Taybat Izat Dewali
University of Duhok/College of Basic Education

Abstract

Contemporary education calls for the use of learner-centered learning and teaching
environment over the traditional education where students are passive learners. As many other
disciplines, English as a foreign language can be best learned in a learner-centered approach.
Writing skill has always been taught in a teacher centered approach in schools which made
students graduate with poor writing skills. Therefore, researchers believe that in order to
develop the writing skill of English as a foreign language learners, the use of a learner-centered
approach is recommended. For this reason, a new educational system called the Bologna
Process which is based on a learner centered approach is currently being implemented in some
departments and colleges in the University of Duhok. This study has been conducted to
investigate the effectiveness of the learner-centered approach on the learners’ writing skill, the
learner’s attitudes towards learning academic writing in a learner-centered teaching and
learning environment, and to find out which learner-centered based activity students mostly
prefer to be used when learning academic writing. For this purpose, a qualitative research
method was used; 16 students from the English Language Department/ College of Basic
Education were interviewed. The participants were both males (4) and females (12). The results
showed that students find the learner-centered approach to have a positive effect on their
writing skill since it helped enhance their knowledge, grammar, vocabulary, spelling,
punctuation, brainstorming methods and made them better master the way an essay is
structured and organized. As result, they have developed a positive attitude towards the learnercentered
teaching and would want to continue learning academic writing in such an
atmosphere. The findings also revealed that the most preferred learner centered activities are
students’ presentations and group work. Finally, the study ends up with some conclusions,
pedagogical implications, recommendations and suggestions for future research.