# From Struggle to Mastery: AI-Powered Writing Skills in ESL Education
## 3 Research Gap, Questions, and Aims of This Study  
Although the Writing Workshop Instructional Model (WWIM) has been widely implemented and studied across international educational contexts [27; 28], its application within Colombian secondary education--particularly in English as a Second Language (ESL) settings--remains notably underexplored. Most research conducted in Colombia and other similar contexts has concentrated on lower-order writing skills [29], such as spelling [30], vocabulary use [31], and sentence-level grammar [32], often neglecting more complex aspects of academic writing like content development, organizational structure, textual cohesion, and coherence [17]. This limited focus poses a significant gap in the literature, as it fails to address the holistic set of competencies required for academic success in bilingual environments. The lack of emphasis on advanced writing conventions leaves both students and teachers without structured, evidence-based models for developing higher-level writing proficiency in English. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline
**Author** & **Methodology** & **Key Findings** & **Relation to the Present Study** \\ \hline [PERSON] [21] & Mixed methods & \begin{tabular}{c} ChatGPT as a formative tool \\ significantly improved \\ grammar, coherence, and \\ content in academic essays. \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} Demonstrates positive effect \\ of ChatGPT with proper \\ scaffolding in higher \\ ed contexts. \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline [PERSON] [22] & Mixed methods & \begin{tabular}{c} Personalized feedback, \\ vocabulary improvement, \\ autonomy; but contextual \\ relevance and creativity \\ were concerns. \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} Illustrates benefits and \\ challenges of ChatGPT with \\ young adult learners. \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline [PERSON] et al. [23] & Qualitative evaluation & \begin{tabular}{c} ChatGPT feedback on \\ cohesion/coherence was often \\ generic and \\ insufficiently targeted. \\ \end{tabular} & \begin{tabular}{c} Highlights need to guide AI \\ usage for effective feedback \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline [PERSON] et al. [24] & \begin{tabular}{c} Exploratory \\ mixed methods \\ \end{tabular} & \
\begin{tabular}{c} Identified four editing \\ behaviors: \\ top–down/bottom–up \\ planning and revising patterns \\ while using AI text. \\ \end{tabular} &
\begin{tabular}{c} Directly relevant to our target \\ population and instructional \\ context (secondary school) \\ \end{tabular} \\ \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 1: Selected relevant studies. At the same time, while recent studies have highlighted the potential of AI-powered tools to enhance writing performance--particularly in relation to grammar, coherence, and stylistic refinement [1, 5]--their integration into formal instructional frameworks in secondary ESL contexts remains insufficiently documented. Most of the existing research has centered on higher education or adult learners in autonomous or exploratory settings, offering limited insights into how these tools can be effectively incorporated into established pedagogical models like WWIM. For instance, although students increasingly rely on AI feedback mechanisms such as Grammarly and ChatGPT to support revision processes, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how adolescent learners interpret, apply, and reflect on this feedback within structured, teacher-guided writing workshops. This gap is particularly salient given the cognitive and linguistic demands associated with academic writing in a second language, and the need for scaffolding strategies adapted to learners' developmental stages and linguistic profiles [15, 33, 34]. To address this dual gap--both pedagogical and technological--this study investigates the combined use of WWIM and AI-powered writing tools in a bilingual secondary school in Colombia.