Freewriting as a means of overcoming writing blocks in academic EFL contexts: opportunities and limitations

The article explores the freewriting method and its influence on the alleviation of writing challenges, such as the writer’s block, among second-year students of the Ural Federal University majoring in linguistics and other subjects. It presents the results of an experimental study in which 46 students took part, 29 from a linguistic program and 17 from a non-linguistic field. The following data were collected and analysed: the number of words students wrote in each writing iteration, uncommon elements (smiles, corrections, etc.), survey results, and general observations of the participants. The findings show that over half of the participants showed a positive trend in word count (51% of students of linguistics and 70% of the other group). Having analysed the uncommon elements, we can conclude that there is an increased expressive freedom, particularly among linguistics students. According to the survey, students positively evaluated the practice as reducing anxiety and building confidence when writing. However, there were several challenges. For instance, lack of motivation among some students, fear of negative evaluation, lack of the standard feedback from the teachers, distractions (e.g., classroom noise), extraneous factors (e.g., mood), declining novelty with repeated practice, challenges following the instructions that deviated from familiar writing formats. These results and the solutions detailed in the article can be used for further research of the freewriting method in education.