that their writing can fulfill the teachers’ expectation. The third cause is low self-

confidence. When dealing with productive skill, students must have self-confidence to produce 

languages. Hassan (2001) adds that even students with good writing ability may affect their 

performance because they feel anxious and believe that they cannot write well.  

Insufficient writing technique can also impact negatively to students’ writing performance. 

Writing requires good ability and techniques, such as grammar, mechanics, diction (word choice), 

coherence, idea organization, and etc. These requirements may cause the students who are lack of 

competence may find writing anxiety (Hassan, 2001). Next, language difficulties are a common 

problem for EFL students when they have to compose in English. The language difficulties may make 

the students lazier to write since they may find some problems with lack of grammar ability and lack 

of vocabulary mastery (Zhang, 2011). Lastly, pressure for perfect work may affect students’ writing 

anxiety. Teachers, sometimes, may not realize that they put high demands and expectations on 

students’ writing. Bloom (1981) states that demand for perfect work may overwhelm and burden the 

students because perfect work may have higher and more difficult standard.  

Based on the research, Cheng (2004) summarizes causes of writing anxiety based on some 

studies and then developed a questionnaire to examine causes of writing anxiety, namely Causes of 

Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI). Research results on causes of writing anxiety may vary. Rezaei 

& Jafari (2014) analyzed 120 Iranian students (EFL learners), specifically students of English 

Department who are taking Advanced Writing Course, in two higher education institutions. They 

found out that students may feel anxious when writing is because they were afraid of comments from 

the teacher and the difficulty in language, such as word choice and grammatical features. It, then, 

leads them to feel unconfident when writing and being afraid of writing tests.  

The study of writing anxiety was also conducted to EFL students in one of universities in East 

Java by Wahyuni & Umam (2017). This study found that the most causes of writing anxiety of 

students are fear of teachers’ negative comments, fear of writing tests, insufficient writing practice, 

and insufficient writing technique. In addition, Kusumaningputri et al. (2018) examined EFL learners 

in university in East Java as well. They discovered causes of writing anxiety. Some of them are because 

students do not get enough practice that affects their writing techniques. Besides, students find it is 

hard to write in their second or foreign language. In addition, students also feel pressured and stressed 

when writing tests because of the limited time allocation during the tests. 

According to research results of  Cheng (2004), writing anxiety is divided into three types, 

namely cognitive anxiety, somatic anxiety, and avoidance anxiety. First, cognitive anxiety refers to 

what students think or perceive about their writing competency and people judgments. It may include 

the expectation or demand of the teachers that causes the students feel depressed to achieve that 

expectation. In other words, cognitive anxiety is associated to mental states of the students when they 

are dealing with evaluation or external perception. Students already underestimate themselves that 

they are not able to write well or they are not good at writing.  

Next, somatic anxiety can be referred to impacts of the anxiety that are faced by the students 

psychologically. When given a writing task, they may feel nervous and stressed, such as shaking 

hands, sweating, or rapid heart beating. It may get worse when students are doing a writing assignment 

during limited time allocation. Consequently, they sometimes lose the ideas to write. Last, avoidance 

anxiety simply means that the students avoid writing because of the anxiety. It results in avoidance of 

the students to attend writing class or unwillingness to write.  

Based on that finding, Cheng (2004) developed a questionnaire that is commonly known as 

Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI). This questionnaire is a 5-likert scale 

questionnaire that can be distributed to students to find out their writing anxiety.  

Many studies already draw up the issue of writing anxiety. Masriani et al. (2018) surveyed 41 

students of Universitas Negeri Padang and found out that the most type of writing anxiety of the 

students is cognitive anxiety. The result is in line with the result of study of Wahyuni & Umam (2017) 

which revealed that the most types of anxiety is cognitive anxiety. In opposite, Fitrinada et al. (2018) 

observed students of English Education at Sriwijaya University. The study discovered that the most 

type of writing anxiety of the students is somatic anxiety. It is also similar to study of Kusumaningputri 

et al. (2018) which found that the most dominant type of anxiety is somatic anxiety. The different 

results may be caused by the divergence of the learners or different characters or treatments. The 

previous studies mostly used quantitative data to find the most dominant type and cause of writing 



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anxiety. Therefore, this study is going to get qualitative data to explore deeper explanation by 

conducting an interview to students with low and high writing anxiety. 

Writing is a course that is offered for English Language Education students at Universitas 

Internasional Batam. Writing courses are divided into some steps in each semester, namely Basic 

Writing (the 1st   semester), Paragraph-based Writing (the 2nd semester), Genre-based Writing (the 3rd 

semester), Creative Writing (the 4th semester), and Critical Reading & Writing (the 5th semester). 

Learning how to write in English well may be burdensome for some students since English is not their 

first language. It may cause some students feel writing anxiety. Therefore, this study would like to 

examine the levels and types of writing anxiety as well as to explore causes of writing anxiety of 

English Language Education students at Universitas Internasional Batam. Most of previous studies 

only shows the means or percentages to present the level, types, and causes of writing anxiety. 

However, this study would like to analyze deeper on the causes of writing anxiety based on the level. 

Therefore, it is expected that this study can contribute more on the methods of teaching writing at 

Universitas Internasional Batam. 

METHODS 

This study used mixed method design to find out the results. Mixed method design research, in other 

words, means that this study used both quantitative and qualitative data to answer the research 

question. Specifically, there are some designs of mixed-method designs, namely convergent parallel 

design, explanatory sequential design, exploratory sequential design, embedded design, 

transformative design, and multiphase design (Ary et al., 2010). 

This study employed explanatory sequential mixed method design is a research started with 

collecting the quantitative data and followed by qualitative data to clarify the quantitative results 

(Creswell, 2012). This study collected the quantitative data by the use of questionnaires to categorize 

the students’ level and types of writing anxiety. This research adopted a questionnaire which was 

developed by Cheng (2004), namely Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) and 

Causes of Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI). The questionnaire was already tested by conducting 

an exploratory factor analysis which showed optimized interpretability with The Cronbach’s Alpha 

of the Inventory was 0.89. 

Creswell (2012) states that one of the important aspects of gathering the qualitative data in 

explanatory sequential mixed method design is to decide the sample and questions that can follow up 

on the quantitative data. In addition, Ary et al. (2010)  explain that sequential design may perform 

data analysis before to do the next phase of the study. Therefore, this study analyzed the quantitative 

data from questionnaires to decides the level of writing anxiety. Consequently, this study interviewed 

students with high, moderate, and low writing anxiety in each batch of English Language Education, 

Universitas Internasional Batam to grow rich understanding. 

Respondents 

The subject of this study was English Language Education students from batch 2017 – 2019 with total 

number of students was 49 students. The setting of this study was English Language Education Study 

Program at Universitas Internasional Batam which is located at Jl. Gajah Mada, Sei Ladi, Tiban 

Indah, Sekupang, Batam.  

Instruments 

This study collected the data using two research instruments, namely questionnaires and interviews. 

The questionnaires adopted Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) and Causes of 

Writing Anxiety Inventory (CWAI) by Cheng (2004) to find out the level, types, and causes of writing 

anxiety of English Language Education students of Universitas Internasional Batam. SLWAI uses a 

5-likert scale questionnaire consisting of 22 questions to find out types of writing anxiety. Meanwhile, 

CWAI also uses 5-likert scale consisting of 10 questions to find out causes of writing anxiety. The 

questionnaires were already pilot-tested to a group of students from the same universities by using an 

exploratory factor analysis.  

Data collection procedures 

The questionnaires were distributed through Internet Surveys or Web-based surveys by using Google 

Form. Ary et al. (2010) mentioned some benefits of internet surveys, namely quick and easy data 

collection, less costs, reducing the amount of time and effort to collect the data, and easy access for 



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the participants to fill in the questionnaire.  Thus, this study selected internet survey to collect the data; 

especially this data was collected during the outbreak of COVID-19.  

After collecting data from questionnaires, this study interviewed some students. To emphasize, 

this study did not interview all students who filled in the questionnaires. This study interviewed the 

students according to the analysis of the questionnaires. In other words, this study interviewed the 

students according to the level of the writing anxiety, namely high writing anxiety, moderate writing 

anxiety, and low writing anxiety. The purpose of the interview is to extend the analysis of results. 

Data analysis 

The data was analyzed using a statistical analysis. Firstly, this study calculated the levels of students’ 

writing anxiety by summing up the score of the questionnaire of each student. If the score is above 65, 

the students are categorized into high levels of writing anxiety. If the score is below 50, the students 

are categorized into low levels of writing anxiety. Meanwhile, if the score is between 50 to 65, the 

students are categorized into moderate levels of writing anxiety. In addition, to find out the levels of 

writing anxiety, this study analyzed SLWAI questionnaires. 

Secondly, this study calculated the questionnaire to categorize the most dominant types of 

writing anxiety, namely cognitive, somatic, and avoidance behavior. In addition, to find out the most 

dominant type of writing anxiety, this study investigated SLWAI questionnaires with total of 22 

questions. Questions number 1, 3, 7, 9, 14, 17, 20, and 21 are used to identify cognitive anxiety. Then, 

questions number 2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 16, and 19 are used to examine somatic anxiety. Last, questions 

number 4, 5, 10, 12, 16, 18, and 22 are used to investigate avoidance behavior. To identify the most 

dominant types, this study calculated the mean score.  

Thirdly, to calculate the cause of writing anxiety, this study analyzed CWAI questionnaire with 

total of 10 questions. To calculate the most cause of writing anxiety, this study summed up total score 

of each question from all respondents and ranked them from the most to least dominant cause by 

calculating the percentage.  

After the data analysis from the questionnaire, this study interviewed the students based on 

their level of writing anxiety and their responds to cause of writing anxiety. The aim of the interview 

is to elaborate deeper analysis on the results of the questionnaire to extend the description of analysis. 

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 

This study answered two research questions, namely to find out the level and type of writing anxiety 

and to explore the cause of writing anxiety. Therefore, this section is going to present the results of the 

questionnaires regarding the level, type, and cause of writing anxiety. Besides, to get deeper and more 

elaborative analysis, this study is also going to elaborate the results of interview. 

Findings 

This section is divided into 3 (three) sections, namely level of students’ writing anxiety, types of 

students’ writing anxiety, and causes of students’ writing anxiety. This study employed two 5-Likert-

Scale questionnaires by Cheng (2004), namely Second Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) 

and Cause of Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (CLWAI). 

Level of writing anxiety 

Firstly, this study found out the level of students’ writing anxiety into low, moderate, and high anxiety. 

To discover that level of writing anxiety, this study employed the questionnaire of Second Language 

Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) which consists of 22 questions by Cheng (2004). The 

questionnaires were distributed to 49 English Language Education students at Universitas 

Internasional Batam (ELE-UIB).  

To find out the levels of writing anxiety, this study summed the score of questionnaires. If the 

students got the score below 50, they were categorized into Low Anxiety, while if the students got the 

score above 65, they were categorized into High Anxiety. On the other hand, for students who got the 

score between 50 and 65, they were categorized into Moderate Anxiety. 

 

 

 

 

 



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Table 1. Levels of students’ writing anxiety 
 Number of 

Students 

Minimum of 

Score 

Maximum of 

Score 

Percentage (%) 

Total 49 37 87 100% 

High Anxiety 36 63 87 71.43% 

Moderate Anxiety 10 55 65 20.41% 

Low Anxiety 4 37 48 8.16% 

Table 1 indicated that from the total of 49 students, 71.43 % of English Language Education 

students at Universitas Internasional Batam faced high levels of writing anxiety.  The students who 

were in the moderate levels of writing anxiety are 20.41%, meanwhile the students who were in the 

low levels of writing anxiety is 8.16%. In other words, it can be concluded that most of students of 

English Language Education students at Universitas Internasional Batam still experienced high levels 

of writing anxiety. The result of levels of writing anxiety was similar to previous studies by  

Types of writing anxiety 

After analyzing the levels of students’ writing anxiety, this study analyzed the types of students’ 

writing anxiety by categorizing into three categories, namely Cognitive Anxiety, Somatic Anxiety, 

and Avoidance Behavior. To find out the types of writing anxiety, this study still used Second 

Language Writing Anxiety Inventory (SLWAI) by Cheng (2004). The results of analysis are presented 

in Table 2 below. 

Table 2. Types of Writing Anxiety 
Types of Writing 

Anxiety 

Number of 

Students 

Total 

Score 

Mean 

Cognitive 49 1292 26.37 
Somatic 49 1278 26.08 

Avoidance Behavior 49 930 18.98 

 

Table 2 showed that the mean of cognitive anxiety was 26.37, somatic anxiety was 26.08, and 

avoidance behavior was 18.98. Therefore, cognitive anxiety became the highest mean of the anxiety. 

Meanwhile, somatic anxiety was the second highest mean and avoidance behavior was the lowest 

mean. In other words, it can be interpreted that cognitive anxiety was the most dominant type of 

writing anxiety which was faced by English Language Education students at Universitas Internasional 

Batam. As Cheng (2004) mentioned that cognitive anxiety is how students perceive evaluations or 

judgments from teachers or partners. In other words, it can be summed up that students of English 

Language Education, Universitas Internasional Batam still found worriedness or fear of lecturer’s 

judgment and evaluation when they were writing in English. However, somatic anxiety had only 

slightly different mean from cognitive anxiety.  

Causes of writing anxiety 

Besides finding the types of writing anxiety, this study also examined the causes of writing anxiety. 

To investigate the causes of writing anxiety, this study employed Causes of Language Writing Anxiety 

Inventory (CLWAI) by Cheng (2004). That questionnaire consists of 10 questions. The results of the 

questionnaires are presented in the following table.  

Table 3. Causes of Writing Anxiety 
No. Cause of Writing Anxiety Total Percentage 

1 Linguistic difficulties 205 11.63 % 

2 Time pressure 185 10.49 % 
3 Insufficient writing technique 180 10.21 % 

4 Low self-confidence in writing 179 10.15 % 

5 Insufficient writing practice 176  9.98 % 
6 Fear of teacher’s negative comments 174  9.87 % 

7 Pressure for perfect work 174  9.87 % 
8 Fear of writing tests 171  9.70 % 

9 High frequency of writing assignments 168  9.53 % 
10 Problems with topic choice 151  8.56 % 



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Table 3 showed that the most dominant cause of writing anxiety was linguistic difficulties 

which got total score of 205 (11.63%). The second most dominant cause of writing anxiety was time 

pressure with total score of 185 (10.49%). Then, the third and fourth most dominant cause of writing 

anxiety was insufficient writing technique (10.21%) and low self-confidence in writing (10.15%). 

Meanwhile, the lowest cause of writing anxiety was problems with topic choice which got total score 

of 151 (8.56%). Causes of writing anxiety might differ from one situation to other situations. From the 

data, it can be concluded that linguistic difficulties became the main problem for students of English 

Language Education, Universitas Internasional Batam. 

This study also interviewed students with low anxiety, moderate anxiety, and high anxiety. 

This study found that students with low, moderate, and high anxiety are found in each batch of 

English Language Education Study Program. To see the results clearly, the data is presented in Table 

4 below. 

 

Table 4. Distribution of writing anxiety in each batch of ELE 
 2017 2018 2019 

Number of students 13 14 22 
High anxiety 9 11 15 

Moderate anxiety 3 1 6 

Low anxiety 1 2 1 

 

Table 4 showed that the writing anxiety (high, moderate, and low) was found in every batch of 

English Language Education student at Universitas Internasional Batam. Further, despite the higher 

batch of the students, students still experienced the writing anxiety. Besides, the distribution of the 

levels of writing anxiety was similar for each batch. Therefore, it can be concluded that writing anxiety 

did not depend on the higher levels or batch in the university. Or, in other words, the higher the batch 

did not determine the lower levels of the anxiety.  

Besides, this study also disclosed that the distribution of writing anxiety was likely similar in 

each batch. However, a different case appeared in students of batch 2018 in which the ratio of 

moderate anxiety (1 student) was bigger than low anxiety (2 students) and the rest of the students were 

in the high level of writing anxiety. This study assumed this as a unique case that is essential to explore 

more deeply. 

Therefore, this study interviewed each student from each batch who are categorized into low 

and high levels writing anxiety. This study also interviewed random students from each batch with 

moderate levels of writing anxiety.  

Case of students with low anxiety 

As presented in Table 4, low anxiety students were distributed in each batch of 2017, 2018, and 2019. 

Therefore, this study interviewed each student from batch of 2017, 2018, and 2019 that was indicated 

as students with low writing anxiety. 

Student A admitted that he preferred writing in English to writing in Bahasa Indonesia. In other 

words, he did not avoid to write in English. He also viewed lecturer’s comments as a booster for him 

to write better.  

 
“No, I do not feel that the comments from lecturer burden me. I see the 

comments as a challenge for me to be better”. 

 

However, this study found that Student A found it overwhelmed when he was instructed to 

write an academic text or essay. He elaborated that he tended to overthink and felt under pressured 

when dealing with academic writing. He explained that writing academic essay required high level of 

technical writing, dictions/choice of words, and topic elaboration. Meanwhile, it was totally different 

when dealing with informal writing. Student A found that it was more comfortable when writing an 

informal text. 

  
“I am not that confident to write any kind of texts, especially academic 

writing. I tend to overthink. I feel it is kind of hard when I am writing 

academic essay. It needs more high technical writing stuff. Then, I have 



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to choose the best words, since it is an academic writing. So, I just feel 

under pressured.” 

 

As a summary, Student A reached low writing anxiety since he was not afraid of feeling by 

external factors, such as comments or judgment from lecturers or other friends. Also, he was confident 

enough to write in English with his English competences. However, as an EFL student, writing 

anxiety might appear when the demand of the writing levels was increasing.  

The similar case also happened to Student B. Student B also preferred writing in English to 

writing in Bahasa Indonesia.  
 

“I prefer writing in English than Bahasa Indonesia. The rules (in English) 

are already clear.” 

 

Student B did not view feedbacks from lecturers as a burden. However, she viewed comments 

or evaluation from lecturer or other classmates were motivating her to better her English writing.  

 
“No. I am not afraid of teacher’s feedback. Teacher’s feedback motivates 

me for my English writing.” 

Similar to Student A, Student B found that it was still overwhelming to write an academic writing. 

Student B reasoned that the most challenging aspect of academic writing was the familiarity of the 

topic. Therefore, it made her doubtful of the content and relevance of the writing.  

 
“… but, I still find (it is) difficult to write high-level of formality text, like 

an essay. The problem is related to the topic. Sometimes, I do not know 

about the topic. … No, it does not mean I do not know what to write, 

miss. I am just doubtful whether my opinions are correct or not” 

 

Student A and Student B faced the similar writing anxiety when writing academic essay. The 

causes were slightly similar, namely topic, choice of words, and technical writing technique. In other 

words, low writing anxiety students still felt anxious in academic writing due to its high demands or 

requirements; not the teacher’s demands or requirements. This study assumed that it is normal to 

happen since English is their foreign languages. In other words, EFL students might overthink to the 

limitation of rich vocabulary, writing technique, and topic knowledge. 

This study found a different case from Student C. Unexpectedly, Student C stated that he 

preferred writing in Bahasa Indonesia to writing in English.  

 
“If I can choose, I prefer to write in Bahasa Indonesia. … because Bahasa 

Indonesia is my first language. So, it is more comfortable for me (to write 

in Bahasa Indonesia).” 

 

The reason of Student C reaching the low writing anxiety was due to his courage toward 

comments or feedbacks, his confidence in English writing, and his confidence of the results. He did 

not feel under pressured or stressed with his English writing exercises. Similar to Student A and B, he 

did not take into his heart when accepting feedbacks, but he interpreted the comments as an 

encouragement. 

 
“I do not feel anxious when writing in English. But, I still choose to write 

in Bahasa Indonesia. … I am not afraid of evaluation from lecturers.” 

 

Despite the low anxiety, Students C still admitted that he still encountered some challenging 

aspects when writing in English. One of the aspects was the use of grammar. He emphasized that he 

was still confused on deciding the correct grammar to use when writing in English. He was also aware 

that it is since English was not his first language, so it was normal if he still produced some errors in 

writing.  

 



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“Yes, Miss. I still find the most difficult thing when writing is grammar. 

Sometimes, I do not know whether my grammar is already correct or not. 

Yeah, English is not my first language.” 

 

From the interviews with three students or participants, it can be summed up that the EFL 

students with low writing anxiety still felt anxious when writing in certain cases. Some still thought 

that their writing technique, knowledge, and vocabulary was not well-equipped to write higher 

demand of writing. Some still encountered linguistic problems to find the most appropriate linguistic 

features to use. It was clearly in accordance with the finding or causes of writing anxiety in which 

linguistic problems became the main obstacle of students of English Language Education, Universitas 

Internasional Batam.  

Case of students with high anxiety 

Table 4 clearly pictured that percentage of students with high writing anxiety took the biggest portion 

in each batch. Therefore, this study conducted an interview to dig deeper analysis of the cases of 

students with high anxiety. Apparently, this study found distinguished cases from each batch.  

Student D already considered that writing was very overwhelming. She tended to compare her 

writing with her classmates’ writing, especially in terms of vocabulary in which she judged that the 

use of vocabulary of her classmates’ writing is even better than hers.  

 
“I am not comfortable when writing in English, Miss. I know that my 

writing is not good. I always compare mine with others. My writing is not 

as good as theirs. 

This comparison might appear since Student D sometimes took her classmates’ writing as 

examples for her references. However, this might lead to either motivating or demotivating her. The 

demotivation might arise in writing tests since she assumed that her writing must be worse than others’.  

“I know that my writing is not good, miss. Sometimes, I see my friend’s 

writing to take example or search for good example. … yes sometimes, 

miss. Sometimes, when doing exercises, I find it motivating me. But, when 

it comes to test, I always think that my writing is the worst.” 

Student D encountered some obstacles when writing in English. The biggest obstacle was to 

structure the words into good sentences. Student D tended to translate each word from Bahasa 

Indonesia to English and had problems with linguistic features of English. These problems led to the 

fear of incompetence to fulfill lecturer’s demand or expectation.  

“My biggest obstacle is how to structure the words and how to make 

sentences. I tend to translate from Bahasa Indonesia to English. 

Sometimes, I do not understand what to write. I know I cannot fulfill 

lecturer’s expectation and I think I become traumatized when writing.” 

Other obstacles were topic knowledge and time constraint. Time constraint extremely affected 

the writing performance. Time constraint caused panic that led to the disappearance of writing ideas. 

Slightly similar, knowledge on topics also affected the writing performance.  

“Deciding on topics depends on my knowledge, miss. … Time constraints 

really affects me (when writing). I will be panic and my mind goes blank, 

especially in tests.” 

Despite those obstacles, the ultimate reason was due to lack of belief on performing good 

writing. Student D already considered that she could not produce good writing since she was not 

equipped with good writing ability. Apparently, the source of the self-doubt in terms of writing ability 

was due to her bad handwriting. Student D’s hand writing was not readable; hence, she directly 



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concluded that no one were able to read her writing. This led to her unconfidence to write, even when 

typing.  

“I already know that my writing is not good. Even, people cannot read 

my handwriting. …yes, although it is typing, I still feel my writing is not 

good, Miss.” 

This study found that it was an interesting as well as heartbreaking finding to disclose that a little 

judgment on a person’s writing might cause a person’s confidence and trust in writing competence. 

Hassan (2001) explained that students with good writing skill might perform worse since they did not 

believe their ability. 

Another interesting case also appeared in Student E. Similar to Student D, Student E felt 

uncomfortable when writing in English. The feeling of uncomfortable was increasing since she found 

that their friend’s comments or evaluations did not even encourage her to write better. Therefore, it 

led them to underestimate her competence on English writing. 

“Yes, Miss. I don’t feel comfortable to write in English. I sometimes ask 

my friends to look at my writing, but I don’t think their comments 

motivate me.” 

The behavior of underestimating of her own competence led the feeling of afraid of lecturer’s 

comments since she already judged her writing as poor. Besides, she was not confident with her 

vocabulary and grammar knowledge as well.  

“I am afraid of comments from lecturer, Miss. Sometimes, I think my 

grammar and vocabulary is not good. I don’t know many vocabularies, 

even when the test, I cannot open a dictionary. It makes me more afraid.” 

After a long interview, Student E admitted that she tended to translate when writing in English. 

Furthermore, she translated each word from Bahasa Melayu to Bahasa Indonesia. After translating 

to Bahasa Indonesia, she translated the words into English. It took a quite long process for Student E 

to write in English. The long process of translating words when writing was getting more tense when 

she was dealing with time constraint that caused her more panic.  

“Yes, Miss. I translate the words when writing. … no, miss I think in 

Bahasa Melayu first. Then, I translate to Bahasa Indonesia and then, (I 

translate to) English. … it gets harder when I have to write in a test 

because of the time limit.” 

This case of Student E was a case that could be dig deeper for richer analysis. It might happen 

to students whose first language is not Bahasa Indonesia. It might also be caused by the environment 

in which Bahasa Indonesia was not spoken daily or Bahasa Indonesia was only taught and used at 

schools.  

Different from Student D & E, Student F did not find any worriedness or fear on lecturer’s 

comments or judgments. She valued that comments or evaluations either from lecturer or classmates 

were beneficial for her to advance her writing ability since she found that comments were encouraging. 

 
“I am not afraid of comments from lecturer of friends. I feel that I need 

their comments so I can make writing better. … I want to improve my 

writing, Miss.” 

 

In a conclusion, Student F had self-motivation to better her writing skills and did not avoid 

to write in English. She sometimes found time to write informal text, such as captions for Instagram. 

The obstacle of Student F came from her lack of competences in grammar. Student F sometimes felt 



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110 

 

hesitant to decide tenses to use and structure a sentence. In addition, another obstacle was tendency 

to translate Bahasa Indonesia to English when writing. In other words, linguistic difficulties caused 

writing anxiety of Student F.  

 
“I sometimes write in English, miss, for example writing captions in 

Instagram. … in my opinion, my writing is not good because I still have 

lack vocabulary. I don’t know how to use tenses and structure sentences. 

… I tend to translate Bahasa Indonesia to English when writing.” 

 

This study found that the main cause of writing anxiety of Student F was linguistic problems. 

Student F found that she was not capable of having a good writing because she found that her English 

competence was poor, especially knowledge of vocabulary and grammar. This finding was also similar 

to the result of this study in which the most dominant cause of writing anxiety was linguistic 

difficulties.  

In a nutshell, students with high writing anxiety might be triggered by several different 

reasons. Most of them admitted that linguistic difficulties were the main cause of writing anxiety. 

Some tended to translate from Indonesia, even from local language, when writing in English.  

Discussion 

This study found out that most EFL students at Universitas Internasional Batam have high writing 

anxiety. Boniface et al. (2008, cited in Miri & Joia, 2018) explained that writing requires focus or 

attention, learning process, visual memory, and good performance. Further, Daud et al., (2007) 

mentioned that writing is quite tough and challenging for EFL students since English is not their first 

language and writing requires high technical requirements, such as grammar, diction or word choice, 

punctuation, and vocabulary.  

This study also discovered that the most dominant type of writing anxiety of EFL students at 

Universitas Internasional Batam was cognitive anxiety. This result was consistent with the study of 

some researchers from Indonesia (See Masriani et al., 2018; Wahyuni & Umam, 2017). In other 

words, it can be concluded that most of EFL students in Indonesia felt the writing anxiety because 

they overthought judgments from teachers and classmates. They sometimes underestimated their 

writing competences or they already thought that their writing was not good.   

Therefore, this study also attempted to search for the cause of writing anxiety of EFL students 

at Universitas Internasional Batam. The results showed that there were three main causes of writing 

anxiety, namely linguistic difficulties, time pressure, and insufficient writing technique. The first 

dominant cause is linguistic difficulties, the second most dominant cause is time pressure, and the 

third most dominant cause is insufficient writing technique. 

Linguistic difficulties became the main cause of writing anxiety of EFL students at Universitas 

Internasional Batam. Cheng (2004) mentioned that one of the causes of writing anxiety was linguistic 

difficulties. In other words, EFL students at Universitas Internasional Batam still had problems with 

the competences in grammar and vocabulary. It confirmed the results of interview that the students 

still tended to translate the words from Bahasa Indonesia to English when they were writing. Some 

students were still confused on how to structure the words and make sentences in English.  

Even, the results of interview indicated that some students with low anxiety still think that their 

linguistic competences are not sufficient, specially dealing with grammar. Writing anxiety is common 

among advanced EFL learners (Marcos-Llinas & Garau, 2009, cited in Miri & Joia, 2018). In 

addition, students think that formal writing limits their writing freedom and creativity (Lin, 2009, cited 

in Miri & Joia, 2018). However, the essential point lied on the way the students with low anxiety 

attempted to handle their anxiety more positively, such as overcoming the fear of comments or fear 

of making errors and not avoiding to write in English. In addition, Zhang (2011) claimed that language 

of difficulties might affect the students to become lazier to write. Hence, this study may suggest to the 

lecturers and students to provide more time to sharpen the knowledge of English grammar and 

vocabularies at Universitas Internasional Batam to help the students to have a better writing.  

The second most dominant cause was time pressure. This cause might relate to the language 

difficulties that were faced by the students. The students were not equipped with good linguistic 

knowledge that affected their confidence when writing with time constraints. Rezaei and Jafari (2014) 

assumed that time constraint caused students to feel more pressured since writing is a productive skill. 



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Some students admitted that they could not find any idea to write when writing with time limit since 

they were also expected to fulfill the expectation from the lecturers.  

The third most dominant cause was insufficient writing technique. Hassan (2001) mentioned 

that writing demands many requirements, such as grammar, mechanics, word choice, coherence, idea 

organization, and etc. These demands affected the EFL students who did not have good writing 

competence to feel anxious when writing in English. This statement was in line with the result of 

interview. Students with high writing anxiety found that they were not equipped with good writing 

technique, such as making words into good sentences, structuring ideas, selecting the tenses 

(grammar), and etc. In addition, students with low anxiety also felt the same experience. They found 

that their writing technique was not sufficient when they were expected to write higher demand of 

writing that requires them to have higher writing techniques. Therefore, the lecturers of English 

Language Education, Universitas Internasional Batam, need to give more practices and feedbacks to 

the students to sharpen and improve their writing techniques. They can implement ungraded writing 

activities. Sharp (1997, cited in Syarifudin, 2020) proposed ungraded writing activities to help the 

students to manage their anxiety when they have to write in English. The examples of upgrading 

writing activity are journal writing, free writing, and paper revision. 

In a nutshell, it is common for EFL students to have high writing anxiety. The writing anxiety 

were caused by several aspects, such as linguistic problems, time pressure, and insufficient writing 

technique. Students with both high and low writing anxiety admitted that they still experienced 

linguistic problems and insufficient writing techniques when it comes to writing with higher demand. 

Therefore, similar to other previous studies, linguistic problems still became the main cause of writing 

anxiety. 

CONCLUSION 

Writing in English may be overwhelming for EFL College Students since English is not their first 

language. Therefore, it is normal that the EFL College Students feel anxious when writing in English. 

Students may have different levels of anxiety depending on some certain causes. This study found that 

the most dominant level of writing anxiety in English Language Education (ELE) students at 

Universitas Internasional Batam is high-level writing anxiety (71.43%). Meanwhile, the students with 

moderate anxiety reach 20.41% and low anxiety is 8.16%. The distribution of the proportion of the 

levels is similar to each grade. In other words, students with the low anxiety reaches the lowest 

percentage and high anxiety reaches the highest percentage in each batch. In conclusion, the higher 

the grade does not affect students to have lower writing anxiety.  

In terms of types of writing anxiety, this study found that the cognitive anxiety was the most 

dominant type of writing anxiety with the means of 26.37. On the other hand, somatic anxiety reached 

the mean of 26.08 and avoidance behavior reached the mean of 18.98. When studying the cause of 

writing anxiety, this study found that the most dominant causes of writing anxiety was linguistic 

difficulties, time pressure, and insufficient writing technique. Students with low writing anxiety still 

felt anxious when they were writing high-formality text that needs high demand and felt unconfident 

with their linguistic competence. On the other hand, students with high writing anxiety may have 

various causes. Some students had a low confidence when writing. Some students were not equipped 

with good linguistic competence, especially knowledge in grammar and vocabulary. Some students 

might have special case in which they need to translate words by words from their local language to 

English.  Therefore, by knowing deeply the cause of writing anxiety experienced by the students, it is 

expected that the results can contribute as a foundation for the development of appropriate teaching 

methods/strategies/techniques to provide solutions to minimize students’ writing anxiety. Besides, 

this study may contribute to the development or improvement of curriculum structure of English 

Language Education to prepare their students to equip the students with sufficient linguistic 

competences that may help them to have better writing techniques.  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

The author would like to appreciate Universitas Internasional Batam for giving the opportunity to the 

author to conduct this research. This research is a part of Internal Research Grant provided by 

Universitas Internasional Batam for the lecturers. Therefore, the fund for this research and its 

publication is from Universitas Internasional Batam. The author also would like to thank English 

Language Education, Universitas Internasional Batam, especially the students who became the subject 

of this research to spare their time to fill in the questionnaire and be interviewed.  



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