Students’ Difficulties in Writing in English Language

English language is no doubt one of the most used and influential languages around the world. In Albania, English language learning starts since 6-year-old age. Therefore, many studies and research have been done concerning English language and competences. When studying a foreign language, writing is considered as the most demanding and crucial competence. Based on previous studies in Albania, students tend to face difficulties during the writing process. They lack the necessary writing skills needed to have a successful writing performance and they claim that further attention and importance should be given to the writing process by teachers. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to identify the most common errors that Albanian students make in writing and what difficulties they have when it comes to it. The data is provided through a writing task in the form of an essay to second year English language students. There were 47 students of English Language at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Tirana, taking part in the research. Based on the study data, students mostly made grammatical and vocabulary mistakes. They were aware of the patterns used in different writing types and they made less mistakes compared to other errors considered in the study. Even though they tend to be careful not to think in Albanian, its influence is obvious in their writing, especially when it comes to the word order of clauses and sentences. Considering the findings, some practical recommendations have been made in the end.