Résumé:
Writing is an extremely difficult skill to be mastered by learners, particularly for beginners at
middle schools. As a result, many students struggle to compose good pieces of writing. The
present research is an attempt to investigate the writing difficulties that fourth year middle
school students (MS4) encounter. The main objective of this study is to shed light on the areas
of difficulty in writing that MS4 students face under the implementation of Competency-
Based approach (CBA) with consideration of teachers‟ perceptions of them as well. In the
current study, it has been hypothesized that if the writing skill is taught appropriately
according to the principle of the CBA, students would find less problems in writing. The
dissertation is organized in the form of three chapters. Two theoretical chapters discussing the
writing skill and the CBA principles as key parts in that research. Moreover, the third chapter
is about the research methodology and aims at collecting the data meant to achieve the
aforementioned aim. Thus, to achieve such an aim, the study was carried out through a test
and two questionnaires designed for both teachers and students. Students‟ questionnaire and
the test were addressed to all MS4 students in Laouar Ammar Middle School. However,
Teacher‟ questionnaire was administered to ten (10) belonging to that school and other seven
middle schools. Consequently, the results have confirmed the research hypothesis as they
reveal that MS4 students actually face enormous problems while writing under the application
of CBA. These problems are chiefly concerned with clarity, accuracy, spelling, vocabulary,
mechanics, steps of the writing process, handwriting and motivation. In addition, the results
evoked that the CBA is not appropriately implemented. On account of these findings, some
recommendations have been suggested as an attempt to overcome those difficulties.
