(SKKN 2022) adapting writing activities in english 11 to motivate 11th graders at tinh gia 3 high school to learn english writing skill

1 Introduction 1.1 The reason for choosing the subject In the process of globalization, English has played an increasingly important role in various fields, such as: science, business, education, crosscultural communication and especially, method to communicate verbally with the outside world and to access technology In Vietnam, English has been brought into the school curriculum as a compulsory subject, and the teaching and learning of that international language has been recently paid great attention to When teaching English, the teacher teaches his students not only the English language but also its usage And under the right guidance, right help of the teacher, the students have to try their best to master language skills: reading, writing, listening and speaking in order to communicate in English successfully Although the books have shown a great deal of improvement as compared with the old series of grammar-based, it seems that not all activities or tasks in the books, especially in writing part are suitable to the different teaching and learning contexts of different localities within Vietnam In comparison with other three skills, writing is considered the most complicated to teach and still remains neglected due to students’ low level proficiency, time constraints and low motivation When students write, they find themselves confused with word choice, grammatical use, organization and generation of ideas They tend to translate ideas from mother tongue into English, express ideas in long sentences, and are not aware of different kinds of writing, thus making them unable to write in real life Because of limited background knowledge, they often feel bored and not want to write Moreover, some teachers not feel confident about their own English and shy away from designing writing tasks or getting students to write more than just grammatical exercises Sometimes teachers not have enough ideas to facilitate students In reality, most teachers follow what the tasks in the textbook require, and nothing more about it On realizing students’ problems, I assume that what English writing teachers need to is to improve the quality of student’ pieces of writing, to give them a more cooperative learning environment, and to motivate them to participate in the writing lessons I myself have been making an effort to seek pedagogical methods which could help deal with the mentioned problems What is more, I suggest that adapting writing activities in textbook could be a more effective strategy Related to my students’ problems, I would like to conduct the study entitled “Adapting writing activities in English 11 to motivate 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school to learn English writing skill” in order to inspire our students in writing lessons 1.2 Objective of research - Investigating teachers’ and students' attitudes towards teaching and learning writing at Tinh Gia high school - Determining the effect of the adapted activities in motivating students at Tinh Gia high school in writing lessons Basing on the findings, some suggestions will finally be proposed by the researcher 1.3 Research methodology I write this topic based on: - The method of studying theory - The method of investigating - The method of questionnaire interview - The method of class observation - Applying the topic to real teaching English at Tinh Gia high school - Comparison, collation and summary of the result, effect of the topic 1.4 Scope of research 1.4.1 The students Two groups of 40 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school were asked to participate in this experiment One group was employed as an experimental group (11A1) The other was employed as a control group (11A5) Each group consisted of 20 students The distribution of the students in each class is that the percentage of students at levels of “ Excellent”, “Good”, “average”, “under average” in every class are nearly equal 1.4.2 The teachers The English Group of Tinh Gia high school includes teachers The four English teachers are teaching English for grade 11 are invited to participate in the survey All of them have been teaching English for more than years, the oldest one has been an English Teacher for 25 years All English teachers in Tinh Gia high school are introduced and get to know how to adapt writing activities Content 2.1 Theoretical background 2.1.1 Definitions of writing Writing is one of the four language skills that a learner is expected to master Writing has been defined in a variety of ways Firstly, writing is the process in which the writer expresses his thoughts or ideas in the form of handwriting According to Leki (1976, p.8): “Writing is communicating Good writing gets your ideas out of your head and into the reader’s head without losing or distorting those ideas” As for Tribble, writing is “a language skills which is difficult to acquire” (1996, p.3) He also stressed that writing “normally requires some forms of instruction” and that “it is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (1996, p.11) From my personal experience as a classroom teacher, I share with Rivers’ definition (1981, p.6) that “writing is not a skill that can be learned or developed in isolation but it should be taught and developed in cooperation with other skills and aspects of the language studied.” 2.1.2 Roles of writing Writing emerges with its own functions and brings along communicative code of the writers As Nunan (1991, p.84) points out, writing serves four main functions Firstly it is used primarily for action: public signs, product labels and instructions, recipes, maps, television and radio guides, bills, menus, etc Secondly, it is used primarily for social contact: personal correspondence, letters, postcards, greeting cards Thirdly, writing provides the readers with information as newspapers and magazines, non- fiction books (textbooks, public notices, advertisement, etc.) Finally, written language entertains the readers with comic strips, fiction books, poetry and drama In classroom, teaching and learning writing also plays an important role White (1981, p.1) points out a number of reasons why writing merits a place in the language syllabus The first reason is that writing remains the commonest way of examining students’ performance in English Second, in the eyes of both parents and students, ability to write may be associated with evidence of having learnt the language Writing is tangible parents and students can see what has been done and what has been achieved The last reason is that writing requires thought, discipline and concentration It is relatively a permanent form and readers judge us by our style, content and logic With all the roles mentioned above, writing really becomes an integral part in almost every language syllabus from elementary to tertiary level 2.1.3 Approaches to teaching writing There are various approaches to teaching writing, however, the product and process approaches are two most popular ones applied in English writing classroms 2.1.3.1 The product approach Nunan (1991: 86) defines the product approach as “ a product oriented approach, as the title indicates focuses on the end result of the learning process, what is expected from the learner is to as fluent and competent user of the language” This is a traditional approach, in which students focus on the study of model texts Accuracy is given priority and conversations are taken from the model The product approach aims at making the students competent in the language when they write relevant and coherent pieces of writing It focuses on the final product of the writers and the texts written by the students are based on models provided by the teacher In this approach, “ a good deal of attention was placed on “model” compositions that students would emulate and on how well a student’s final product measured up against a list of criteria that included content, organization, vocabulary use, grammatical use, and mechanical considerations such as spelling and punctuation.” (Brown, 2001, p.335) 2.1.3.2 The process approach The teaching of writing has recently moved away from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing, which leads to the emergence of Process Approach This approach encourages students’ communication of ideas, feelings and experiences It is more global and focuses on purpose, theme, text type, i.e the reader is emphasized Writing is a process, so students are given time to set out ideas, make plan, write a first draft, revise what has been written after a peer feedback, then they can edit their writing or write other drafts before the final version is produced Comparing the Product Approach and Process Approach, Steele summarizes their differences in the table below: Process writing * text as a resource for comparison * ideas as starting point * more than one draft * more global, focus on purpose, theme, text type, i.e., reader is emphasized * collaborative * emphasis on creative process Product writing * imitate model text *organization of ideas is more important than ideas themselves * one draft * features highlighted including controlled practice of those features * individual * emphasis on end product Table 1: Differences between Process Approach and Product Approach From the analysis and the comparison of the two approaches, it is undeniable that each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses The writing lessons in new English 11 textbook were compiled following both Product Approach and Process Approach This Combined Product- Process Approach is found to be more popular, appropriate and effective The suggested general outline for a writing lesson following this approach may be: Stage 1: A model is given Stage 2: Students work on the model, analyze its typical features, and pay attention to the language and structure of the model Stage 3: Students work in groups/ pairs to find out the ideas for the writing topic/ task and produce an outline Stage 4: Students write the first draft individually/ in pairs/ in groups The model is used for comparison Stage 5: Drafts are exchanged Students give comments on each other‟s work Stage 6: Drafts are returned and changes or improvements are made based on peer feedback Stage 7: Students write final drafts Stage 8: Final drafts are exchanged once more; students give response or reply to each other Stage 9: Teacher gives feedback 2.1.4 Writing teaching procedure According to Brown (1994, p.7), teachers should follow the teaching procedure including two main stages: Pre- writing and While- writing This procedure is a combination of different approaches, especially the communicative approach and the process approach (i) Pre- writing - Exploiting the model text in terms of form, vocabulary, grammar, organization, etc - Defining the task such as describe , write a letter of - Limit the topic - Generate the ideas (ii)While- writing - Draft - Revise - Write the final version 2.1.5 Material adaptation 2.1.5.1 Definition of material adaptation As far as we know, adaptation plays a very important role in foreign language teaching I myself believe that a good teacher is constantly adapting In reality, no textbook can totally be an effective tool for teachers to follow without any adaptation because of the disadvantage of the textbook such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity or lack of variety Adaptation is to compensate for those deficiencies In their book “Materials and Methods in ELT” (1993, p.76), McDonough and Shaw devote a chapter to the issue of adaptation materials They quote Madsen and Bowen’s definition (1978, ix) “one or more a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, expanding, personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying, or modifying cultural/ situational content” Similarly, from Tomlinson’s point of view (1998, xi), adaptation is referred to “reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing” He supposes that most teachers adapt materials every time they use a textbook in order to maximize the value of the book for their particular learners 2.1.5.2 The purpose of adaptation: There are always sound practical reasons for adapting materials in order to make them as accessible and useful to learners as possible However, reasons for adaptation have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition There are two most frequently cited purposes for adaptation: • to make the material more suitable for the circumstances in which it is being used, i.e to mould it to the needs and interests of learners, the teachers' own capabilities and such constraints as time, or as Mc Donough and Shaw (1993, p.85) put it: “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to better suit our particular circumstances” to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the materials, such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity (Madsen and Bowen 1978, p.58) or lack of variety Looking deeper into McDonough and Shaw’s definition of purpose we see that maximizing the appropriacy of teaching materials (by, e.g., modifying them in such a way that they seem more relevant to learners' interests and needs) is important because it can stimulate motivation, and increased motivation is in turn likely to lead to a classroom atmosphere more conductive to learning In fact, when teachers make changes to a course book “to better suit our particular purposes” what teachers are really trying to is to improve students’ participation to increase the effectiveness of the learning experience 2.1.5.3 Techniques for adaptation 2.1.5.3.1 Adding The notion of addition is that materials are supplemented by putting more into them, while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation First, we can certainly add in this quantitative way by the technique of extending “This means that the techniques are being applied within the methodological framework of the original materials In other words, the model is not itself changed” (McDough and Shaw, 1993, p.89) Second, more far-reaching perspective on addition of materials can be termed expanding This kind of addition is not just extension of and existing aspect of content 2.1.5.3.2 Deleting or Omitting Deletion is clearly the apposite process to that of addition As can be seen in the previous section that materials can be added both quantitatively (extending) and qualitatively (expanding), the same point applies when a decision is taken to omit materials The most straightforward aspect of reducing the length of materials is subtracting Addition and deletion often work together Material may be taken out and then replaced with something else, for example, grammar practice is substituted after the omission of an inappropriate communicative function, or when a reading text is replaced by a listening passage 2.1.5.3.3 Modifying Modifying can be sub-divided under two related headings: - Rewriting may relate activities more closely to learners' own background and interest, introduce model of authentic language, or set most purposeful problem-solving tasks where the answers are not always known before the teacher asks the question - Restructuring: For many teachers who are required to follow a course book rather strictly, changes in the structuring of the class are sometimes the only kind of adaptation that is realistically possible For example, the materials may contain role-play activities for groups of certain size 2.1.5.3.4 Simplifying The technique of simplification is a type of modification, namely a “rewriting” activity The elements of a language which can be simplified are: The instructions and explanations that accompany exercises and activities, and • even the visual layout of materials so that it becomes easier to see how different part fit together Usually, the emphasis has been on changing various sentencesbound elements to match the text more closely to the proficiency level of a particular group of learners 2.1.5.3.5 Re-ordering This procedure refers to the possibility of putting the parts of a course book in a different order This may mean adjusting the sequence of presentation within a unit, or taking units in a different sequence from that originally intended 2.1.5.4 Levels of adaptation Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels The first level is macro adaptation, which is ideally done before the language program begins After comparing what is covered in a textbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, the teacher may find that certain areas or even whole unit of the book can be omitted, and certain contents need to be supplemented The second level of adaptation is adapting a unit This could be reordering the activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise material, etc Unit adaptation helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and cohesive The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit Occasionally an activity I regarded as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in particular class If the teacher does not want to give up the activity, he or she needs to adapt it To summarize, writing in terms of definition can be seen differently, its roles cannot be denied Writing skills, therefore, must be taught thoroughly at school By recounting briefly the history of teaching writing, the author finds that language teachers may be confused by such various approaches It is unavoidable that they have problems in writing lessons because the students are demotivated Hence, adapting writing activities has taken into consideration In this study, I will adapt some writing activities in English 11 to make them more communicative, suitable to my students’ ability at Tinh Gia high school Adding and modifying are popular adaptation techniques used in the research 2.2 Practical background Most of the teachers at my school hardly adapt writing activities in teaching writing skill They believe that it is time- consuming Teaching English, especially teaching English writing has met some difficulties The first is the large size classes There are about 43 students in each class It is hard for teachers to set up communicative activities, monitor class and give feedback The second is most students are not familiar with teaching and learning in English They cannot understand lessons if teachers speak English most of the time and their background knowledge as well as vocabulary, structures are very poor The last is the lack of materials Materials for reference and self-study are not available and students seemed not interested in the lesson although the topic of the lesson was really relevant to them Therefore, I met with a lot of disapproval when I told my colleagues about my intention of adapting writing activities in writing lesson They suppose there is not enough time to apply adapted writing activities To illustrate the problem, three volunteer teachers from other classes were asked to come to classes 11A1 and 11A5 in two different periods to observe the writing lesson without notifying to the teacher and all the students in that class During the observations they focused on how the students participated in the two classes In all periods, the teacher or the researcher (the same teacher for two groups) followed her traditional routines The following is the description of one lesson in both classes Class: 11A1 and 11A5 Number of students in each class: 20 Time: 30 minutes Unit 1: Friendship Period 6: D- WRITING Lesson objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to write about a friend, real or imaginary The procedures used by the teacher can be summarized as follow: The lesson started as usual with warm-up In the warm-up (7 minutes), the teacher asked some students to answer the teacher’s questions: 1.Who is your best friend? 2.When and where did you meet him/her? 2.How old is s/he? 3.Where does s/he live now? 4.How does s/he look like? What is s/he like? 6.What you like about him/her? After that teacher introduced the new lesson: Unit 1: Friendship D- WRITING Students continued the lesson with Pre- writing (8 minutes) In this stage, the teacher made clear the task, then got students to read the task and guidelines and work out what they are required to write about She gave the outline to students + Introduction: general information about their friend + Body:  Paragraph 1: Describing his/her appearance (her/ his physical characteristics.)  Paragraph 2: Describing his/her personalities + Conclusion: say what you like about her or him The teacher also reminded students to use the simple past tense when writing about when and where they met their friend After helping the students with the outline, she had students work individually and write about their friends in 15 minutes basing on the outline above while the students were writing, teacher went around and helped students if necessary When the time was over, she collected students' writing From the two lessons, it can be seen clearly that the level of participation in classroom writing activities of two classes at Tinh Gia high school was almost the same and quite low Students seemed not interested in the lesson although the topic of the lesson was really relevant to them During the observations the researcher also found out that even the teacher had tried to provide useful guide and necessary structures, when students were asked to write, few of them worked seriously In fact, some of them did something else instead of concentrating on their work After marking students' piece of writing, the experiment result can be illustrated as follows: Table 2: The average marks of the control and experimental group before the experiment Level Control group Experimental group Excellent 5% 5% Good 10% 15% Average 40% 40% Under average 45% 40% In order to get the data for the study I give pre-task questionnaires to teachers and students to collect their attitudes toward writing lesson and their difficulties in teaching and learning this skill These questionnaires were given at the beginning of the school year Table 3: Students’ participation in writing lessons Question 1: How often you participate in writing lesson? Result (%) a I often participate in the activities because I like English very 5% much b I sometimes participate in the activities with interesting and 55% relevant topics c I rarely participate in the activities because of my poor 40% background knowledge and vocabulary d I only copy from reference book to deal with the 12% teache’s requirement Table presents that only 5% of the respondents was always willing to write in the class Meanwhile, 55 % of students sometimes wrote when they found interesting and suitable writing activities It was unsatisfying to know that 40% rarely took part in the activities and 12% copied from the reference books to deal with their teachers There are many different reasons that cause students to be reticent in the written English class Table 4: Factors prevent students from participating in writing in the class Question What prevent you from writing in the English writing class? Factors Percentage (%) a Poor background knowledge and vocabulary 80% b Writing activities are difficult 25% c Writing activities are not various 2.5% d I don‟t like the teacher so I don‟t want to write 0% As shown in the table, there are some main factors that cause students reluctant to involve in class 80% of the respondents said that the most influential reason was background knowledge and vocabulary They didn’t have enough words and structures to express what they wanted to share The second highest percentage of students expressed that difficult activities in the textbook also made them bored with writing English A very small percentage of students (2.5%) stated that the activities are undiversified Noone stated that their participation in writing activities was affected by their teachers Table 5: Students’ opinions towards English writing skills in the textbook English 11 Question 3: In your opinion, writing activities in the textbook interesting Options Result (%) a Strongly disagree 0% b Disagree 60.5% c Neutral 27% d Agree 10% e Strongly agree 2.5% Yet, there are not many kinds of interesting writing activities to draw students’ attraction That is the reason why 60.5% of respondents assumed that textbook activities were not very interesting Many units in the textbook only contain the requirement such as unit 1,2,7,8 This fact requires teachers’ investment in inappropriate activities so as to raise students’ involvement in classroom activities Table 6: Students’ opinion about the way their teachers teach writing Question 4: In what way does your teacher teach writing in English 11 ? Options a The teacher always taught us activities in the textbook b The teacher usually changed adapted activities in the textbook c S/he sometimes adapted activities in the textbook d S/he sometimes replaced textbook activities by outside activities Result (%) 82% 0% 25% 0% Most of the students (82%) stated that their teachers always taught them activities in the textbook Where as only 25% of the students affirmed that their teachers sometimes changed and adapted activities in the textbook In conclusion, from the data of the pre-treatment questionnaire, it can be seen that students' motivation in learning writing was low Consequently, their participation in writing activities was very limited Besides basing on the students' result in the previous school year and using student survey, the researcher interviewed teachers who had ever taught English 11 at the school Before interview, the teachers were informed about the aim of the interview Then the chosen teachers were asked to state their opinions about each of the following interview questions Question 1: Teachers’ evaluation on writing activities in English 11 (e.g.topics, variety of the activities, level of difficulty, ) Most of the teachers said that topics for writing in English 11 were relevant to the students All the topics were compiled in themes which related to students' daily activities such as friendship, sports, hobbies, recreation However, one teacher did not agree with that idea She stated that some topics are good, relevant to students but some topics such as competitions, wonders of the world, and sources of energy…were not close enough to learners’ daily communication Regarding the variety of the activities, over teachers affirmed that the activities in the textbook were not various The most common tasks in each lesson were giving students what should be included in their writing When being asked about the level of difficulty of the writing activities, all teachers thought the requirement of activities was inappropriate for most of students in this rural school They found it very difficult to understand the requirement and write without seeing model, especially describing the chart Question Do you usually follow activities in the textbook or adapt them? Can you name some ways of adapting textbook? Most of the interviewees expressed that the teachers should adapt some writing activities in the textbook because they thought that these activities were not appropriate They shared with the researcher the opinion that writing in unit 2, unit and unit 13 should be adapted They said that they wanted to make a change to attract students' attention by giving sample writing or making prewriting easier and more interesting but they did not it for fear of costing time and energy One teacher answered she usually adapted activities in the textbook to make them easier And she listed a number of adapting methods they usually used: modification, addition and replacement Question According to you what are the factors affecting students’ participation in writing lessons? The teachers mentioned some major factors leading to the reluctance of Tinh Gia students to write: students’ perceived low proficiency in English, the poor background knowledge, the topics, activities in pre- writing and teachers' methods Question What have you done to increase your students‟ involvement? In order to motivate students, most teachers used marks as students’ rewards and evaluation towards students‟ writing 50 % of the teachers chose varying and adapting inappropriate activities in textbook as the main technique in getting students involved In varying and adapting process teachers designed more interesting activities in pre- writing For example they gave pictures to illustrate the topics, let students discuss in groups, play games, ect Apart from that, they reduced the requirement to be more suitable to students’ levels 2.3 Using adapted writing activities in English 11 to motivate 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school to learn English writing skill 2.3.1 Difficulty Most of the students have poor background knowledge and vocabulary, so they have difficulty finding words or vocabulary related to the topic In addition, they don’t know how to find suitable structures to express their ideas, how to organize their ideas…To respond to the challenges described above, I read a lot of books, articles on the internet and come up some strategies that I find useful in my application of adapting writing activities 2.3.2 Using adapted writing activities to teaching and learning 2.3.2.1 Generating hypotheses All the data collected from the questionnaires (one from teachers and one from students) indicated that the students’ poor background knowledge may be attributed to the unsuitable methods and techniques used by teachers of English at Tinh Gia High School, and then a hypothesis was formed as follows: Training students some adapted writing activities would help improve the students’ writing skill 2.3.2.2 Drawing a plan of action to solve the problem As the students’ writing skill with a (low) medium level, a plan of action was developed to train the students some adapted writing activities so as to help them improve the problem: ♦ Schedule: The action plan was implemented for five weeks with two writing lessons per week Each writing lesson lasted 45 minutes ♦ Strategy training: When the researcher conducted the study, she designed the following strategies to improve the problem: Preparing more than ONE suitable activities for writing lesson and making the writing tasks easier Trying to avoid the unclear instructions and English proficiency problems Making sure that students are motivated to work and be more interested in the writing lessons Trying to avoid the classroom restraints Managing time well in each part of the writing lesson 2.4 Application of adapted writing activities to motivate 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school to learn English writing skill 2.4.1 Acting stage The new strategies and changes were tried out in the next practice writing lesson All the changes and improvements or even new or bad problems after each lesson were made notes by the teacher in brief 2.4.2 Observing stage - Four volunteer teachers were asked to observe a lesson and the results of class observation were used to reflect on the reasons for those changes (which could include things that were improved or that got worse) Before the experiment The other English teachers observed the two classes in writing periods to be aware of the degrees of the students’ participation before the experiment The observers just focused on how the students would take part in the lessons What is more, the teachers collected students’ writing papers in order to compare the differences in students’ writing performance between the two classes and pre – and post improvement stage of this research The before- experiment classroom observations are vitally important The result decided whether we would have the following research During the experiment During the treatment, the teacher or the author herself and her teachings in both control and experiment groups with the three same lessons were observed by the three mentioned teachers The control group was taught the original activities in English 11 while the experimental group was taught adapted activities Then the researcher measured the students‟ motivation of both groups and then compared them to prove whether the adaptation of textbook activities would be helpful in increasing the students‟ involvement in writing lessons 2.4.2.1 Observations in control group The researcher used the same sheet for the observations in class 11A5 and the results can be summarized as follows: there was no change in the teacher’ teaching, all original activities in English 11 were applied as usual As a result, the participation of students was almost the same as that of the observations before the experiment 2.4.2.2 Observations in experimental group 2.4.2.2.1 Adaptation  Adapted lesson: Unit 7: World population  Adapted activity: Part D-Writing: (English 11 , page 86)  Reasons for adaptation: The author of this paper finds that the activity does not help students understand how to use the useful expressions to describe the information in the chart Moreover, this activity gives students no instructions on the way to analyze a chart In this writing lesson, students cannot produce a paragraph as required Because of the above reason, in the previous year, I found my students demotivated when they were told to this task They still practised writing but the result was not as expected Their writing was too short and did not contain enough information of a chart  Technique of adaptation: modifying  Observation of adaptation 1: Class description:  Class: 11A1 Number of students: 20 Time: 30 minutes Unit 7: World population: Part D: Writing Lesson objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to write a paragraph of 100- 120 words, describing the information in the chart  Procedure: Stage & Teacher's activities Students' activities time Pre Task 1: Work in pairs Study the chart Writing about the distribution of Vietnam 15mins population by region and complete the following paragraph using the given words or phrases - Get students to work in pairs, study the chart and complete the paragraph more than double ranks first populated distributed unevenly - Listen to the teacher accounts for - Work in pairs rate - Study the chart and complete the The chart shows the distribution of Vietnam paragraph population by region It can be seen that, the Expected answers: Vietnam population is (1) Central distributed unevenly Highlands is least (2) with only 5% North Central Coast is higher than Central populated Highland with the (3) of 13% Middle rate Lands of Nothern is (4) _population of the more than double South Central Coast The Red River Delta accounts for (5) 19% of Vietnam population and ranks first Southeast is a bit lower with only 16% The Mekong Delta has the largest population with 20% and (6) _in all regions in Vietnam To sum up, more people are found in The mekong Delta than in other parts of Vietnam Task 2: Work in pairs Study the chart in the textbook and complete these sentences - Get students to work in pairs, study the chart and complete the sentences in task Example: (0): the world population It can be seen that _is unevenly distributed Latin America and North America together have _% of the world population More than half of the world population lives in The population of Europe is _percent, nearly half of the population of _ The population of _ranks first, accounting for _percent of the world population Ranking person is _with _percent _ranks last with _percent The population of East Asia is more than double of the population of _ - Ask students to find out in task and task some expressions that can be used in chart description Useful language: - It can be seen that - distributed unevenly - account for percent - more than double the population of - half as much as/ nearly half of - rank first/ last While Writing 15 mins Task 3: Ask students to study the chart again then write a paragraph describing the information in the chart, using the sample writing in task You should begin the paragraph with the sentence: The chart shows the distribution of the world population by region Expected paragraph: The chart shows the distribution of the world population by region Generally, more than half of the world population lives in Asia (58%) The population of South Asia ranks first, accounting for 32% of the world population Ranking second is the population of East Asia with 26%, more than double the population of Africa (11%) next, the Expected answers: 14 Asia 15/ South Asia South Asia/ 32 East Asia/ 26 Oceania/ Africa - Work in pairs Study the chart and answer the following questions Work individually population of Europe is 15%, nearly half of South Asia’s population Latin America and North America together have 14% of the world population Finally, Oceania’s population ranks last with 2% Handout for task1 2.4.2.2.2 Adaptation 2:  Adapted unit : Unit 13: Hobbies  Adapted activities: D- Writing (page 151)  Reasons for adaptation: - It‟s difficult for students to write about their collection because there is no model, clear steps to instruct students‟ writing - It‟s non-interactive because students write individually all their writing  Technique of adaptation: modifying Observation of adaptation 2: Class description:  Class: 11A1  Number of students: 20  Time: 30 minutes  Unit 13: Hobbies: Part D: Writing  write a paragraph about their collection  know more structures and new words to describe hobby Procedure: See appendix 2.4.2.2.3 Adaptation 3: Class: 11A1 Number of students: 20 Time: 30 minutes Unit 2: Unit 2: Personal experiences Part D: Writing Lesson objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to: Write a letter telling about one of the most memorable past experiences Procedure: See appendix 2.5 The result of the study For the last school year, I have used adapted writing activities motivate 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school to learn English writing skill I realize that there was a significant improvement in students’ writing skill The students’ writing skill has been improved after using adapted writing activities This result found that adapted writing activities benefited the students a great deal The teachers in my English groups are more interested in adapting writing activities to teach writing skill Moreover, adapted writing activities make students more involved and active in writing lesson 2.5.1 Students' participation in experimental and control group in three lessons at the end of the intervention in term of marks Table 8: Results of experimental group’s participation Control group Experimental group Level Number of Percent Number of Percent students students 10% 30% Adaptatio Excellent n1 Good 20% 45% Average 25% 20% Under Average 45% 5% Excellent 5% 20% Adaptatio Good 15% 15% n2 Average 25% 45% Under Average 11 55% 20% Adaptation Excellent 0% 25% Good 25% 45% Average 40% 10% Under Average 35% 15% The data from the table shows that students' marks in experimental class considerably increased compared to that figure of control group We can see that in all three adapted lessons, more students in the experimental group than those in the control one got good marks This implies that a good impact of adapting activities on students‟ participation The observation also reveals that the way teacher adapted several writing activities in the textbook in class attracted a large number of students Students were really interested in the activities teachers gave them They were excited in expressing their ideas in their writing It is obvious that adapted writing lessons solved problems of the old one This fact implies that there was a high level of students' participation in this experimental class 2.5.2 Comparison of students’ participation in experimental and control group before and at the end of the experiment Table 9: Students' range in the two classes before and at the end of experiment Level Excellent Control group Before End 5% 10% Experimental group Before End 5% 30% Good 10% 20% 15% 45% Average 40% 25% 40% 20% Under average 45% 45% 40% 5% Comparing the data before and at the end of experiment in table 9, we can see that in control group, the situation remains almost the same Nevertheless, at the end of the experiment, in experimental group, percentage of students who got excellent mark is higher while that of students under average is much lower This result affirms that the adaptation of textbook activities really has good impact on improving students‟ participation in class 11A1 at Tinh Gia high school In order to have a deep understanding about the effectiveness of activity adaptation we should consider the students’ attitudes towards the adapted activities in detail in the following section 2.5.3 Students’ attitudes towards the adapted activities: In general, all the students showed their interest in the three lessons with some new writing activities different from these in their textbook There were some new changes in teacher' methods and techniques of teaching and learning, which arouses the students’ curiosity Some of students interviewed affirmed that they had a habit of imitating the model sentences and writings in the textbook and they did not care much their appropriateness but working with adapted activities they could express their thoughts and feelings into pieces of writings Some others stated that they loved activities the teacher applied in the lessons because it made the tasks easier They felt to be motivated by various activities in these lessons On being asked about their evaluation on their level of participation during the time of experiment, they all admitted that they become more active and participated more in classroom activities than before They also wanted the teachers to remain their various activities in the future Thus, with the data collected from the classroom observations and the students’ positive attitudes from the follow-up interview we can conclude with certainty that adaptation is really necessary and helpful to increase the students’ involvement in writing activities In short, the results indicate that there was a difference about the students’ involvement in writing activities between control and experimental group It would be concluded that, adapted activities can help motivate students in writing lessons at Tinh Gia high school CONCLUSION 3.1 Conclusion: In short, the findings of the study allow the author to arrive at the following conclusions which is a brief summary of the answers given to the research questions These conclusions, at the same time, imply that the study has achieved its stated aims It aimed at investigating the teachers and students' attitude towards teaching and learning writing skill Then finding out the reasons why teachers at Tinh Gia high school should adapt writing activities in the textbook English 11 from both teachers and students viewpoints After that it found if the adapted activities help motivate students at Tinh Gia high school in writing lessons First, the researcher find out that the current writing lessons in this school are ineffective because of three main reasons The first reason is some writing activities in the textbook are not interesting and diversified enough Second, the requirements of some textbook activities are too challenging compared to low proficiency levels of students at this rural school The last cause is students' poor background knowledge and vocabulary Three reasons greatly lead to students’ low participation in the writing class This situation requires teachers at Tinh Gia high school to find out the solutions to improve it One of the most suitable solutions is adapting inappropriate activities Second, the results of the experiment obtained through observations and interviews with six students after each trial lesson confirm the efficiency of the adapting technique in encouraging more students to take part in class activities To be more concrete, by supplying the sample writings, giving useful language, the teacher could activate the students in writing class to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings to other students and teacher To sum up, teachers should be flexible when using textbooks They should select carefully the teaching content and the activities to make students more interested and involved in their lessons 3.2 Proposal: With the mentioned limitations, further study may include the other forms of adaptation as adding, replacing or rewriting to vary the extra writing activities And a similar experimental study might be conducted with bigger scope of subjects at other school to get a comprehensive evaluation of the current writing activities in English 11 and suggest various adaptations Another suggestion rises for adaptation of activities in other skills such as reading, speaking especially in listening skill in English 11 Finally, the study has been completed to the best of my knowledge; however, mistakes and shortcomings are unavoidable Therefore, I am looking forward to receiving comments and suggestions from any readers for the perfection of the course work The confirmation of the Head Thanh Hoa, 20 th may 2022 Master I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine The date and findings discussed are true, and not a copy of other’s Hồ Trung Sơn Trịnh Thị Ngọc Phượng ... to be more suitable to students’ levels 2 .3 Using adapted writing activities in English 11 to motivate 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school to learn English writing skill 2 .3. 1 Difficulty Most... writing activities to motivate 11th graders at Tinh Gia high school to learn English writing skill 2.4.1 Acting stage The new strategies and changes were tried out in the next practice writing lesson... the internet and come up some strategies that I find useful in my application of adapting writing activities 2 .3. 2 Using adapted writing activities to teaching and learning 2 .3. 2.1 Generating