THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SELF-PERCEIVED AND ACTUAL WRITING PROFICIENCY AMONG MOROCCAN HIGH SCHOOL EFL LEARNERS

Author: Jamal Labradhi

ABSTRACT

The paper in hands investigates the relationship between Moroccan high school EFL learners’ self-perceived and actual paragraph writing proficiency. Employing a quantitative correlational cross-sectional design, this study examined 50 high school students (aged 17-20) from two public high schools in Jorf El Melha. Data were collected through a 5-item Likert scale questionnaire measuring perceived writing ability across five dimensions (overall paragraph writing, grammar, mechanics, cohesion, and coherence) and a 60-minute paragraph writing task. The results revealed that participants perceived their writing abilities as below moderate (M = 2.38-2.58), while actual performance varied across the five dimensions. Spearman correlation analysis revealed positive correlations exist between self-perceptions and actual abilities in mechanics, cohesion, and coherence. Surprisingly, a strong negative correlation emerged for grammar. These findings highlight the need for integrating explicit metacognitive training and shifting from rule-based to functional grammar instruction in Moroccan EFL writing classroom in order to enhance both writing proficiency and self-assessment accuracy.

Keywords: self-perceived writing proficiency, actual writing proficiency, metacognitive awareness, self-efficacy, paragraph writing.

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