(LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ) An evaluation of the writing curriculum for first year and second year students of English at Hanoi University of Language and International Studies, Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU)

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LE DIEM PHUC AN EVALUATION OF THE WRITING CURRICULUM FOR FIRST YEAR AND SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY (HULIS-VNU) (Đánh giá chƣơng trình mơn Viết năm thứ năm thứ hai cho sinh viên Tiếng Anh Đại học Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M.A Combined Programme Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ DIỄM PHÚC AN EVALUATION OF THE WRITING CURRICULUM FOR FIRST YEAR AND SECOND YEAR STUDENTS OF ENGLISH AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY (HULIS-VNU) (Đánh giá chƣơng trình mơn Viết năm thứ năm thứ hai cho sinh viên Tiếng Anh Đại học Ngoại ngữ - Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M.A Combined Programme Thesis Major: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Dr TÔ THI ̣ THU HƢƠNG Hanoi, 2010 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iii TABLE OF CONTENT PAGE Acknowledgements i Abstracts ii Table of contents iii List of figures, tables and abbreviations vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Statement of the problem and the rationales for the study Aims and objectives Significance of the study Scope of the study Methodology Organization PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Definition of curriculum, syllabus, course books 1.1.1 Curriculum 1.1.2 Syllabus 1.1.3 Curriculum vs Syllabus 1.1.4 Course books 1.2 Classification of curriculum 1.2.1 Curriculum as content 1.2.2 Curriculum as experience 1.2.3 Curriculum as framework 1.2.4 Outcomes-based curriculum TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iv 1.2.5 Standards-based curriculum 1.2.6 Criticism of different curriculum development methods 1.2.6.1 Limitations of a top down model 1.2.6.2 Bottom-up/school-based curriculum development 11 1.3 Curriculum development 13 1.3.1 Preparation for curriculum development 13 1.3.1.1 Establishing the curriculum development task 13 1.3.1.2 Clarification of the task 14 1.3.1.3 Support structures for the project 14 1.3.2 Curriculum evaluation 15 1.3.2.1 Why to evaluate 15 1.3.2.2 When to evaluate 16 1.3.2.3 How to evaluate 17 1.4 Continuity and coherence through various stages in curriculum development 20 1.5 Summary 24 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.0 Research questions 26 2.1 Participants 26 2.2 Data collection instrument 27 2.3 Procedures of data collection 28 2.4 Procedures of data analysis 29 2.5 Summary 30 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 How the syllabus components and course book contents match course objective? 31 3.2 How the syllabus components and course book guarantee the continuity and coherence through stages in curriculum development? 45 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com v 3.3 How the syllabus components and course book guarantee the internal consistency of the curriculum? 48 3.4 What problems occur as a consequence? 49 3.5 Summary 52 CHAPTER 4: SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT 4.1 BA TEFL Course/Context description 54 4.2 Suggestions for improvement 55 PART C: CONCLUSION 57 REFERENCES 59 APPENDICES APPENDIX I APPENDIX XVII APPENDIX XXX APPENDIX LVI APPENDIX LX APPENDIX LXI APPENDIX LXII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com vi LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS, AND ABBREVIATIONS Page Figure Reasons for evaluation 16 Figure Differences across ESL/ ALL stages – report writing 24 Figure Students’ evaluation of the difficulty of Summary and 33 Reflection Figure Figure Causes of students’ mistakes Reasons for students’ paragraph writing structure 44 51 mistake Table Evaluation of curriculum development process 20 Table The checklist for Continuity and coherence throughout 21 stages in curriculum development Table The differentiations between stages in learning and 23 teaching process Table Survey and Interview participant description: 27 Table Students’ result in reflection and summary exercises 32 HULIS_VNU Hanoi University of Languages and International Studies – Vietnam National University 1, 2, 3, 26, 30, 31, LX, LXI, LXII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Splitter A watermark is added at the end of each output PDF file To remove the watermark, you need to purchase the software from http://www.anypdftools.com/buy/buy-pdf-splitter.html TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION Statement of the problem and the rationale for the study Curriculum development has always been intensely attended by educators and teachers because a good curriculum can guarantee the success of a course Curriculum reforms have been carried out very often in education in general and English Language teaching in particular to make it up-to-date and efficient After teaching students of English of the first and second year students at Hanoi University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU) I have found out some unreasonable things in the writing curriculum in general and course book in particular For example, students of the first year are required to master complicated types of writing like summary and reflection while they are supposed to reach level of ALTE Besides, their writings are in the format of an essays with standard structure of introduction, development and conclusion paragraph whilst second year students start with learning about writing paragraphs This breaks the continuity throughout stages of the whole English language skill program In addition, the first year and second year writing programs share a number of common learning contents but each item is developed and taught to students differently with no explicit reason All of these can cause a lot of difficulties and problems to teaching and learning process especially the waste of time and energy Furthermore, there are increasing complaints from both teachers and students that the language program at English Teacher Education Department – HULIS – VNU last too long (three fourth of the university study duration) while its graduates’ English competence is sometimes much lower than that of students who undertake short English courses at English centers for IELTS or TOEFL preparation With a view to finding out firstly the problems and then the ways to increase the quality of the English writing program for first year and second year students at HULIS-VNU in particular and the whole English language program in general, I have decided to a research on the topic “An evaluation of the writing curriculum for first year and second year students of English at Hanoi University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU) TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 2 Aims and objectives Using McKay’s and Scarino’s (1991) assertion that a curriculum include: A syllabus, i.e a plan of action outlining goals, objectives and learning content; Strategies for teaching and learning in the classroom; Learning resources; An assessment scheme; and Evaluation strategies, the paper aims at making a thorough investigation into the English writing curriculum of the first and second years mainly through analyzing their course books and syllabuses to figure out their strengths and weaknesses In particular, the researcher is going to answer the four following questions: How the first and second year writing syllabus components and course book contents match course objectives? How the syllabus components and course books guarantee the continuity and coherence through stages in curriculum development? How the syllabus components and course books guarantee the internal consistency of the curriculum? If there are some mismatches, what problems occur as a consequence? After coming up with the answers to the above questions, the researcher would like to give some suggestions to enhance the English writing curriculum of the first and second year and even for the language skill training program of English Teacher Education Department – HULIS - VNU More importantly, with the findings of the research, I hope to shorten the language skill program to save time, money and energy for students, teachers and the institutions as the planning manifested through the curriculum can reduce, before a class even meets, about half the work for teaching a course (Vogler, 1997) Significance of the study The study results would be very helpful to various groups including students at English Teacher Education Department – HULIS – VNU, course curriculum developers, English Teacher Education Department – HULIS - VNU and researchers in both theoretical and practical aspects First and foremost, the innovations that are triggered by the findings of this research will ensure students achieving the highest English competence within the shortest period of TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com time Regarding English Teacher Education Department – HULIS – VNU, this is the opportunity for them to reform their training programs for higher quality Moreover, they can save a lot of money, time and energy thanks to a more condensed and effective curriculum Concerning course curriculum developers and course book designer, they can recognize the points in need of improvement in their products and learn valuable lessons for future work from the suggestions made by the participants and the researchers Last but not least, researchers can benefit a lot from the rich and thorough literature review for the issues related especially the criteria to evaluate a English Language Teaching program and a comprehensive curriculum construction process Scope of the study Within the scope of this study, I am going to evaluate the implemented (UNESCO-IBE, 2007) writing curriculum for the first year and second year students in 2009-2010 academic year The focus is the match between the course objectives with learning content and activities, the continuity and coherence through various stages and the consistency in the English writing program revealed in the syllabus and the course books Methods of the study To find out the answers to the four above research questions, the researcher has adopted both quantitative and qualitative research methods The research tools would include: Document analysis: Curriculum, Course guide and course book analysis: I made an exhaustive study about the course guide with explicit explanation of course objectives, skills, structure, assignments, assessment and grading, and list of reference materials as well as the writing course books of both English language Division1 and to disclose any teaching item that non-match the course objectives as well as that breaks the continuity and consistency of the whole program Students’ paper analysis, Student Questionnaire and teacher Interview: The analysis of 100 students’ papers, questionnaires for 100 sophomores and interviews for teachers who have taught both of the target writing programs were conducted to help the researcher gather practical evidence for the conclusions from course guide and course book analysis Moreover, these data were used to elicit the respondent’s ideas for the final research question about the consequences of the existing problems in the target writing programs TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LI  Core Textbook: Duong Thu Mai, Tran Thi Van Dung, and Dam Thi Thu Dung (2008) Paragraph Writing Skills National University Publishing House  The Supplementary Materials COURSE SYLLABUS AND TEACHING METHODWRITING IV From the objectives listed above, in the second semester, second-year students will learn a writing course in which more academic kinds of paragraphs are introduced, including those which are essential for the researching students The process approach to teaching writing is still embedded in activity organisation, course book design and course assessment Moreover, students’ autonomy is promoted through all the class and home activities The following writing strategies will be embedded in lessons: Cognitive strategies - repeating: rewriting until satisfied recognizing and using formulas and patterns taking notes - summarizing using resources for sending a message Compensation strategies: Selecting the topic Adjusting or approximating the message Using a circumlocution or a synonym Meta-cognitive strategies Overviewing and linking with already known materials Organizing Setting goals and objectives Planning for a language task Seeking practice opportunities Self-monitoring Self-evaluating Identifying the purposes of a language task Affective strategies Taking risks wisely Discussing your feelings with someone TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LII Using a checklist else Social strategies Asking for correction Cooperating with peers Cooperating with proficient users of the language TIME Becoming aware of others’ thoughts and feelings CONTENT & ACTIVITIES STUDY MODE In class Part 1: Academic writing skills Unit 1: Paraphrasing - Teacher’s lecture Week - Model text discussion At home - Practice Complete the practice of Unit Paraphrase a chosen paragraph ( first and second draft) Prepare Unit Do supplementary exercises In class Unit 2: Summarizing - Teacher’s lecture Week - Model text discussion At home - Practice - Homework hand-in: Paraphrases Complete the practice of Unit Summarize a chosen paragraph TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIII ( first and second draft) Prepare Unit Do supplementary exercises In class Unit 3: Quotations – Avoiding Plagiarism - Teacher’s lecture Week - Practice At home - Homework hand-in: Summaries - Homework return: Paraphrases Complete the practice of Unit Prepare Unit Do supplementary exercises In class Unit 4: Revision and Sentence Structure Improvement - More practice for summaries, paraphrases and quotations Week - More practice for sentence variety improvement At home - Homework return: Summaries Complete the practice of Unit Prepare Unit Do supplementary exercises In class Part 2: Advanced paragraphs Unit 5: Comparison – Contrast paragraphs Week - Teacher’s lecture At home - Model text discussion - Practice Do supplementary exercises Complete the practice of Unit TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIV In class Unit 5: Comparison – Contrast paragraphs (cont’d) Week - More practice At home - Writing of the first draft of a chosen topic Do supplementary exercises Revise the first draft Prepare Unit In class Unit 6: Cause – Effect paragraphs - Teacher’s lecture Week - Model text discussion At home - Practice - Homework hand-in: Comparison – Contrast paragraphs Do supplementary exercises Week Complete the practice of Unit In class MID TERM BREAK Unit 6: Cause – Effect paragraphs (cont’d) - More practice Week - Writing of the first draft of a chosen topic At home - Homework return: Comparison – Contrast paragraphs Do supplementary exercises Revise the first draft Prepare Unit Week 10 In class Unit 7: Argument paragraphs - Teacher’s lecture - Model text discussion TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LV - Practice - Homework hand-in: Cause – Effect paragraphs At home Do supplementary exercises Complete the practice of Unit In class Unit 7: Argument paragraphs (cont’d) - More practice Week 11 - Writing of the first draft of a chosen topic At home - Homework return: Cause – Effect paragraphs Do supplementary exercises Revise the first draft Prepare Unit Week 12 In class At home Unit 8: Revision - Homework hand-in: Argument paragraphs Do supplementary exercises Complete the practice of Unit Week 13 In class Week 14 At home Revision and Preparation for Submission of the Writing Portfolio Homework return: Argument paragraphs Do supplementary exercises BREAK FOR REVISION Do the sample test Submission of Writing Portfolio At home Revision and Preparation for End-of-Term Test Week 15 In class TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LVI APPENDIX QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS I am Le Diem Phuc, a teacher of English Language Skill Division – English Teacher Education Department, who is doing a master thesis on the topic “An evaluation of the writing curriculum for first year and second year students of English at Hanoi University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National University.” This questionnaire is aimed at seeking your responses on your evaluation of certain aspects of the writing curriculum for the first and second year students Your answers, therefore, would make a great contribution to my work I hereby certify that all of the information gained from this questionnaire will be dealt with confidentially and anonymously Please respond to this questionnaire by either write in the space provided, rank to show your opinion, tick an option of your choice Thank you for your assistance *** Part 1: Personal Information Group: Gender: Part 2: Questions Rank summary and reflection assignments from to by ticking the right box 1: Too difficult Difficult To your level Easy Too easy For first year students For second year students Tick the mistakes you often make in the above types of assignments? (You can ticj more than one option) TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LVII 2.1 Summary  a Including specific details  b Excluding main ideas  c Repetition (in your summary, you use the exact words, phrases or the whole sentences in the original text)  d Others Clarify: - -Reflection  a Expanding the topic (Your reflection is like a writing about the same topic with the original text)  b Source citation (no source citation or wrong citation)  c Summary (Reflection is another summary of the original text)  d Others Clarify: Tick the cause(s) of the above mistakes (You can tick more than one option)  a Lack of instruction in the course book  b Lack of instruction from teacher  c Language competence  d Lack of practice activities in course book  e Others Clarify: - -4 Tick the mistake your often make about paragraph writing structure (You can tick more than one option)  a Instead of writing a paragraph, you write an essay (your writing has three parts with indentation)  b Your introduction has more than one sentence with the topic sentence NOT being the first one TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LVIII  c Others Clarify: - -5 Tick the cause(s) of the above paragraph writing structure mistakes (You can tick more than one option)  a Lack of instruction in the course book  b Lack of instruction from teacher  c The habit of writing essay in the first year  d Others Clarify: - -6 Does the way the first year and second year writing course book name common items (narration, opinion giving) differently confuse you?  a Yes  b No What are the consequences of the above confusion? - - - - -8 Rank the clarity level of the instructions in course books for the following contents Not clear at all Not clear enough Clear Very clear Course book for first year students Description Narration Summary Opinion giving Course book for second year students Description TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIX Narration Summary Opinion giving Your suggestions to improve the writing program (teaching contents, course books…) THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LX APPENDIX TEACHER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Number of questions: Number of interviewees: How you evaluate the continuity throughout stages in syllabus design of the English language skill program at Department of English Language Teacher Educations – HULIS – VNU? Give examples to illustrate your answer How you evaluate the difficulty of summary and reflection writing compared to first and second year students’ level? Explain your answer How you evaluate your first year and second year students’ performance in summary and reflection writing? Give examples (e.g students’ result) to illustrate your answer What mistakes your first year and second year students make in summary and reflection writing? What you think are the causes of the above mistake(s)? Do your second year students make mistake with paragraph structure? If yes, specify What you think are the causes of the above mistake(s)? TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LXI APPENDIX FIRST YEAR WRITING SYLLABUS DESIGNER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Number of questions: Number of interviewees: 1 What factor(s) you take into consideration when designing the writing syllabus? What factor(s) you take into consideration when designing the writing course book and teaching materials? How you evaluate the continuity throughout stages in syllabus design of the English language skill program at Department of English Language Teacher Educations – HULIS – VNU? Give examples to illustrate your answer How you evaluate the difficulty of summary and reflection writing compared to first and second year students’ level? Explain your answer How you evaluate your first year and second year students’ performance in summary and reflection writing? Give examples (e.g students’ result) to illustrate your answer What mistakes your first year students make in summary and reflection writing? What you think are the causes of the above mistake(s)? What are your suggestions to improve the six – semester writing program? TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LXII APPENDIX SECOND YEAR WRITING SYLLABUS DESIGNER INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Number of questions: 10 Number of interviewees: 1 What factor(s) you take into consideration when designing the writing syllabus? What factor(s) you take into consideration when designing the writing course book and teaching materials? How you evaluate the continuity throughout stages in syllabus design of the English language skill program at Department of English Language Teacher Educations – HULIS – VNU? Give examples to illustrate your answer How you evaluate the difficulty of summary and reflection writing compared to first and second year students’ level? Explain your answer How you evaluate your first year and second year students’ performance in summary and reflection writing? Give examples (e.g students’ result) to illustrate your answer What mistakes your second year students make in summary and reflection writing? What you think are the causes of the above mistake(s)? Do your second year students make mistake with paragraph structure? If yes, specify What you think are the causes of the above mistake(s)? 10 What are your suggestions to improve the six – semester writing program? TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LXIII TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LXIV TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Thank you for evaluating AnyBizSoft PDF Merger! To remove this page, please register your program! Go to Purchase Now>> AnyBizSoft PDF Merger  Merge multiple PDF files into one  Select page range of PDF to merge  Select specific page(s) to merge  Extract page(s) from different PDF and merge into one TIEU LUAN files MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ... the topic ? ?An evaluation of the writing curriculum for first year and second year students of English at Hanoi University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU). .. up-to-date and efficient After teaching students of English of the first and second year students at Hanoi University of Languages and International studies, Vietnam National University (HULIS-VNU). . .VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ DIỄM PHÚC AN EVALUATION OF THE WRITING CURRICULUM FOR FIRST YEAR AND SECOND