IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PROCESS ORIENTED APPROACH

1 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY - - LE THI THANH HUYEN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PROCESS ORIENTED APPROACH Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Code: 60.14.01.11 MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Quyet, Ph D NGHE AN - 2017 2 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Nguyen Thi Quyet, Ph.D for the continuous support of my research, for her patience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge Her guidance helped me in all the time of the research I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all my lecturers at the Department of Post-graduate Studies, Department of Foreign Languages, Vinh University, whose support and considerations have enabled me to pursue the course I would also like to express my thanks to my colleagues at Quang Trung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa who helped me in providing the materials, collecting and analyzing data, as well as grading and evaluating the students’ tests I am also thankful to my students from two classes A, B at Quang Trung Secondary School for their whole-hearted participation in the research Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my parents, my younger sister, my beloved husband who have always inspired and encouraged me to complete this study 3 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have not been published elsewhere Author Le Thi Thanh Huyen 4 ABSTRACT This study aims at investigating the effect of using the process oriented approach to improve grade students' writing skills at Quang Trung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa The purpose is to determine how the process oriented approach can improve grade students in writing skills and how effective is the process writing approach in helping grade students at Quang Trung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa improve their writing habits and their use of writing strategies The study uses pre-questionnaire and postquestionnaire, pre-test and post-test as instruments to gather data The results of the study show that the process oriented approach has positively improved grade students’ writing skills at Quang Trung Secondary School It helps to bring about positive changes in most students’ attitudes towards writing and improvements in their writing habits POA also helps the students to improve their writing performance and to learn how to use the strategies at each stage of the process of writing Based on the research results of this study, the researcher gives pedagogical implications and suggestions to teachers and students in teaching and learning writing 5 TABLES OF CONTENTS Page 6 LIST OF TABLES Page LIST OF FIGURES Page 7 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS POA: Process Oriented Approach 8 CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale Language learning in school is very much related to the four language skills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Among the four skills in English lessons in secondary school, writing remains the commonest way of examining student performance, especially for examinations However, according to recent test results from the Educational Testing Service (ETS), writing has been the most problematic to Vietnamese test takers Teaching English writing in Vietnamese Secondary Schools is a challenging job for many Vietnamese English teachers because it requires not only high language competence among the teachers themselves, but also the application of appropriate writing instruction Hoang Thuy (2009) says that most of the English teachers in Vietnam find writing a complicated skill to teach, which, more or less, affects the students’ learning outcomes The problems of teaching EFL writing can be found in such questions as how to make EFL students aware of why they should write in English, how to teach students to write, how to give feedback to students’ writing, and how to assess students’ writing skills In most writing classes at Quang Trung Secondary School, the teacher usually provides learners with a topic and a related model text The teacher picks out sentences from the model texts for learners to study grammatical structures; how and what to write are seldom discussed The communicative purpose and audience of the texts seem to be ignored The teacher does not focus much on the content of the model texts, but focuses more on the language form Learners use neither writing strategies nor the knowledge of the writing process when they produce their own writing texts Such a 9 teaching approach results in learners’ failure in producing a written text unless the topic for writing is similar as the one they had been taught by their teacher Many learners not pay attention to the communicative purpose and audience of their writings; they just want to produce a text free of grammatical mistakes As a consequence, in writing classes, what learners can produce is mostly an imitation of the model text given by their teacher with the similar topic Besides, the teacher is considered the center of writing classes in many settings in Vietnam Interaction is commonly one way, from the teacher to learners The teacher provides knowledge and learners play the roles of knowledge receivers and imitators, without many pair work or group work activities This results in the passive learning attitudes among learners The teacher does not provide learners with discovery tasks to stimulate their participation and to integrate all the receptive and productive skills in the classroom activities Learners are supposed to reproduce what they have been provided with to produce texts of similar topics In Vietnam, many EFL teachers focus on the correction of learners’ grammatical errors rather than communicative discourse when they assess learners’ writings, even if these grammatical errors not affect the meaning conveyed Learners who make grammatical mistakes will not earn high scores even though they have good ideas In contrast, learners who not make any mistakes with grammar could get better scores although their writings not seem to be communicative For these reasons, learners tend to focus on grammar in their writing as they expect their teachers to give them good scores However, focusing solely on grammar correction is not very helpful, but even harmful in judging learners’ writing (Truscott, 1996) since a quality piece of writing is more than just grammatically correct 10 10 In addition, most writing activities in the Vietnamese secondary syllabus are designed on the basis of the product oriented approach, in which students are encouraged to mimic a model text, which is usually presented and analyzed at an early stage This discourages students’ creativity because they cannot use their own experiences to express themselves All they have to is to answer comprehension questions, to fill in the blanks with the provided information, or to build complete sentences using the given cues in order to make a meaningful letter, and so on This controlled writing format hinders teachers in trying new approaches in writing instruction Teacher feedback focuses more on grammatical and lexical errors instead of meaning oriented exploration In brief, under such a syllabus, students are mainly evaluated by their test scores According to Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Van Van (2007), the approach to teaching writing in secondary schools is a combination of a number of approaches (the controlled composition, the free writing approach, the paragraph pattern approach, the communicative approach, and the process approach), in which the communicative and the process approaches play a dominant role However, most language teachers in secondary schools still adopt the product oriented approaches in the writing class because the writing tasks in the textbook are presented on the base of controlled composition and the paragraph pattern approach These product oriented approaches, therefore, have been the dominant mode of instruction in secondary school writing classes, emphasizing students’ final pieces of work rather than the way how they are produced As a result, students’ quality of EFL writing is evaluated on the basis of the final product and grammatical and linguistic accuracy Furthermore, due to this product focus, students pay little attention to the whole process of writing and 93 LANGUAGE 93 complex constructions; several errors of agreement, tense, number, word order/ function, articles, pronouns, 0.750.5 prepositions but meaning seldom obscured Major problems in simple/ complex constructions; frequent errors of negation, agreement, tense, number, USE word order/ function, articles, pronouns, prepositions and/ or fragments, run-ons, deletions; meaning confused or obscured 0.25-0 Virtually no mastery of sentence construction rules; MECHANICS dominated by errors, does not communicate; or not 0.75 0.5 enough to evaluate Occasional errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing but meaning not obscured Frequent errors of spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing; poor handwriting; meaning confused or obscured No mastery of conventions; dominated by errors of 0.25 spelling, punctuation, capitalization, paragraphing; handwriting illegible, or not enough to evaluate (Adapted from Jacobs et al.’s (1981) and from Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Van Van, 2007) 93 94 94 APPENDIX MARKING SHEET (for graders’ evaluation) Student’s name: Class: ………………………………………………… Date: …………… Aspects Score(s) Grader’s signature Content Organization Vocabulary Language use Mechanics Final Results / 10 94 Comment(s) 95 95 APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE (on students’ evaluation of POA) Check () the statements that best fit your opinions according to the - degree scale N Statements o The writing process Somewhat Much Not much oriented approach How much you like the writing program? How useful is the program? How easy is the program? Strategies 1 1 How useful are the Useful following strategies? Planning Brainstorming Drafting Revising Editing 95 Somewhat useful Not useful 96 96 How easy it is to manage the following Easy strategies? 2 2 Planning Brainstorming Drafting Revising Editing 96 Somewhat easy Not easy 97 97 APPENDIX LESSON PLAN SAMPLE LESSON PLAN UNIT 7: POLLUTION Lesson 5: Writing Date of planning: 13/01/2017 Date of teaching: 23/ 01/ 2017 Rationale: There are so many types of pollution in our area with dramatic effects We should understand deeply the causes and effects of pollution and find the solutions to reduce it effectively Prescribed Learning Outcome(s): It is expected that students will be able to understand and write essays about types of pollutions fluently and enhance awareness to reduce pollutions Instructional Objective(s): Students will:  Write an essay about one of types of pollution  Discuss and make notes about the causes and effects of pollution  Use vocabularies related to the topic “pollution”, and understand their meaning in text  Use correctly structures: Firstly, Secondly, 97 98 98 Finally, Prerequisite Concepts and Skills: Students have knowledge about types of pollution, students know how to construct proper sentences Students improve reading and writing skills and apply vocabularies and structures in their real life and can be aware of what they should to reduce pollutions Materials: Lesson plan, pictures, teacher’s book, students’ book, LCD projector Lesson Activities: Stages Students’ Teacher’s Activities Models Activities Time PreT asks Ss to look at the Look at the Whole class writing picture on LCD projector picture Building and ask to answer the Knowledg questions: e of Field 1) What is it? (8’) 2) What you know about pollution? Answer the Whole class 3) How many kinds of questions pollution you know? 4) Which pollution is the most serious in our area? 5) What are the causes and effects of pollution? Do you have any solutions for this? Describe the Whole class T asked Ss to describe the picture picture T asks St to look at the text about “Water Pollution” on the LCD projector Discuss and Pair work T asks Ss to work in pairs find out new and discuss together with vocabularies the class to find out new vocabularies and help to Translate the Group work explain it text into T asks Ss to translate the Vietnamese text into Vietnamese Modeling T asks Ss to get the main Discuss and Group work ideas and supporting details get the main Of Text among the paragraphs ideas and 98 99 99 (7’) While Writing Outlining (10’) T asks Ss to discuss their results with other groups to confirm it T also reminds Ss to use words like “firstly, secondly, finally” to express their points T asks the Ss to reread the text about “Water Pollution” T asks Ss to work in groups to start making guidedoutlines T asks Ss to share and check the results of discussion with other groups T asks Ss to display their outline T asks Ss to discuss the guided-outline with the class led by the teacher T asks Ss to make freeoutlines based on their own ideas T asks Ss to share their own outlines with classmates Drafting (10’) Post writing Editing (10’) supporting among paragraphs Reread text the Whole class Group work Discuss to making guided – outline Group work Share outline with other groups Display the Whole class guided outline Discuss the outline Individually Make outline free Whole class Share outline with classmate T asks Ss to develop their Develop their Individually own outline into drafts outline into individually and T moves drafts around to help them (If needed) Interchange T asks Ss to interchange their drafts Whole class their drafts with others with others T asks Ss to evaluate others’ Use symbols Whole class drafts by checking and of mistake annotating the mistakes and annotation for errors analyzing the T provided Ss symbols of students’ 99 100 Homewor k 100 mistake annotation T asks Ss to report their result of editing and proofreading in front of the class in turn T gives Ss feedbacks about analyzing the drafts Write an article for the local newspaper about a type of pollution in your area 100 drafts Whole class Report the results of editing and proofreading Individually 101 101 APPENDIX TOPICS FOR WRITING (Based on unit topics) Unit 7: Pollution Writing about the causes and effects of one of type of pollution Unit 8: English Speaking Countries Describing a schedule for a visit or a tour Unit 9: Natural Disasters Writing a news report on a natural disaster Review Writing an email to a friend to ask him/her to participate activities in fight pollution day Unit 10: Communication Writing an email using netiquette Unit 11: Science and Technology Writing to give opinions about the future roles of science and technology Unit 12: Life on the other planets Describing people on another planet Review Writing an online message to a friend to tell him/ her about the problems you have had recently with your iPad (Source: Tieng Anh (Pilot Program) by Ministry of education, 2016) 101 102 102 102 103 103 APPENDIX 10 The detailed scores in the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group Pre-test and post-test results of the experimental group Pre-test No Name of Students Lê Trung Anh Content Organi zation Vocabu lary 0.9 Post-test Language Mecha Total Conten Organi Voca Language Mecha To Use nics Scores t zation bulary Use nics Sco 1.6 0.5 2.8 1.2 1.1 0.7 Lê Quang Châu 1.6 0.9 1.4 0.6 5.5 2.5 1.1 0.9 1.9 0.7 Lê Trung Cường 1.9 1.2 1.1 1.4 0.4 2.2 1.2 1.2 1.8 0.6 Trịnh Minh Đức 2.2 1 1.7 0.5 6.4 2.8 1.2 1.9 0.7 Lê Thị Hà 2.3 0.7 0.7 1.8 0.4 5.9 0.9 0.9 1.9 0.6 Lê Quỳnh Hân 1.7 1.1 1.1 1.6 0.5 2.5 1.1 1.2 0.7 Trọng Nguyễn Hưng Nguyễn Văn Huy 1.9 0.9 1.1 1.7 0.5 6.1 2.4 0.9 0.9 1.9 0.8 2.8 0.9 1.9 0.5 7.1 1.2 1.3 0.8 Lê Châu Huyền 2.1 1.1 0.9 1.8 0.5 6.4 2.6 0.9 0.7 10 Lê Nhật Khải 2.2 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.4 2.5 0.9 1.2 0.7 11 Nguyễn Việt Khoa 1.6 0.9 1.6 0.5 5.6 2.2 1.1 1.8 0.6 12 Nguyễn Lan Khôi 1.9 0.7 0.6 1.7 0.4 5.3 2.1 0.9 1.1 1.8 0.6 13 Lê Thị Thanh Linh 2.1 0.7 0.7 1.8 0.4 5.7 2.6 1.2 0.7 103 7 104 104 14 Lê Thanh Long 0.9 0.9 1.9 0.6 6.3 2.6 1.1 0.9 0.7 15 Nguyễn Chí Nghi 2.3 0.9 1.1 1.7 0.4 6.4 1.1 1.1 1.8 0.8 16 Nguyễn Thế Nghi 1.9 0.8 0.8 1.7 0.5 5.7 2.3 1.1 1.2 1.9 0.6 17 Đặng Ngọc Nhi 2.1 1.1 1.8 0.4 6.4 2.6 1.2 1.2 0.7 18 Nguyễn Bá Nhung 1.6 0.9 0.9 1.6 0.5 5.5 2.6 1.1 0.9 1.8 0.7 Ngọc 19 Nguyễn Phong 20 Nguyên Lê Phương 1.9 0.7 0.7 1.5 0.5 5.3 2.5 1.2 1.1 1.7 0.7 2.1 0.7 0.7 1.6 0.4 5.5 2.8 1.1 1.1 1.8 0.7 21 Lê Thuý Phương 1.9 0.7 0.7 1.9 0.5 5.7 2.7 1.1 0.8 22 Lê Thị Quyết 1.9 0.9 0.9 1.6 0.6 5.9 2.6 1.2 1.2 1.8 0.8 23 Phạm Đức Quỳnh 1.8 0.7 0.8 1.6 0.5 5.4 2.5 1.1 1.2 1.7 0.6 24 Lê Ngọc Sơn 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.5 2.8 1.2 1.2 1.8 0.7 25 Lê Phú Sơn 2.2 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.3 2.8 1.1 1.1 1.9 0.8 26 Vũ Khắc Tâm 1.9 0.8 0.8 1.9 0.6 2.6 1.2 1.1 2.1 0.6 27 Lê Mai Thư 1.1 1.8 0.5 6.4 2.6 1.2 1.2 1.8 0.8 28 Nguyễn Minh Thư 1.1 1.8 0.5 6.4 2.6 1.2 1.1 0.7 29 Nguyễn Linh Uyên 2.2 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.4 2.7 1.2 1.2 1.9 0.8 30 Nguyễn Hà Yên 1.9 0.8 1.8 0.5 2.5 1.1 1.1 0.6 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.5 2.6 1.1 1.1 1.9 0.7 Mean 104 105 105 APPENDIX 11 The detailed scores in the pre-test and post-test of the control group Pre-test and post-test results of the control group Pre-test Post-test Total Total Conte Organiza Vocabula Langua Mechan Conte Organiza Vocabul Langua Mechan No Name of Students Scor Score nt tion ry ge Use ics nt tion ary ge Use ics es s Lê Huỳnh Anh 1.6 0.9 0.9 1.4 0.5 5.3 2.1 1.1 0.9 1.6 0.5 6.2 Lê Khắc Anh 1 1.6 0.6 6.2 2.1 0.9 1.4 0.6 Nguyễn Văn Ba 1.9 1.2 1.1 1.4 0.4 1.2 1.1 1.4 0.4 6.1 Thiều Băng Băng 2.2 1 1.7 0.5 6.4 2.2 1.1 1.9 0.5 6.7 Phạm Thị Bắc 2.3 0.7 0.7 1.8 0.4 5.9 1.1 1.1 1.8 0.4 6.4 Lê Trung Bộ 1.7 1.1 1.1 1.6 0.5 2.1 1.1 1.1 1.8 0.5 6.6 Nguyễn Giang 1.9 0.9 1.7 0.5 2.2 0.9 1.2 1.7 0.5 6.5 Trần Minh Hân 2.8 0.9 1.1 1.9 0.5 7.2 2.3 1.2 1.2 0.6 7.3 Phạm Đức Hiếu 2.1 1.1 0.9 1.8 0.5 6.4 2.2 1.1 1.2 2.2 0.5 7.2 10 Phạm Văn Huân 2.2 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.4 2.2 0.9 1.7 0.5 6.3 11 Lê Minh Huy 1.6 0.9 1.6 0.5 5.6 0.9 1.6 0.5 12 Đồng Trọng Huy 1.9 0.7 0.6 1.7 0.4 5.3 1.9 1 1.9 0.4 6.2 105 106 106 13 Trần Lý Khánh 2.1 0.7 0.7 1.8 0.4 5.7 2.1 0.9 0.7 1.8 0.4 5.9 14 Lê Huỳnh Khôi 0.9 0.9 1.9 0.6 6.3 2.2 1.2 2.1 0.6 7.1 15 Trần Thanh Kiên 2.3 0.9 1.1 1.7 0.4 6.4 2.3 0.9 1.2 2.1 0.4 6.9 16 Võ Duy Linh 1.9 0.8 0.8 1.7 0.5 5.7 2.2 1.2 2.1 0.5 17 Lê Văn Nam 2.1 1.1 1.8 0.4 6.4 2.1 1.1 1.1 1.8 0.4 6.5 18 Lại Ngọc Nghi 1.6 0.9 0.9 1.6 0.5 5.5 0.9 1.8 0.5 6.2 19 Bùi Ngọc Nguyên 1.9 0.7 0.7 1.5 0.5 5.3 1.9 0.9 0.7 1.8 0.5 5.8 20 Nguyễn Lê Nhân 2.1 0.7 0.7 1.6 0.4 5.5 0.7 1.6 0.4 5.7 21 Trịnh Thế Nhi 1.9 0.7 0.7 1.9 0.5 5.7 2.1 0.9 0.9 1.9 0.5 6.3 22 Hoàng Thị Nhi 1.9 0.9 0.9 1.6 0.6 5.9 0.9 0.9 1.6 0.6 23 Nguyễn Thu Như 1.8 0.7 0.8 1.6 0.5 5.4 2.1 0.8 0.8 1.6 0.5 5.8 24 Lê Uyên Phương Hoàng Minh 25 Quân Nguyễn Văn 26 Quân Hoàng Trung 27 Tâm 28 Lê Thế Tân Hoàng Minh 29 Thái 30 Nguyễn Đức Văn 1.9 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.5 5.9 0.9 1.8 0.5 6.2 2.2 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.3 2.2 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.3 1.9 0.8 0.8 1.9 0.6 1.1 0.8 1.9 0.6 6.4 1.1 1.8 0.5 6.4 2.1 1.1 1.1 0.5 6.8 1.1 1.8 0.5 6.4 2.1 1.1 1.9 0.5 6.6 2.2 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.4 2.2 0.9 1.7 0.6 6.4 0.8 1.8 0.5 6.1 2.1 1.1 1.1 1.8 0.5 6.6 0.9 0.9 1.7 0.5 2.1 1 1.8 0.5 6.4 Mean 106 107 107 107 ... ? ?Improving students’ writing skills through process oriented approach? ?? in order to develop and apply it in teaching writing skills With the hope that can improve the students’ motivation and writing. .. program of applying the process oriented approach to teaching and learning English writing to find out how can the process oriented approach improve students’ writing skills and writing habits for... product oriented approach The process oriented approach may include identified stages of the writing process such as: pre -writing, writing and re -writing Hence, choosing the appropriate approach