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Writing instruction in the ESL classroom has evolved dramatically over the last few decades. Now, the focus has shifted from the final product of writing to the process of writing. The writing process is divided into three main stages: prewriting, writing and rewriting (Murray, 1985). This change has encouraged educators to look for strategies that focus on the writing process systematically and involve the learners to be focused and active at every stage of writing. One of the strategies that has been gaining popularity is self-assessment. It refers to teaching methods such as self-assessment checklist that prompt student writers to carefully think about, assess and respond to their written work systematically (Nielson, 2014). This study investigates the perception of teachers and students on the usefulness of a self-assessment checklist to assist students in the argumentative writing. Self-assessment Checklist for Undergraduate Argumentative Writing designed by Nimehchisalem et al. (2014) is used in this study. Feedback was obtained from four university writing lecturers through the Delphi method. The checklist was then implemented in the undergraduate writing classroom for a period of five weeks and students’ perception on the usability of the checklist was recorded through interviews. Observations were made to understand the implementation process of the checklist. From the experts’ feedback, a few changes were made to the checklist by adding, deleting, rewording and re-arranging items to ensure the checklist is more user- friendly. The experts perceived the checklist to be an effective tool in that it would reduce their workload especially regarding the amount of time spent providing feedback to the students. Students reported the checklist motivated them to write, created awareness on their writing ability, enhanced their understanding of argumentative writing, made them independent writers, and assisted them in writing more systematically. The observation enlightened the researchers on the items that needed more assistance or explanation from teacher during the training session.

In Malaysia, teacher feedback is highly preferred by students, who often believe that teachers know best. Teacher feedback shows them their teacher’s idea of an ideal writing. However, excessive dependence on teachers adds to their workload. Therefore, teachers are increasingly promoting two other alternative methods that are gradually gaining importance. These methods are peer feedback and self-assessment. This study investigates ESL students’ perceptions toward teacher feedback, peer feedback and self-assessment in students’ writing process. Questionnaires, adapted from the instruments in the literature, were administered to 107 randomly selected students in a private local university in Malaysia. Students found feedback given to the content and organization of their writing more useful than feedback provided for their vocabulary and grammar. It was also found that students perceived feedback from teacher, peers and self-assessment all as highly useful. Additionally the results indicated while there was no significant difference (p > .05) between the students’ perceptions toward teacher feedback and self-assessment, they were both perceived as significantly more useful (p < .001) than peer feedback. The students also perceived explicit feedback as significantly more useful (p < .001) than implicit feedback. The results of this study have implications for English language learning-teaching practitioners and researchers. They shed light on the options preferred by students in revising their writing in ESL writing classrooms. Future research on the effects of teacher feedback, peer feedback and self-assessment on students’ writing performance will provide better insight on the preferred methods in ESL writing classrooms in similar settings.