Rationale
The crucial role of writing cannot be denied in the language learning process
According to Harmer (2007:112), this productive skill is a practical tool to give learners chances for language utilization they have been studying Paradoxically, writing is an extremely difficult skill and poses great challenges for many second or foreign language learners to truly grasp Because writing is “not an innate skill or potential aptitude, but as a developmental capacity” (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996:151), and a highly complicated process requiring writers to uncover thoughts and ideas, making them concrete and individual (Matsuda, 2003; Westwood, 2004) or a process in which an initial idea in writing task needs refining and expanding by learners (Shaughnessy,1977: 234)
However, in approaching writing tasks such as writing a paragraph, a description, a narrative or a letter, students at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School (HLUSS), especially many eleventh graders seem to be more prone to finding solutions to grammar and vocabulary problems, imitating or copying fixed organizational patterns passively and unsuitably rather than analyzing or developing ideas As a result, they fail to attain writing skills which lead to the burnout and low marks in writing
There goes an old Chinese proverb that “Teachers open doors, but you must enter by yourself” When applied to the language teaching and learning, this proverb probably means that teachers should provide their learners with good opportunities to acquire knowledge and the learners should know how to take the initiative to apply that knowledge to their own case to be able to be more successful
Nevertheless, most of the learners little apply and sometimes ignore appropriate writing strategies when they take guidance from their teachers As Wenden and Rubin (1987) found out that some learners were more successful than others since they used learning strategies more effectively Furthermore, Oxford (1990:1) claims that the application of the appropriate learning strategies can lead to improved proficiency and greater self-confidence This suggests that arousing learners’ awareness of strategy use in learning can improve the learners’ result
Writing strategies have been identified by various researchers in both second and foreign language contexts ( Petric & Czarl 2003; Pham Thu Hien, 2004; Chen ,
2011, Maarof & Murat, 2013) Yet, there has not been any practical strategy study conducted to uncover and clarify what strategies HLUSS students actually use in writing
For all the reasons above, the researcher would like to investigate the use of writing strategies of 11 th grade students at HLUSS with the hope to reformulate the writing strategies used by the group, namely “successful writers”, then, apply them to train
“unsuccessful writers” to help improve their writing skill.
Aims of the study
Research hopes to find ways to help students learn to write in English better
Specifically, it aimed to find out what writing strategies are used most frequently by the eleventh graders at HLUSS in their writing tasks in English and to determine whether there were any differences in writing strategies used between successful and unsuccessful students.
Research question…
1 What writing strategies are most frequently used by eleventh graders at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School?
2 Are there any differences in the use of writing strategies between successful and unsuccessful students?
Method of the study
To achieve the objectives of the research, the study was conducted by using questionnaire and interview The questionnaire was used as the major instrument of data collection and interview was employed to confirm more reliable data from the survey questionnaire In addition, SPSS software was employed to analyze the data collected from the survey.
Scope of the study
Concerning the scope of the study, the following issues should be taken into consideration First, the study relates to writing strategies used by the eleventh graders at HLUSS, Lang Son Province Second, writing strategies are studied in various writing tasks such as writing a paragraph, a description, a narrative or a letter.
Significance of the study
The current study is significant for several following reasons First, it makes a significant contribution to investigate the writing strategy use of eleventhgraders at HLUSS Second, it clarifies how writing strategies are applied Finally, many important implications are discussed not only to arouse learners’ awareness of the use of writing tactics and help learners use their writing strategies as effective language learning tools but also to help teachers make sense of their students’ strategy use and share strategies with other learners or ponder their teachers’ future teaching direction in writing
7 Organization of the study This thesis consists of three parts, namely introduction, development and conclusion
Part A is introduction which provides an overview of the study including the rationale, the aims, methods, the scope, the significance and the design of the study
Part B, Development, has three distinguishable chapters
Chapter 1, Literature Review, reviews theoretical background on which the whole study is based concluding terminological definitions and taxonomies of language learning strategies, writing strategy and approaches to teaching writing
Chapter 2, Methodology, briefly presents the methodological framework of the study It covers features of the participants, setting of the study, instruments and data collection procedure
Chapter 3, findings and discussion, presents findings and discusses the findings, which gives comprehensive answers to the two research questions
Part C, Conclusion, summarizes significant findings, suggest implications for writing strategy instructions at HLUSS, addresses notable limitations, and puts forward practical suggestions for future research
PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW
This chapter discusses the theory and research into the five areas that form the underpinnings for this study The first section begins with an overview of theoretical issues on terminological definitions and classification systems of language learning strategies The second section puts forward writing strategies, and writing strategy questionnaire The third section provides writing approaches in teaching writing The fourth section concludes a review of previous studies on LLSs and writing strategies Finally, the main points are summarized at the end of this chapter
This section puts forward relevant issues of language learning strategies (LLSs) in terms of definition and classification
1.1.1 Definition of language learning strategies
There are various definitions on language learning strategies given by various researchers and scholars, but this thesis only focuses on definitions by Rubin
Learning strategies are, as Rubin (1975:43) defined, “the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge”
Tarone (1983) defines a learning strategy as an effort to “develop linguistic and sociolinguistic competence in the target language - to incorporate these into one's interlanguage competence" (cited in O'Malley and Chamot, 1990:47)
Language learning strategies are, as Oxford (1990:8) defined , “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self- directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations”
These strategies seem to share the same characteristics: LLSs are “what students do to assist their learning” (Bremner, 1999:8).Obviously, researchers use these different terms to depict strategies and to explain for their own targets (Bremner, 1999:8)
Griffiths (2004:2) states that Rubin is one of the pioneers in the realm of doing research of learning strategies, Rubin’s definition, hence, is too broad to cover
In Tarone’s definition, although it may contribute to the language learning process to a certain extent, learner autonomy, cultural understanding, or other aspects of language learning are not underlined (Lan, 2005:16)
Compared with other definitions, Oxford’s is considered to be one of the most comprehensive ones (Lan, 2005:15) Furthermore, her definition adds affective factor used for other purposes like making learners more enjoyable which is not reflected in other definitions (Alhaisoni, 2012:116)
For the purpose of the study, Oxford’s definition acts as a guideline for the present research because of its clearness, concrete and easy comprehension
1.1.2 Classification of language learning strategies
There are several different viewpoints on the classifications of LLSs in the field of second and foreign language learning To seek a suitable classification of LLSs for this study, the most common classifications of LLSs proposed by Naiman et al.,
(1978), Rubin (1981), and Oxford (1990) are presented in this study
First, Naiman et al., (1978) presented a classification including five major strategies such as (i) an active task approach, (ii) realization of language as a system, (iii) realization of language as a means of communication and interaction, (iv) management of affective demands, and (v) monitoring of second language performance He emphasizes on distinctive learning strategies of good language learners with expectation of transferring the strategies used by the good language learners to the poor ones However, Gass & Selinker (2008:443) point that, “… studies which do not include poor learners cannot be used to say that poor learners do the same thing that so-called good learners do” This classification, thus, is irrelevant to the current study aiming at exploring the LLSs use in writing of both
Rubin (1981) classifies LLSs into two broad categories with eight sets such as (i) clarification/verification, (ii) monitoring, (iii) memorization, (iv) guessing/inductive reasoning, (v) deductive reasoning, and (vi) practice A distinctive point in the classification proposed by Rubin is its direct influence to learning (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990: 3) Additionally, it makes “a sketch of important strategies” utilized by successful language learners (Lan , 2005) : 21) Her category, however, makes up of certain limitations As pointed by Gass & Selinker (2008:443) above, the model only basing on her observations of the good language learners does not correlate to the study which tend to explore both successful learners and unsuccessful ones
A common limitation in the classification by both Rubin and Naiman et al is that the theoretical foundation of second language acquisition or cognition is ignored which results in difficulty to identify the foundation for learning (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990: 7)
Although the taxonomies above yield some first insights for language learning strategies, the visible weaknesses of the classification emerge which seem to be unsuitable for the current study The study, thus, needs to work out more appropriate classification This is followed by another specific classification introduced by Oxford (1990)
Taxonomy proposed by Oxford (1990:37) divides the language learning strategies into two major classes, direct and indirect with 62 question items Each class is composed of three groups: memory, cognitive and compensation under the direct class; metacognitive, affective, and social under the indirect one
The first classification is direct strategies that directly refer to the purpose of language Its three subcategories are memory strategies for language learners to store and retrieve new information needed for communication; cognitive strategies for learners to make out and produce new language by numerous different means easier and compensation strategies for assisting learners to get over their knowledge limitations in language use
The second taxonomy of strategy class is indirect learning strategies that “supports and manages language learning without directly involving the target language” with three groups: metacognitive strategies, affective strategies and social strategies (Oxford, 1990:135) First, metacognitive strategies are actions which provide a way for learners to cooperate their own learning process Second, affective strategies are actions that assist learners regulate their motivation, attitude, as well as significantly influence their learning success or failure The third ones, social strategies “help students learn through interaction with each other” Oxford (1990) emphasizes that indirect strategies are useful and able to apply for the development of all language skills
By and large, compared with other categories, Oxford (1990) brings about an exclusive taxonomy (Ghee et al, 2010:51) and her classification is appreciated to be the most comprehensive one of learning strategies to date (Ellis, 1994:539)
Particularly, Oxford (1990) hints two additional kinds of strategies in detail such as compensatory strategies, memory strategies that are not included in previous categories and depicts social and affective strategies as distinct This new point is said to be “part of language learner self-regulation” (Oxford, 2003:112)
Literature Review.…
Writing strategies
This section represents writing strategies including definitions and the writing strategy questionnaire
Writing strategies are defined by Petric and Czarl (2003:189) as “actions or behaviours consciously carried out by writers in order to make their writing more efficient” Another definition by Lei (2008:220) of writing strategies is “mediated actions which are consciously taken to facilitate writers’ practices in communities”
According to Petric and Czarl (2003:190), the definition of writing strategies concentrates on students’ perceptions of the writing strategy use, which may not be the same as the actual strategies applied
In analyzing writing strategies, linguists proposed some different writing strategy questionnaires From different perspectives, different writing strategy questionnaires can be used or adapted Writing strategy questionnaire will be presented in the next section
Basing on Oxford’s format of Strategy Inventory for Language Learning, Petric and Czarl (2003) made some suggestions for changes of questionnaires so that it can be appropriate for investigation into writing strategies The authors divided it into three subcategories: (i) planning strategies (8 items), (ii) while-writing strategies (14 items), and (iii) revising strategies (16 items) (see Appendix 3) They emphasized that this division was introduced for the sake of clarity According to Jackson (2006: 154) these items had a strong reliability
To construct its reliability and validity, the authors conducted studies with different groups of members of the target population, i.e., advanced non-native speakers of English, in academic environments
To establish the reliability of data collection instruments applicable to questionnaires, Petric and Czarl (2003) undertook a study among English majors at a Hungarian university by using the test–retest as the main reliability check method proposed by many researchers (e.g Seliger and Shohamy, 1989; Alderson and Banerjee, 1996; Hatch and Lazaraton, 1991) According to Petric and Czarl (2003:191), this method has been proved to be stable over time and relatively feasible to be applied in regular school settings
To build its validity, the authors applied the think- aloud protocol termed by Converse and Presser (1986) and interview by Alderson and Banerjee (1996) The results revealed that relevant types of validity are considered to be content, construct and response validity Moreover, validation using triangulation of different data sources provides “not only information on the validity of the instrument but also valuable insights into the construct itself.” (Petric and Czarl 2003:191)
From all the reasons above, the present research bases on definition of LLSs, some theories of proposed by Oxford (1990) and writing strategy questionnaire by Petric and Czarl (2003) which act as the key direction to its investigation because of their clearness, concreteness and validity The following section will discuss writing approaches.
Writing approaches
There are a number of different approaches toward teaching writing emerging over the years, each of which has its distinctive focuses leading to the use of different strategies to help ESL/ EFL learners fulfill their writing tasks To some extent, the approach to teaching writing affects the investigation into writing strategies In this study, two approaches will be presented, namely product approach and process one for the purpose to identify the one that is better in teaching writing
This approach is, as Nunan (1991: 86) states, “consistent with sentence - level structuralist linguistics and bottom – up process” According to Pincas (1982: 22), the product approach includes four stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing The purpose of familiarization stage is to arouse learners’ awareness of certain features of a particular text In the controlled and guided writing sections, the learners’ practice in skills aims at increasing freedom until they are ready for the free writing section, when they “use the writing skill as part of a genuine activity such as a letter, story or essay”
This approach has some merits As stated by Nunan (1991: 87), the focus on usage, structure, or correct form would result in the improvement of writing Moreover, Likewise, Rodrigues (1985) and Howowitz (1986) (cited in Nunan 1991: 87) advocate that overall goal of the product approach to teaching writing is to develop the learner’s ability to the creation of grammatically accurate texts that will be encountered in academic or personal setting
Nevertheless, the limitations of the product-oriented approach to the teaching writing have been pointed out by other researchers First, it mainly focuses on the end result of learning process in which learners attempt to imitate, copy and transform fixed organizational models of correct language at the level of the sentences provided by the teachers or textbook to facilitate the meaning of the sentences (Nunan, 1991:86-87) Thus, it is said that less attention is paid to purpose, communication, audience, or the process of composition ( Zamel ,1982:195) , there is “ no freedom to make mistakes” (Pincas,1982:91) or “little or no opportunity for learners adding any thoughts or ideas of their own” (Raimes 1983:
10) Also, Hamer (1991: 257) and Nunan (1990:8) add that the product approach primarily concerns the aim of a task and the end product And it is supposed to be more suitable to some kinds of text such as formal letters or postcards (Steele,
Later, the emergence of the process approach in teaching writing has drawn attention to various language researchers According to Zamel (1982: 196), the process approach makes up of the act of writing, pre - writing and re-writing and is said to beneficial to students with the various classroom activities Raims (1983:10) depicts that in the process approach, “students do not write on a given topic in a restricted time and hand in the composition rather, they explore a topic through writing” Nunan (1991: 87) points out that thanks to this approach, learners can work together as a way of increasing motivation and developing positive attitudes toward writing Supporting these views, While and Arndt (1991: 11) suggest a process writing model involving six recursive procedures
In this model, the first writers’ task is drafting to brainstorm ideas Followed this is structuring by ordering information, experimenting with arrangements, etc Next step is reviewing in which writes check context, connections, assess impact and edit The fourth stage, focusing, makes sure that the writer is getting the message across she wants to get across The fifth one, generating, writers have to generate ideas Finally, the writing needs evaluating
Although, the process – oriented approach is said to take time to brainstorm ideas (Hammer, 2001: 258), it is believed to promote the development of skilled language and the responsibility and control of learning is shifted from teacher to students
(Nunan, 1991: 86-87) In other words, the teachers in the process-oriented writing classes serve as facilitators who enable the learners to develop effective composing strategies Though there are views of strength of the composing process revealed by process oriented studies, most writing classes are still based on mechanistic, product- oriented exercises (Zamel, 1987: 701) This suggests that writing classes may combine these two approaches However, the research into the process of composition makes contribution to raise implications for the methodology of teaching writing in a second or foreign language
This section will put forward an overview of previous studies in terms LLSs and writing strategies in accordance with subject selection, data collection methods and findings with the purpose of seeking the most suitable method for collecting data then comparing the results of the study with those has been presented in this section
1.4.1 Studies on language learning strategies
Alhaisoni (2012) conducted a significant research on the identification of the type and frequency of the English language learning strategies of 701 male and female Saudi EFL students at the University of Ha’il The Oxford Strategies Inventory of Language Learning was used with some modifications The findings indicated that highly proficient students used all six categories more than low-proficiency students The result revealed that the students utilized LLSs with low to medium frequency They preferred to use cognitive and metacognitive strategies the most, used affective strategies and memory strategies the least
Ismail and Khatib (2013) explored the patterns of language learning strategies (LLS) used by 190 students in the Foundation Program of the United Arab Emirates University (UAEU) It also investigated the effects of language proficiency level and gender on the use of these strategies The Oxford’s (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning was used for collecting the data The results indicated that these learners were overall medium strategy users They utilized Metacognitive strategies the most frequently used among the six strategies Followed this was social strategies, compensation strategies, affective strategies, cognitive strategies and memory strategies respectively
Pham Thu Hien (2004) investigated LLSs of Vietnamese EFL groups, namely
“effective” and “ineffective” writers in writing classes at a university in Vietnam
Classroom observation, interview and questionnaire were served as data collection instruments, and then data was analyzed by SPSS The result showed that the subjects utilized all of the direct and indirect strategies that were proposed by Oxford (1990) Concretely, the effective writers used some strategies at higher degree than the ineffective ones while they did writing tasks
Chen (2011) conducted a present study aimed at investigating writing strategies used by 135 Chinese non-English majors at Dezhou University The questionnaire proposed by Petric and Czarl, (2003) and interview were major means of collecting date The findings showed that in spite of using strategies in all stages of writing, students tended to utilize more writing strategies in while-writing strategies compared to pre-writing strategies and revising strategies; and writing strategies as a whole have certain predictive power for writing achievements
Another study undertaken by Maarof & Murat (2013) explored the writing strategy use between two groups of high-intermediate and low proficiency ESL upper secondary school students in Malaysia to determine any significant differences in strategy use between them The number of participant was 50 Data gathered by the Writing Strategy Questionnaire by Petric & Czarl (2003) revealed that the while- writing strategies were most frequently used by ESL students while the revising strategies more were least used
All the students displayed approximately similar frequency use of strategies but differed only in the type of strategies used
In summary, on the basis of a discussion on the previous studies, some comments on subject selection, data collection method and results are given as follows:
Summary
This chapter has addressed a review of the literature related to the focus of this study First, language learning strategies have been defined in various ways, yet Oxford’s definitions will be chosen for the purpose of the study Second, some classifications of learning strategies have been clearly presented and discussed
Nevertheless, Oxford’s taxonomy and Petric and Czarl’s writing strategy questionnaire will be adopted to investigate the writing strategies employed by eleventh graders at HLUSS, and interview is used to clarify and supplement statistical results from the survey questionnaire Fourth, the writing process theory is used to analyze and discuss the findings of the investigation Finally, some previous studies have been briefly reviewed with an attempt to seek the most appropriate methods for collecting data in the present research and to help the researcher to compare and contrast her research results with those in the literature review The next chapter will put forward methodology.
Methods
Setting of the study
The study was conducted at a public educational institution, Huu Lung Upper Secondary School, Lang Son In the school year 2013-2014, the school consisted of ten eleventh - grade classes with four hundred students encompassing two natural science oriented classes, two classes specializing in English and the others belonging to the group of social science majors
In terms of the official learning material, “Tieng Anh 11” compiled by Hoang Van Van et, al has been selected for eleventh graders This document is composed of sixteen units, each of which consists of five parts: Reading, Speaking, Listening, Writing and Language focus In the writing section, students are exposed to some tasks such as letters, descriptive writing and narrative writing
Regarding learners, although most students are aware of the importance of English, a small number of students are motivated, make efforts to learn well and seem to pay attention to their own learning strategies While many others are only interested in subjects they are supposed to perform in the entrance university examinations and all in all they are little aware of the strategy use in learning process
In terms of teaching staff, all of teachers are from College of Pedagogy, many of whom have a great deal of teaching experience , are enthusiastic, active and full of inspiration for teaching Nevertheless, in teaching writing, they are familiar with the Grammar-Translation teaching method without paying much attention to teaching writing strategies.
Participants
The number of eleventh graders was 405 They were between 16 and 17 years old
By the time of the study, all of them had learned English as a foreign language formally for four years in lower secondary schools and a year and a half in upper secondary school
Eighty participants were randomly selected for the study on the basis of the following criteria Firstly, basing on the result of the previous semester, the students with 7.0 upward were identified for “successful” group and those who got 5.0 downwards were classified as “unsuccessful” one respectively (see Appendix 1, 2)
Secondly, all of the participants were willing to take part in the study Lastly, they have been somewhat accustomed to the teaching and studying methods, the conditions and the teaching environment at upper secondary school This makes convenient for the author to get their consent to participate in the research
Four teachers aged from 24 to 40 were invited to join this study All the teachers are females, three of whom have many years of experience in teaching English writing; one is novice and lacks teaching experience The reason for choosing these teachers is that they are all currently teaching 11 th English at HLUSS.
Instruments
Questionnaire was adopted as a major source of data in the current research for several reasons, one of which is that questionnaire encourages great honesty (Cohen et al., 2007: 351) Another reason is that the data themselves “are more amendable to quantification than discursive data like free form field notes, the transcripts of oral language” (Nunnan, 1992: 143) The others lied in its popularity in writing strategy studies and its strengths over other data collection techniques which were discussed elaborately in 1.4.2
The questionnaires are composed of two sections: A background questionnaire and Writing Strategy Questionnaire proposed by Petric & Czarl, (2003) which were translated into Vietnamese for the purpose of making them easier for the subjects to answer According to Dornyei and Taguchi (2010: 49), translated questionnaires have been widely practiced with the belief that “the quality of the obtained data will increase if the questionnaire is presented in the respondents’ own mother tongue”
In the first section, the background questionnaire designed to obtain additional information about the participants included five questions basing on the Oxford’s suggestions (see Appendix 3 section 1)
The second section was designed on the basis of WSQ adapted from Petric & Czarl
(2003) to uncover information about students’ writing strategy use during their writing process (see Appendix 3 section 2) The questionnaire is divided in to three parts following the structure of the writing process, i.e.; before writing, while writing and revising and includes a list of thirty-eight specific items for writing, each of which presents an assertion about the use of a writing strategy and was given on a five-point Likert scale ranging “never or almost never true of me”,
“Usually not true”, “Somewhat true”, “usually true” and “always, or almost always true of me.”
Interview was used to confirm the information collected from the questionnaire and identified to be relevant to the current study due to the following reasons: First, interview has been widely used in survey research to seek data on stages and processes of language acquisition (Nunan, 1992:149) Second, interviews allow researchers to “investigate phenomena that are not directly observable” (Mackey and Gass, 2005:173) Other reasons adopted in this study were discussed in 1.4.2
A semi - structured interview in English was carried out with four teachers who were teaching “Tieng Anh 11” at HLUSS In semi - structured interview, interviewer can change the order of the question because of its flexibility (Nunan ,1992: 148) and follow up interviewers’ response more extensively (McDoNough and McDoNough, 2003:184 ).There were three interview questions which focused on asking the frequency of teaching strategies and different strategies used to teach students at different levels (see Appendix 4) The length of each interview depended largely on the subjects’ talkativeness.
Data collection procedure
First, after students had completed the first-term of the academic year 2014, the questionnaire was directly delivered to 80 eleventh graders in a hall at HLUSS for nearly two hours This process was divided into three sections: Briefing, Writing strategy questionnaire and Background questionnaire
In the first section, Briefing, the researcher stated the purpose of the study in five minutes
In the second section, the subjects were required to write a paragraph about 100-
120 words on the topic “writing about a friend “ , which was designed to provide the subjects with opportunities to use writing strategies in writing process and to help researcher collect accurate data on writing strategies The participants were divided into groups of five to discuss the topic, list vocabulary and structures and generate the ideas in 15 minutes Next, the researcher observed the subjects’ activities and gave suggestions when asked Having completed the discussion, the subjects were asked to complete their writing tasks in 20 minutes, exchange their writing papers with their peers’ in 10 minutes and hand them in later These activities aimed at providing the subjects with chances to use numerous writing strategies Finally, subjects spent thirty minutes fulfilling the writing strategy questionnaire
In the last stage, to obtain the students’ background, the investigator distributed the background questionnaire to the subjects and required them accomplish within five minutes Then the researcher collected their answers
Two weeks after analyzing data from the writing strategies questionnaire, interviews were conducted between the researcher and four teachers in English The interviews took place in a quiet room on the fourth floor Before starting the interview, the researcher explained the nature of the research and the purpose of the interview The interviewees were also informed that the data were recorded and transcribed for the study.
Data analysis
All the data gathered from the WSQ were put into a computer and analyzed through the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) 16.0 to measure and uncover the similarities and differences in the use of writing strategies by two groups: successful and unsuccessful writers Specifically, descriptive statistics including frequencies, the means and standard deviations (SD) in the form of tables were calculated to show the students’ use of writing strategies
The frequencies of using writing strategies of the two groups “successful’ and
“unsuccessful” writers (see 2.2.1.for detail) were calculated by counting the number of responses to the questionnaire items based on 5-point scale: always used (scored
4.5-5), usually used (scored 3.5-4.4), sometimes used (2.5-3.4), generally not used (1.5-2.4) and never used (0.0- 1.4).And three scales for stating the degree of learning strategy use were figured out in term of high use (3.5-5.0), medium use (2.4-3.4) and low use (1.0-2.4 ) proposed by Oxford (1990:300)
2.6 Summary This chapter provided detailed descriptions of the methodology employed in this study First, the setting of the study is presented Second, the subjects were specifically depicted Third, questionnaire proposed by Petric & Czarl (2003) on the basis of Oxford’s theory was adopted to explore students’ writing strategy use and the rationale for choosing this method was given Besides, interview was used to clarify information from survey questionnaire Finally, the procedures of data collection were described The results from analyzing the students’ questionnaire and interview and discussion will be reported in the next section.
Results and Discussion
Results
This part will put forward the results of the questionnaire and interview to answer the research questions
3.1.1 Questionnaire 3.1.1.1 Writing strategies most frequently used by 11 th HLUSS students
Table 1 presents the overall writing strategies used at three writing stages As can be seen from the table, while-writing strategies (M =3.54) had the highest frequency, followed by those at the prewriting stage (M =2.90) and revising stage (M = 2.77)
According to Oxford’s (1990) division of language learning strategy use, (High usage is from 3.5 to 5.0; Medium usage is from 2.5 to 3.4; and Low usage is from 1.0 to 2.4) Therefore, it can be understood that the overall use of writing strategies by students in English writing is at the medium level
Table 1 Writing strategy use in each stage by students in the writing class
Table 2 presents the descriptive statistics for the most frequently used strategies in writing As shown in this table, twelve out of thirty-eight writing strategies were most frequently used by students, nine of which were at while – writing stage, while only one was at the prewriting and two at the revising stage
At the prewriting phrase, sixty-five percent of the students chose Before they start writing they revise the requirements (M =3.58; SD87) Regarding the while- writing stage, among nine of the most frequently employed strategies, Ask somebody to help out when they have problems while writing was preferred by most students as their initial strategy (M=4.23; SD = 857) whereas Reread what they have written to get ideas how to continue (M=3.52; SD=1.124) was the least used strategy in the list Other strategies at this stage ranged from M =3.53 to M=3.85 As for the revising stage, two strategies were the most frequently utilized by the students One of them was Check their mistakes after they get back the paper with feedback from the teacher, and try to learn from them (M=3.95; SD =.898); and the other was Compare their paper with their friends’ on the same topic (M=3.71; D= 1.173)
Table 2 Overall writing strategies most frequently used
1 Before starting writing, revise the requirements
1 Ask somebody to help out when I have problems while writing
4 Simplify what I want to write if I do not know how to express my thoughts in English
5 Stop after each sentence to read it
6 Go for sure in grammar and vocabulary
7 If I do not know a word in English, stop writing and look up the word in the dictionary
8 If I do not know a word in English, I write it in my native language and later try to find an appropriate English word
9.Reread what written to get ideas how to continue
1 Check mistakes after getting back the paper with feedback from the teacher, and try to learn from them
2 Compare the paper with friends’ on the same topic
3.1.1.2 Differences in the use of writing strategies between successful and unsuccessful students
The differences in writing strategy use between successful group and unsuccessful group will be presented in this section
Table 3 Mean and standard deviation of overall writing strategy between successful and unsuccessful students
Table 3 indicates the overall writing strategy utilization between two parties of writers According to Oxford’s division (1990), both groups employed the writing strategies at medium level, which means that there was no variation in the overall writing strategy use between the two groups
Further comparisons of overall writing strategy use at different stages between the two groups will be presented in the next section
Table 4 Mean and standard deviation of writing strategy at different stages between successful and unsuccessful students
Groups Prewriting Stage While Stage Revising Stage
N = 40 Mean SD Level Mean SD Level Mean SD Level
Successful 2.97 1.392 Medium 3.60 1.104 High 2.87 1.140 Medium Unsuccessful 2.80 1.517 Medium 3.95 1.036 High 2.68 1.203 Medium
The results from Table 4 show little difference in writing strategy employment between successful and unsuccessful groups at three writing stages As can be seen from the table, both of the groups used a repertoire of strategies with the same frequency at the pre-writing and the revising stage (Medium level) They, however, employed writing strategies at high level at while-writing stage
Table 5 Mean and standard deviation of prewriting strategies used by successful and unsuccessful students
1 Make a timetable for the writing process 3.42 1.059 2.57 1.517
2 Before writing , revise the requirements 3.85* 975 3.32 1.141
3 Look at a model written by a native speaker or more proficient writer
4 Start writing without having a written or mental plan 2.40 1.392 2.45 1.412
5 Think about what I want to write and have a plan in my mind, but not on paper
6 Note down words and short notes related to the topic 2.92 1.206 2.65 1.122
8 Write notes or an outline in my native language 2.75 1.315 3.30 1.264
Note *indicates high frequency use of strategies
The findings in Table 5 indicate the prewriting strategies most frequently used by both successful and unsuccessful groups On the whole, there was not much difference in the use of individual strategies at the pre-writing stage between the two groups However, the biggest variation could be found in the two writing strategies (2 and 7) It is clear that the successful students employed Revise the requirements (M=3.85; SD = 975) and Write an outline (M = 3.85; SD = 975) at the higher level than their unsuccessful counterparts (Revise the requirements (M=3.32; SD = 1.141) and Write an outline (M = 2.30; SD = 1.264)
Table 6 Mean and standard deviation of while-writing strategies used by successful and unsuccessful students
2 Stop after each sentence to read it again 3.10 1.098 3.75* 1.056
3 Stop after a few sentences or a whole paragraph, covering one idea
4 Reread what I have written to get ideas how to continue
5 Go back to my outline and make changes in it 3.75* 869 2.70 1.159
6 Write bits of the text in my native language and then translate them into English
7 Go for sure in grammar and vocabulary 3.20 1.090 3.97* 973
8 Simplify what I want to write if I don’t know how to express my thoughts in English
9 If I do not know a word in English, I write it in my native language and later try to find an appropriate English word
10 If I do not know a word in English, I find a similar English word that I know
11 If I do not know a word in English, I stop writing and look up the word in the dictionary
14 Ask somebody to help out when having problems while writing
Note.*indicates high frequency use of strategies Table 6 reports the results of the while-writing strategies used by successful and unsuccessful students It can be seen that both the successful and unsuccessful writers had a number of strategies at the high level They all chose to start with the introduction and ask somebody to help out when they have problems while writing
Additionally, using a bilingual dictionary was also reported to be frequently used by both groups of writers when they encountered problems with new words
Another strategy used by both groups is that they simplified what they wanted to write if they did not know how to express their thoughts in English
However, the great differences in writing strategies used by the two parties could be found at the while – writing stage For successful writers, If they did not know a word in English, they stopped writing and looked up the word in the dictionary” (M
= 3.85; SD = 1.210) or they could find a similar English word that they knew (M 3.52; D =.876) They reported to choose to go back to outline and make changes in it (M =3.75; SD = 869) In contrast, successful group preferred stopping after each sentence to read it (M=3.75; SD = 1.056) or stopping after a few sentences or a whole paragraph, covering one idea (M =3.65; SD = 1.248) They chose If they do not know a word, they write it in their native language and later try to find an appropriate English word (M= 3.60; SD =1.104) Another writing strategy was Go for sure in grammar and vocabulary (M=3.50; SD= 1.281)
Table 7 depicts in detail the revising strategies most frequently used by both successful and unsuccessful groups Clearly, several variations in most frequently used revising strategies could be found between the two groups The successful employed some strategies at higher frequency, such as Compare their paper with their friends’ on the same topic (M = 3.65; SD = 1.188), Check their mistakes after they get back the paper with feedback from the teacher, and try to learn from them (M = 4.12; SD = 882), Showed their text to somebody and ask for his/her opinion (M = 3.55; SD = 1.280), and then Drop the first draft and start writing again (M=3.50; SD = 987) Nevertheless, their unsuccessful counterparts used Only read what they have written when they have finished the whole paper (M=3.50; SD
=1.300) and Checked their mistakes after they got back the paper with feedback from the teacher, and tried to learn from them (M = 3.77; SD = 891) more frequently
Table 7 Mean and standard deviation of revising strategies used by unsuccessful and unsuccessful students
2 Only read after finishing the whole paper 2.75 1214 3.50* 1.300
3 When finishing writing, hand it in without reading it 1.97 1.975 1.87 965
6 Make changes in sentence structure 2.75 098 2.72 1.240
7 Make changes in the structure of the writing 2.95 1.108 2.27 1.300
8 Make changes in the content or ideas 2.35 1.051 2.57 1.195 9.Focus on one thing at a time when revising (e.g., content ) 2.55 932 3.05 1.197
10 Drop the first draft and start writing again 3.50* 987 2.77 1.349
11 Check if the writing matches the requirements 3.07 1.288 2.20 992
12 Leave the text aside for a couple of days and then see it in a new perspective
13 Show my text to somebody and ask for his/her opinion 3.55* 1.280 2.92 1.366
14 Compare the paper with their friends’ on the same topic 3.65* 1.188 3.45 1.165
15 Give myself a reward for completing the assignment 2.07 1.288 2.47 1.131
16 Check mistakes after getting back the paper with feedback from the teacher, and try to learn from them
Note.*indicates high frequency use of strategies
The results from interviewing four teachers showed that the teachers focused on teaching more while –writing strategies rather than the prewriting and revising strategies At the prewriting stage, they introduced the strategies of Arranging a timetable for the writing process, revising the requirement before writing and planning the lesson At the while-writing, they instructed their students to Write an introduction, Simply what they wanted to write if they could not express their thought in English and Correct grammar and vocabulary At the revising stage, students were required to Reread their writings, compare their writings with their peers’ and then Take guide from their teachers to solve grammar and vocabulary
The findings also revealed that the teachers sometimes applied some certain writing strategies for different levels Concretely, successful writers were encouraged to employ strategies more frequently such as generating ideas, making some changes in outline and drop the first draft and rewrite it while unsuccessful counterparts were provided help with grammar and vocabulary correction.
Findings and discussions
To begin with, the study found that the overall writing strategy use of 11 th graders at HLUSS were medium users of writing strategies This finding, thus, was in agreement with the results of previous studies by Chen’s (2011) and Maarof &
Murat (2013) and Ismail and Khatib (2013) What is more, the study showed that these students employed all writing strategies which were consistent with the result by Pham Thu Hien (2004) However, twelve out of all thirty- eight were most frequently used by students This was conflicted with the results in the study by Maarof & Murat (2013) because of the following reasons First, the subjects used ten out of thirty-three writing strategies most frequently Second, these participants came from Malaysian upper secondary school and learned English as a second language Such conflictions of writing strategy use were due to some factors such as subjects, the cultural setting, instructional context, and type of language perfor- mance required (Dreyer & Oxford, 1996 and Oxford & Burry-Stock, 1995) The fact is that most of the participants in the current study were from HLUSS and learned English as foreign language
Furthermore, this study reported no variation in the frequency of overall writing strategy use between the two groups of writers which was in keeping with earlier research by Chen (2011) and Maarof & Murat (2013) Nevertheless, there were some differences in the use of individual strategies between the two groups at the three stages of writing The greatest differences were seen in individual items at the while– writing stage These results of the current study were somehow consisted with those of Chen (2011), Maarof & Murat (2013) and Alhaisoni (2012)
Before writing, the result of the study illustrated that the difference in the use of some prewriting strategy items by good writers at higher degree in comparison with unsuccessful peers such as revising the requirements and writing an outline and planning This finding supports Maarof & Murat’s (2013) and Chen (2011)
Furthermore, at the while-writing stage, the result showed the big variation of the frequency of the writing strategy use between the successful students and the unsuccessful counterparts, which was in agreement with the finding in the study by Maarof & Murat (2013) Namely, while successful writers focused on the writing strategies such as making some more changes of outline, finding synonym and using dictionary to look up new words, their unsuccessful peers were interested in stopping after each sentence to read it again or a whole paragraph, covering one idea, going for sure in grammar and vocabularyand If they do not know a word in
English, they write it in their native language and later try to find an appropriate
The finding of the study indicated that both groups of writers also differed in the type of strategies used at the revising stage Three writing strategy items were employed at high frequency by successful writers such as compare the writing with their partners, exchange ideas and drop the first draft and start writing again The unsuccessful writers only read after finishing the whole paper
The chapter has covered findings and discussion in details in the research Research question one which aimed at identifying the writing strategies most frequently used by the participants was answered in section 3.1.1.1 Meanwhile, section 3.1.1.2 has also provided the answer to the second research question, which explored whether there were any differences in writing strategy use between successful and unsuccessful students Results from an analysis of questionnaire and interviews can be generalized as follows First, the students were moderate writing strategy users Twelve out of thirty- eight writing strategies were most frequently used by students in which the while-writing strategies were employed at the highest level Second, there was no variation in the frequency of overall writing strategy use between the two groups of writers However, differences between the two groups were found in the certain strategies at the three stages
The final chapter is covered with three sections The first section presents the recapitulation Next, it puts forward implications The last one provides some discussion of the limitations of the study and suggests recommendations for future research.
Recapitulation
The present study primarily aimed at investigating the writing strategies used by eleventh graders at HLUSS to determine whether there were any differences in the writing strategy use between successful and unsuccessful groups
The researcher has made the best attempt to address the research questions by employing the questionnaire proposed by Petric & Czarl (2003) on the basis of Oxford’s theory and semi-structured interview Eighty eleventh graders were randomly selected in this study The findings stressed that the overall use of writing strategies by students in the English language classroom was at medium level The result also showed the twelve writing strategies used at the highest degree in which the while-writing strategies were most frequently used In addition, the study examining the differences between successful and unsuccessful writers illustrated that although there was no difference in the frequency of the overall writing strategy utilization between successful and unsuccessful writers, some variances in certain writing strategy use were found
The results from this study have provided insights into how the students of English approach their writing strategies and suggested implications for writing strategy instruction at HLUSS.
Implications
This study found both groups used the writing strategies at the medium level
However the successful writers used some writing strategies at higher frequencies than their unsuccessful counterparts did These results imply that the unsuccessful students should be instructed in why, how, and when to use these writing strategies effectively in order that they can write more successfully in the target language
According to Cohen (1998: 69), teaching learners why, how and when strategy use can facilitate their learning and using a foreign language
By writing strategy training, unsuccessful learners would be more aware of strategies and able to know how to apply the appropriate strategies to get over certain challenging, and take benefits of the strategies which they do not fully master and to create a significant improvement in their writing skills As stated by O’Malley and Chamot (1990:154), language learners may enhance their language performance by utilizing instructed writing strategies Furthermore, “learners receive strategy training learn better than those who do not, and that certain techniques for such training are more beneficial than others” Oxford (1990:201)
However, one very important question is that how this instruction should be provided According to Cohen (1998:70), strategy training needs to be explicit in order that learners can select, monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of their strategy use Moreover, strategy instruction must be direct (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990:154)
The following strategy training model, which was applied in writing strategy instruction, is suggested for the direct writing strategies instruction proposed by Oxford (1990:204) This model consists of eight steps as follows
Step 1: Determine the learners’ need and the time available Step 2: Select strategies well
Step 3: Consider integration of strategy training
Step 4: Consider motivational issues Step 5: Prepare materials and activities Step 6: Conduct “completely informed training”
Step 7: Evaluate the training strategies Step 8: Revising the strategy training
Additionally, the findings of this study can make contribution to the understanding of the writing strategies that successful and unsuccessful writers employed in writing tasks They may make the teachers aware of how frequency of writings used by successful learners to result in the high result in learning writing By being aware of the writing strategies used by learners, teachers are more likely to concern about the strength and weakness of different strategies among different students when teaching writing Besides, teachers should combine strategy training with their daily teaching more frequently and identify which strategies are used most and which strategies need more emphasis which is going to help improve the unsuccessful students’ writing result
Finally, the findings from the study show that successful writers were concerned with more writing strategies at the prewriting and the revising stages than their unsuccessful counterparts This suggests that unsuccessful students need to be encouraged to use a wide variety of strategies, specially, those at the prewriting and revising stages to enhance their writing preference and facilitate their writing learning
3 Limitations and suggestions for further studies
In view of the major findings of the present study, the researcher finds some issues arousing from this study, and then recommends several avenues for future research
Firstly, regarding data gathering instrument, the current study used writing strategy questionnaire to investigate the use of writing strategies and interview to subordinate information from the questionnaire This suggests that more instruments should be used to ensure more reliability of the findings in further studies in case other researchers may come across the same results
Secondly, the study was undertaken among eighty students of 11 th grade from the same school to investigate their writing strategies, the results, therefore, cannot be fully generalized all levels (grades 10, 12) In other words, this study may be applicable for 11 th grade in learning writing, not for all language skills as well as all levels at HLUSS Thus, it is recommended that future studies needs to be replicated with all levels and all language skills (writing, speaking and listening) so that more effectiveness of strategies can be reconfirmed in other skills and can be applied to other language learners
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APPENDIX 1 SUCCESSFUL STUDENTS’ SCORE IN PREVIOUS SEMESTER
Successful students (SS) Gender Previous semester
APPENDIX 2 UNSUCESSFUL STUDENTS’ SCORE IN PREVIOUS SEMESTER
Unsuccessful students (US) Gender Previous Semester result
Section 1: Subject’s Background Questionnaire Age: ……
The purpose of this questionnaire is to gather some information about your personal background Please answer the following questions, but do not discuss any of them with your friends This takes 5 minutes to complete
1 How long had you learned English before moving to high school? (Tick one)
2 How do you think about the role of writing skill to your learning English?
(Tick one) Very important Important not so important
3 For you, what skill is the most difficult to acquire? Please rank them according to the degree of difficulty (1 is the most difficult and 4 is the easiest)
4 How often do you apply writing strategies in learning writing?
5 Have you ever been taught writing strategies and how to use them?
Thank you very much for your kind cooperation!
Section 2: WRITING STRATEGY QUESTIONNAIRE (WSQ) (Petric and Crarl , 2003)
In this part, you will find statements about the different stages of writing in English: before writing, while writing, and when revising Please read each statement and circle the number indicating how true of you the statement is
1 Never or almost never true of me
2 Usually not true of me (less than half of the time)
3 Somewhat true of me (about half of the time )
4 Usually true of me (more than half of the time)
5 Always or almost always true of me
BEFORE I START WRITING never true usually not true
1 I make a timetable for the writing process
2 Before I start writing I revise the requirements 1 2 3 4 5
3 I look at a model written by a native speaker or more proficient writer 1 2 3 4 5
4 I start writing without having a written or mental plan 1 2 3 4 5
5 I think about what I want to write and have a plan in my mind, but not on paper 1 2 3 4 5
6 I note down words and short notes related to the topic
7 I write an outline of my paper
8 I write notes or an outline in my native language 1 2 3 4 5
WHILE WRITING never true usually not true somewhat true usually true
2 I stop after each sentence to read it again
3 I stop after a few sentences or a whole paragraph, covering one idea 1 2 3 4 5
4 I reread what I have written to get ideas how to continue 1 2 3 4 5
5 I go back to my outline and make changes in it 1 2 3 4 5
6 I write bits of the text in my native language and then translate them into English 1 2 3 4 5
7.I go for sure in grammar and vocabulary 1 2 3 4 5
8 I simplify what I want to write if I don’t know how to express my thoughts in English
9 If I don’t know a word in English, I write it in my native language and later try to find an appropriate English word
10 If I don’t know a word in English, I find a similar English word that I know 1 2 3 4 5
11 If I don’t know a word in English, I stop writing and look up the word in the dictionary
14 I ask somebody to help out when I have problems while writing 1 2 3 4 5
2 I only read what I have written when I have finished the whole paper 1 2 3 4 5
3 When I have written my paper, I had it in without reading it
6 I make changes in sentence structure
7 I make changes in the structure of the essay
8 I make changes in the content or ideas
9 I focus on one thing at a time when revising (e.g., content, structure)
10 I drop my first draft and start writing again 1 2 3 4 5
11 I check if my essay matches the requirements 1 2 3 4 5
12 I leave the text aside for a couple of days and then I can see it in a new perspective
13 I show my text to somebody and ask for his/her opinion
14 I compare my paper with my friends’ on the same topic
15 I give myself a reward for completing the assignment
16 I check my mistakes after I get back the paper with feedback from the teacher, and try to learn from them 1 2 3 4 5
Section 2: WRITING STRATEGY QUESTIONNAIRE (Vietnamese) CHIẾN LƯỢC HỌC VIẾT
QUÁ TRÌNH VIẾT Trong phần này, bạn sẽ thấy rõ các giai đoạn viết khác nhau của bài viết tiếng Anh: trước khi viết, khi viết, và sau khi viết Hãy đọc từng câu và khoanh tròn một số mà theo bạn là đúng nhất
2 Đúng rất ít với bạn
3 Đúng một nửa với bạn
5 Rất đúng với bạn Chọn một câu trả lời đúng với bạn và khoanh tròn số:1,2,3,4 hoặc 5
1.Tôi lập ra thời gian biểu cho quá trình viết 1 2 3 4 5
2 Trước khi tôi bắt đầu viết tôi rà soát lại các yêu cầu
3.Tôi nhìn vào một bài mẫu được viết bởi một người bản xứ hoặc người viết tốt hơn
4 Tôi bắt đầu viết mà không có một kế hoạch trong đầu
5 Tôi suy nghĩ về những gì tôi muốn viết và có một kế hoạch trong tâm trí của tôi, nhưng không phải trên giấy
6 Tôi ghi từ hoặc ghi chép ngắn liên quan đến chủ đề này
7 Tôi viết bản thảo cho bài viết của tôi 1 2 3 4 5
8 Tôi viết ghi chú hoặc bản phác thảo bằng ngôn ngữ mẹ đẻ của tôi
1 Tôi bắt đầu với việc giới thiệu 1 2 3 4 5
2.Sau khi viết xong mỗi một câu thì tôi lại dừng lại để đọc
3 Tôi dừng lại sau một vài câu hoặc toàn bộ một đoạn, bao gồm một ý tưởng
4 Tôi đọc lại những gì tôi đã viết để có được những ý tưởng như thế nào để tiếp tục
5 Tôi quay trở lại bản phác thảo của tôi và thực hiện vài thay đổi trong đó
6 Tôi viết ra tình huống bằng ngôn ngữ mẹ đẻ và sau đó dịch chúng sang tiếng Anh
7.Tôi xem cho chắc chắn về ngữ pháp và từ vựng 1 2 3 4 5
8 Tôi đơn giản hóa những gì tôi muốn viết nếu tôi không biết làm thế nào để bày tỏ suy nghĩ của mình bằng tiếng Anh
9 Nếu tôi không biết từ tiếng Anh, tôi dịch sang ngôn ngữ mẹ đẻ và sau đó cố gắng tìm một từ tiếng Anh phù hợp
10 Nếu tôi không biết một từ tiếng Anh, tôi tìm một từ tiếng Anh tương tự mà tôi biết để thay thế
11 Nếu tôi không biết một từ tiếng Anh, tôi dừng lại và tìm kiếm các từ trong từ điển
12 Tôi sử dụng từ điển song ngữ 1 2 3 4 5
13.Tôi sử dụng từ điển đơn ngữ 1 2 3 4 5
14.Tôi hỏi ai đó để giúp đỡ khi tôi gặp khó khăn trong khi viết
1 Tôi đọc to bài viết 1 2 3 4 5
2 Tôi chỉ đọc những gì tôi đã viết khi tôi đã hoàn thành toàn bộ bài viết
3 Khi tôi đã viết xong, tôi nộp mà không đọc 1 2 3 4 5
4 Tôi sử dụng từ điển khi sửa đổi 1 2 3 4 5
5 Tôi có thay đổi về từ vựng 1 2 3 4 5
6 Tôi có thay đổi về cấu trúc câu 1 2 3 4 5
7 Tôi có thay đổi cấu trúc của bài viết 1 2 3 4 5
8 Tôi có thay đổi nội dung hoặc ý tưởng 1 2 3 4 5
9 Tôi tập trung vào một việc tại một thời điểm khi sửa đổi (ví dụ, nội dung, cấu trúc)
10 Tôi bỏ bản thảo đầu tiên của tôi và bắt đầu viết một lần nữa
11 Tôi kiểm tra bài tiểu luận của tôi phù hợp với yêu cầu của đầu bài
12 Tôi bỏ bài viết một vài ngày và sau đó tôi tìm hiểu nó ở một góc độ mới
13 Tôi chỉ cho ai đó về bài của tôi với ai đó và hỏi xin ý kiến
14 Tôi so sánh bài viết của tôi với những bài viết được viết bởi bạn bè của tôi về cùng một chủ đề
15 Tôi cho bản thân mình một phần thưởng cho việc hoàn thành nhiệm vụ
16 Tôi kiểm tra lỗi sai sau khi có thông tin phản hồi từ giáo viên, và cố gắng học hỏi từ đó
QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW (For teachers)
1 How often do you instruct writing strategies in your writing classes?
2 What writing strategies did you teach?
3 What stages did you apply to teaching writing strategies most?
Interviewer (I) : Le Thi Hong Vinh
3 I: I would like to ask you some questions relating to your writing teaching
5 I: How often do you instruct writing strategies in your teaching writing?
7 I: What writing strategies did you teach?
8 T2 Yeah It depends on the level of students
9 I: Can you explain more concretely?
T2: In my writing teaching, I am completely aware that students have different learning styles Some are fast learners and some are slow learners Depending on these,……um I make use of some different learning strategies so that my instruction will be interesting and motivating to learning…(pause)…
First, I instructed all students to read the requirement, arranged suitable time, made plans and clarified their tasks before writing and simplify what they wanted to write if they could not know how to express their thoughts in English…… More specially, fast learners were often encouraged to work in groups for exchanging ideas and drafting Moreover,….(um)… I am interested in their difficulties in writing process I always help my slow learners solve grammar and vocabulary problems When they did not know how to