Aims and research questions of the study
Aims of the study …
The purposes of this study are to investigate the causes of the difficulties which 11 th form students at Tien Du 3 high school encounter in learning writing and to investigate the effectiveness of some pre-writing activities employed with a view to improving students’ writing
To achieve the above purposes, the study has to follow the steps below:
- To investigate the causes of the difficulties in writing lessons from classroom observation and classroom interaction
- To devise some pre-writing activities and use them in writing lessons to solve the problem
- To examine the effectiveness of these activities to decide whether they are helpful or not.
Research questions of the study
This study explores the use of different pre-writing activities for 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School The weaknesses in writing skills of those students have encouraged the researcher to investigate these activities in the light of the following questions:
1- What are the causes of difficulties in students’ writing?
2- How do the pre-writing activities affect 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School in their writing?
Methods of the study
The study was carried out using action research method The data were collected from survey questionnaires, class observation and interviews with students Questionnaires are designed as a means to make the researcher’s evaluation more objective The questionnaires are given to eleventh form students of Tien Du 3 High School to find out their evaluation on the pre-writing activities implemented as well as their comments and suggestions for these activities.
Significance of the study …
The study highlights the importance of pre-writing stage in the process of a writing lesson
It may also provide some useful ideas for teachers and help them implement the activities in the pre-writing stage more effectively
Finally yet importantly, the author of the study hopes that the suggested pre-writing activities can help students improve their writing skill in class.
Design of the study
The study consists of five chapters: Chapter 1: Introduction; Chapter 2: Literature Review; Chapter 3: Methodology; Chater 4: Data Analysis; Chapter 5: Suggestion and conclusion
Chapter 1, the introduction, presents the background to the study and statement of the problem, the aims, significance and design of the study It also expresses the author’s reasons for choosing the method to fulfill the study
Chapter two, Literature Review, presents the main concepts relevant to the research topic such as different points of views about writing, definition of pre-writing, the importance of the pre-writing stage in a writing lesson, etc
Chapter three presents the methodology used in the study The researcher attempts to improve students’ writing practice in classroom Therefore, the methodology employed in this study is action research
Chapter 4 provides detailed results of the survey questionnaires and class observation
The students’ comments are also given in this chapter The comprehensive analysis on the data collected is supplied in details in this part
The last chapter of this study, chapter 5, offers some major findings of using pre- writing activities in class It also gives a “Conclusion” to the study, which emphasizes the key issues in the study, points out the limitations and provides some suggestions for the further study
To provide a theoretical background to the study, this chapter is devoted to the review of concepts most relevant to the thesis’s topic These are the theoretical background of writing, the stages of a writing lesson, and the factors affecting teaching and learning writing.
Theoretical background of writing
Definition of writing
What writing is and how it is developed has been a subject of discussion and debate for centuries, from the time of Aristotle, Cicero, etc to present Through there are different viewpoints, it is commonly agreed that writing is far from being a simple matter of transcribing language into written symbols: it is a thinking process in its own right It demands conscious intellectual effort, which usually has to be sustained over a considerable period of time Given below are some of the views of various writers on the definition of writing
In “The world’s writing systems”, Daniels (1996, p3) defines writing as “A system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer”
According to Donn Byrne, “Writing involves the encoding of a message of some kind: that is, we translate our thoughts into language” (1979:1)
It is obvious that when we write, we use graphic symbols: that is, letters or combinations of letters which relate to the sounds we make when we speak On one level, writing can be said to be the act of forming these symbols: making marks on a flat surface of some kind But writing is clearly much more than the production of sounds The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences As a rule, however, we do not write just one sentence or even a number of unrelated sentences We produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in certain ways
The page on http://web.mit.edu/writing/Writing_Process/writingprocess.html defines writing as followed: “Writing is a process that involves at least four distinct steps: prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing It is known as a recursive process While you are revising, you might have to return to the prewriting step to develop and expand your ideas”
The above quotation closely relates to the steps in a writing lesson That is, pre-writing, while- writing and post-writing It is the teacher’s duty to make the writing lessons more interesting and useful for students.
Types of writing
There are different opinions about the types of writing Davies and Widdowson (1974), Rivers and Temperley (1978), and Pincas (1982) elaborated writing into six categories: (1) Personal writing is writing for oneself (diaries, journals, shopping lists, reminders for oneself, packing lists, addresses, recipes); (2) Study writing is also for oneself (making notes while reading, taking notes from lecturers, making a card index, summaries, synopses, reviews, reports of experiments/ workshops/ visits, essays, bibliographies; (3) Public writing is as a member of the general public to organizations or institutions (letters of inquiry/ complaint/ request, form-filling, applications for memberships); (4) Creative writing can include poems, stories, rhymes, drama, songs, autobiography; (5) Social writing is a category which includes letters, invitations, notes of condolence/ of thanks/ of congratulations, cablegrams, telephone messages, instructions to friend/ family; (6) Institutional writing relates to professional roles (agendas, minutes, memoranda, reports, reviews, contracts, business letters, public notices, advertisements, posters, instructions, speeches, applications, curriculum vitae, specifications and note-making.
Why do students need to write?
Writing is one skill that students need to learn in class In the past, writing skill was almost neglected in language teaching in Vietnam Students could hardly be able to write a letter or an essay in English successfully Only from some years back to now, writing has been paid much attention to
Writing skill is not an easy one Writing in students’ mother tongue is difficult And writing in a foreign language is even much more difficult For many high school students, perhaps even the majority of them, writing is the skill in which they are least proficient, even after considerable practice
Referring to the importance of writing, John M Lannon (1989) points out “Writing is never done merely to demonstrate mechanical correctness; instead, the aim of any writing is to advance a writer’s definite purpose and to serve a reader’s definite needs” He also states the importance of writing in relation with reading, that is “making clear the link between reading and writing, and promoting active reading”
It is obvious that besides helping students to improve the composing skills essential in planning, drafting, and revising, writing skill enables students to evaluate their own writing for its rhetorical effectiveness: worthwhile content, sensible organization, and readable style
Moreover, it offers students practice in discovering, shaping, and expressing their meanings for a variety of goals
Compared with speech, effective writing requires a number of things: a high degree of organization of ideas and information; a high degree of accuracy so that there is no ambiguity of meaning; the use of complex grammatical devices for focus and emphasis; and a careful choice of vocabulary, grammatical patterns, and sentence structures to create a style which is appropriate to the subject matter and the eventual readers
We can see that a good deal of writing in the English classroom in high schools is undertaken as an aid to learning, for example, to consolidate the learning of new structures or vocabulary or to help students remember new items of language Writing allows students to see how they are progressing and to get feedback from the teacher, and it allows students to monitor and diagnose problems Donn Byrne (1979) points out “Written work serves to provide the learners with some tangible evidence that they are making progress in the language It is not likely to be a true index of their attainment, but once again it satisfies a psychological need” and “Writing is often needed for formal and informal testing”
Generally speaking, on pedagogical grounds alone, writing is a skill worth developing in a foreign language lesson In order to help students master this skill, the teachers have to develop interesting and effective teaching methods into the writing lessons And students should spend more time on learning this skill both at home and in class.
Factors affecting written communication
A number of factors have to be kept in mind to communicate effectively through writing The message we want to convey has less chances of being misunderstood if we have some background information about the intended reader, and his previous knowledge of whatever is related to our message Some of the factors which play an important part in our selection of what to convey, how to convey and how much to convey are as follows:
* The relationship between the writer and the reader whether it is at a formal or intimate level
* The purpose of the activity - whether the message is conveyed for giving information, seeking permission, soliciting advice and so on
* The previous knowledge of the reader – whether the message is new to him, partly known or known from a different angle
* The type of message - whether it is simple, complex, involves technical expressions or not
* Intended response - whether the writer wants to please the reader, persuade him, threaten him or enrage him
The writer should keep all these factors in mind if he wants the reader to understand his message properly and react in the way he wants him/her to
Having analyzed the nature of writing, the problems involved in communicating through writing, and the factors that affect written communication, it is necessary to undertake a study on how to teach writing effectively.
Writing process
There has been a considerable change and development in the teaching – learning process over the years Along with it the importance given to the various skills of language has also been changing The changes in the importance given to writing have affected the types of topics used and the teaching and testing of writing in general
The writing process in class usually consists of the following stages: Pre-writing, while-writing and post-writing
In other situations, there are different opinions about the writing process However, the main steps in the writing process are as followed:
- write a rough draft (your first try or second )
- revise (look for ways to improve your paper)
- edit (check for spelling and grammatical errors)
It is obvious that the process of writing is important to any writers That’s why Ron White (1980) highlights its importance in the “Process writing”: “What is important for us as teachers of writing is to engage our students in that creative process; to excite them about how their texts are coming into being; to give them insights into how they operate as they create work”
The product of writing
There are many things to be considered in the product of writing However, in this part, I would like to mention the list of the “skills” that students need to get to have the best final products They are:
- Using the conventions of layout correctly, e.g in letters
- Using a range of sentence structures
- Linking ideas and information across sentences to develop a topic
- Developing and organizing the content clearly and convincingly.
Pre-writing stage and pre-writing activities …
Pre-writing stage
Among the four main stages of the writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising and editing, pre-writing, the first stage, fully reveals its importance in writing What is pre- writing? When and why do we need to do pre-writing?
Webster’s Dictionary defines pre-writing as, “The formulation and organization of ideas preparatory to writing”
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prewritings)
“Prewriting is anything you do before you write a draft of your document It includes thinking, taking notes, talking to others, brainstorming, outlining, and gathering information (e.g., interviewing people, researching in the library, assessing data)”
(http://web.mit.edu/writing/Resources/Writers/process.html)
“Prewriting is the first stage of the writing process, and includes all the things you do before you are ready to write out the first version of your text”
(http://www.openenglish.com/learn-english/2008/the-writing-process-prewriting/)
To sum up, pre-writing refers to any activity in the classroom that encourages the generation of ideas It helps students stimulate thoughts for getting started In fact, it moves students away from having to face a blank page to generating tentative ideas and gathering information for writing.
Some common pre-writing activities
Prewriting is nothing more than getting ready to write No person would leave on vacation without plans as to where to go No person would start to build a house without plans as to what it will look like No person would start to cook a meal without an idea of what would be served Similarly, no person should attempt to write without a plan for what is to be written
Hereunder are some common pre-writing activities used at high-school:
Brainstorming is a widely used and effective way of getting ideas flowing The writer creates a “storm” of ideas, not passing judgment on any of them or censoring any idea that comes to mind These ideas may be ideas for actual content, or ideas for organizing the content In general, brainstorming involves thinking quickly and without inhibition so as to produce as many ideas as possible in a given area or on a given topic or problem
Brainstorming can be carried out individually or among a group of people In classes, brainstorming is most frequently practiced as group activity Small groups can brainstorm ideas, with one person (or the instructor) recording ideas, or the class as a whole can brainstorm The group may then select and order ideas from this brainstorming list to plan individually or collaboratively written texts
Brainstorming can be used to:
- Identify a reason or purpose for writing
- Find an appropriate form in which to write
- Develop the organization of ideas
This method requires students to list all words or phrases related to topic Students do not stop until they have written a large quantity and completely run out of ideas They will not be in a hurry to cross out the seemingly unimportant, repetitive, or even unrelated ones as soon as they put them on the paper For example, students can first write such a topic as “Money” at the top of their paper, and then, either in pairs or in small groups, list words or phrases as follows:
(1) traveling (2) savings (3) bribery (4) studying abroad (5) prostitution (6) beautiful clothes (7)stealing (8) loan (9)payment
After listing all the items they can think of, students can begin to check the list, and together to decide to cross out the ones which do not fit, and the ones which are repetitive
After that, students can easily put the list into three subgroups such as:
List making can be a boon when students know so much about a topic he/she feels overwhelmed With a list, students can narrow a broad range of possibilities Commonly, lists have no apparent order When students start placing ideas in order, he/she is beginning a scratch outline
Rapid free writing, just like warming up before a game, flexes students’ writing muscles (Raimes, 1996) This pre-writing technique simply requires students to write as much as possible about a topic In this activity, individual students can generate as many ideas as possible without worrying about spelling, punctuation, grammar, logic, organization or accuracy, in order to develop fluency in writing Of course, these above-mentioned elements of writing are important, but students’ concern about them can sometimes inhibit the free flow of their ideas, so students are better leaving those things for later consideration In free writing, for example, students should first write the essay topic at the top of the paper to remind themselves what the writing is about, and then begin to free-write on the topic within a given period of time without stopping so that they can let one idea spark another idea in free association What they write rapidly on the paper may be a word, a phrase or a sentence In this way, they will soon be surprised to find they have much to say instead of little
Start with a central idea and relate words, phrases, or ideas to it This activity is used to find a direction for thoughts
Example: The topic is writing about somebody’s daily life
Students can do the clustering activities as followed
Clustering works like brainstorming: ideas should be jotted down quickly, without critique The writer begins with a single word closely associated with the topic that he/she places at the center of the page Then he/she jots additional words and phrases around it on the page Having lots of white space around short phrases and single words makes it easier for the writer to make links between the ideas he/she generated, adding circles to group ideas and lines to connect ideas in various ways This activity may be much more pleasurable if undertaken with a handful of felt-tip markers in various colors
* Making wh-questions: Instead of staring at a blank sheet, students can quickly get started by asking themselves a series of who, why, what, where, when and how questions about a topic and providing possible answers This process is particularly productive because it stimulates active thinking It reveals a wealth of details for enriching the paragraph The wh- questions can help students see what they want to say and what they don’t want to say For example, students can ask themselves the following Wh-questions:
(1) “What” questions: What’s the problem? What’s my opinion? What’s the reason?
(2) “Who” questions: Who was involved? Who did it? Who was affected?
(3) “Why” questions: Why did it happen? Why did I do it?
(4) “When” questions: When did it happen? When did I realize this?
(5) “How” questions: How did it happen? How can I change the situation?, etc
Simple outlining is an effective way to help students to write more quickly If students want to have a good idea in their mind of how they will begin and what major points they plan to discuss, they need to write a simple outline to check their ideas, to make sure that their points are well organized, and to use as a guideline to refer to as they write Once they have worked out a good outline for a paragraph or a short essay, they have completed 50 percent of the work With an outline, the actual writing becomes easier because students don’t have to worry about what they are going to say Hence, they can write more quickly Here is a sample outline:
Students can develop ideas basing on the three main points: Enjoyment, Banking and Finance, Evil things
A Enjoyment: (1) Traveling around the world; (2) Buying beautiful clothes; (3) Studying abroad
B Banking & Finance: (1) Payment; (2) Loan; (3) Savings
C Evil things: (1) Bribery; (2) Stealing; (3) Prostitution
* Percolating: Thinking about your topic Deeply examining, with the mind, what needs to be said
* Reading/Researching: Find information about the subject
* Discussing: Talk to other people, with varying levels of knowledge on the topic, about the piece
* In addition, ideas for writing can be generated from multimedia sources (printed materials, videos, films) as well as from direct interviews, talks, surveys and questionnaires
Students will be more motivated to write when given a variety of means for gathering information during pre-writing.
Benefits of pre-writing activities
In general, the main benefits of pre-writing activities are:
Firstly, they can bring a lot of fun At this point, anything is possible A student may have many ideas and the ideas can be freewheeling or even idiotic It does not matter He/she just keeps brainstorming, playing with ideas, collecting resources and notes, doing all the other activities needed to finish this stage of the writing process At this point, the student’s writing may go in many directions However, he/she needs to explore the ideas until he/she hit upon (find out) the ones that feel right
Secondly, a student can easily evaluate new ideas that come flooding into his/her mind
Thirdly, pre-writing activities allow the student to write the first draft more easily because he/she knows what he/she wants to write at each writing session
Next, pre-writing activities increase student’s self- confidence as a writer He/she will be able to determine if the ideas have merit, and if he/she will be able to finish the topic and actually write that topic
Finally yet importantly, by the end of the pre-writing process, the student will have a full outline of the topic With that outline, student will be able to see the whole project at a glance
When spreading the outline across the desk and examine the creation, the student will be able to detect:
Inadequate organization of the ideas
Gaps in ideas and content
Whether the student has one paragraph or more
Whether the writing needs cutting down in size
In brief, the main benefits in carrying out pre-writing activities are: (1) They help students stimulate thoughts for getting started and making writing easier; (2) They help students remove the mental block and distraction that prevent ideas coming out; (3) They help students write in a more motivating and stimulating way instead of pondering over an essay topic alone; (4) They help create a cooperative and enjoyable atmosphere in the writing class.
A warning about pre-writing activities
It is undeniable that pre-writing activities help students a lot when they start to write
However, besides the above benefits, there is also a warning when implementing these activities in class That is, both the teacher and students may become so fascinated by this stage that they don’t actually move past it to create the first draft, and then on to revision In other words, like research, writers have a tendency to spend too much time planning and never get to implementation (drafting) Consequently, teachers may run out of time in writing lessons if they do not prepare carefully
An action research was carried out in order to answer the two research questions of this study:
1- What are the causes of difficulties in students’ writing?
2- How do the pre-writing activities affect 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School in their writing?
In this action research, data were collected from two main data collection instruments: survey questionnaires and tests.
Overview of action research
Action research has been defined in a number of different ways Burns (1994) defines action research as “the application of fact finding to practical problem solving in a social situation with a view to improving the quality of action within it, involving the collaboration and co-operation of researchers, practitioners and laymen” In the first chapter of the book
“Action research for Language Teachers, Wallace (1998) states that Action research is a process which collects data on your everyday practice and analyzes it in order to make decision about what your future practice should be”
Usually, there are five main phases of action research: problem identification, plan of action, data collection, analysis of data and plan for future action Nunan (1992) also agrees with the five steps above but he divides the action research process into smaller steps:
Initiation, preliminary investigation, hypothesis, intervention, evaluation and dissemination
In this action research, Nunan’s six steps were adopted because his ideas cover all other researchers’ opinions The study was divided into 2 periods and included 8 final weeks of the second semester The first period took place in 2 weeks (week 1 and week 2) and the second period took place in 6 weeks (from week 3 to week 8).
Descriptions of the research
Description of the participants of the study
The research is carried out in class 11 A3 of Tien Du 3 High School The class size is
46 There are 21 males and 25 females Their ages are from 17 to 18 They are from different communes of Tien Du district, Bac Ninh Province They have learnt English (E) 6, E7, E8, E9 and E10 They did not acquire the same level of English Especially in English writing tests, they often got low marks Some students even do not know how to get started to write This reason encouraged the researcher to choose them as the objectives of the study
Also taking part in the study of this action research was the teacher of class 11A3- Tien
Du 3 High School It is obvious that the teacher plays a very important part in students’ writing Oxford (1990) has shown that the roles of the teachers are traditionally viewed as an authority figure, instructor, director, manager, leader, evaluator, controller, and even the doctor who must cure the ignorance of the students
Oxford (1990) also emphasizes the importance roles of the teacher as: “diagnostician”, as “language learner”, as “learner trainer” and also a “coordinator” and a “coach” The status is no longer based on hierarchical authority, but on the quality and importance of his/her relationship with learners When the learners take more responsibility, more learning occurs, and both teacher and learners feel more successful
In order to make the study more objective, the researcher has asked a teacher of Tien
Du 3 High School to code and rate the pre- and post-tests If the marks given by the rater are the same as the marks given by the teacher of class 11A3, the marks will be accepted If there are differences in marks between them, they will have to discuss and agree on which marks to be accepted
The textbook “English 11” (Tiếng Anh 11) designed by the Ministry of Education was used This new set of textbook was applied first in the school year 2007-2008 under the Ministry of Education and Training’s decision The book was complied following the theme based and task-based approaches It contains 16 units within 103 periods (34 weeks) in two terms There are 3 periods of English per week Each teaching unit consists of five 45-minute periods for normal class: Reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus Like other skills, writing skill covers one period Students often find it difficult to write a topic in class and they often got low marks for this skill.
Planning-identifying the current problems and the causes of the problem s 18 1 Pre-test instrument
During the teaching process, the researcher discovered that her students seemed to be weak at writing skills They did not know how to get started in writing essay topics or took a lot of time for the writing To find out the problems that students had in learning writing lessons and writing tests, the researcher raised the research question: “What are the causes of difficulties in students’ writing?” To answer this question, Pre-test and Questionnaire instruments were used to identify the problem
A writing test was used to collect data about the students’ language proficiency The content of the test was designed basing on the topic given in the textbook (See appendix 3.1)
The pre-test was done without any implementation of the pre-writing activities
After the pre-test was finished, the pre-study questionnaire (see Appendix 2) was sent to the students to get their information on the difficulties in writing, their preference for implementing the pre-writing activities and their assessment of the pre-writing activities implemented
The aims of the questions in the survey questionnaire are as followed:
Question 1 aims at finding out the students’ attitude toward writing skill
Question 2 aims at finding out the number of students who have troubles thinking about what to write
Question 3 helps the researcher know the factors that cause the difficulties in students’ writing
Question 4 aims at finding out how students would like to participate in pre-writing activities
Question 5 aims at finding out the students’ assessment on some of the pre-writing activities given in textbook and applied by the teacher
Question 6 is asked for the purpose of finding out the role of the pre-writing activities to the improvement of students’ writing
To ensure that the informants understood the questionnaires, the teacher explained all the questions carefully and guided students when necessary.
Preliminary investigation
To confirm the problem stated in phase 1, the researcher conducted the lessons of unit
11, 12 in usual way, without any treatments The researcher observed the class and interviewed students to find out why they got stuck in their writing The interview questions are as follows:
What do you think about the pre-writing activities available in your textbook?
Which pre-writing activities do you like most?
How would you like to participate in the pre-writing activities? (In pairs, in groups, individually)
The researcher took notes of their answers and marked their preference for how they would like the pre-writing activities to be implemented in class, which activities they liked to be implemented in the pre-writing stage, etc.
Hypothesis
After the data from the pre-tests and pre-study survey questionnaires had been collected, the main reasons for the low marks and the difficulties in writing lessons were hypothesized as followed:
- The pre-writing activities in the textbook are not sufficient enough
- The students’ language competence and proficiency is low.
Action, developing an action plan and conducting the experiment
Based on the data collected and the reasons found out in the first phase, the researcher added some pre-writing activities to the writing lessons to solve the problem The activities were carried out in the writing lessons of unit 13, 14, 15 in class 11A3, Tien Du 3 High School (Second semester).At first, the researcher reviewed the pre-writing activities provided in the textbook and considered other activities which help make the writing easier The activities most students preferred in the pre-writing stage were brainstorming, drawing, asking and answering questions, listing, clustering, drawing (describing pictures) and rapid free-writing
Therefore, the researcher implemented these activities in unit 13, 14, 15 and 16 (week 5, 6, 7,
8) depending on the content of each lesson
In unit 13 (week 5 of the action research), the researcher applied the pre-writing activity “asking and answering questions” First, students were asked to work in pairs to brainstorm for the name of the collections they saw in the pictures Next, the teacher called the representatives of some pairs to write the answers on the board after about 5 minutes In addition, the researcher gave some wh-questions and asked students to work in groups to rearrange them into logical order After that, the groups were required to write their answers on a piece of paper and then exchanged their pieces of paper They would discuss and supplement the ideas that their group or the other group did not have After that, the teacher collected the students’ answers to see if students had enough ideas to write or not The teacher then suggested a list of ideas and asked students to select which ideas to answer the questions
In general, most students could do these tasks well They remembered the order of the ideas that should be written in their papers in the while-writing stage
In the writing section of unit 14, the teacher designed 2 tasks in the pre-writing stage for students to do before asking them to write on the paper The requirement of this unit is to write a passage about “the class’s camping holiday” In task 1, the teacher asked students to brainstorm for all the activities they often did when going camping This activity was held in the whole class with the teacher directing And the teacher gave suggestions when necessary
This activity was carried out in 5 minutes to help students recall of their existing knowledge and prepare the mood for the writing lesson In task 2 (page 158 in the textbook), students had to match the activities listed in the textbook with the correct pictures They did this task individually After the teacher had given the answers for the matching task, students had enough information for the writing such as the time the bus left school, when they got to the camping site, when they put up the umbrella tent, what activities they did while they were there (watching wildlife in the forest, cooking food over an open fire, swimming in the lake, playing games, fishing, etc), what time they left the campsite
In unit 15, the writing task was writing a biography Before doing task 1 in the textbook, the teacher asked students to look at the picture of Neil Armstrong They would then work in pairs and talk about what they knew about this person for 5 minutes Then, one student put the question and the other answered Students might ask and answer about his date of birth, place of birth, his career and his famous quote, etc The teacher noted down the information and did not correct students’ information After the activity “asking and answering questions”, the teacher asked students to do task 1 in the textbook Students had to base on the information given and selected the headings in the box (page 174-English 11) to fill in the blanks When students had finished task 1, the teacher asked them to write a biography of Neil Armstrong basing on the information given in task 1 in the while-writing stage Because all the suggested information in the textbook was put in the time order, so students could complete task 2 with not many difficulties For the writing task, the teacher encouraged those students to write more information rather in the textbook into the writing
In the last writing lesson, unit 16, students had to write a topic which was rather unfamiliar and difficult for them The topic is “basing on the notes made by a visitor to the Ponaga Cham Towers in Nha Trang (page 184-English 11), write a report on the visit” The teacher used two pre-writing activities: asking and answering questions and outlining in the pre-writing stage Firstly, the teacher asked the students whether any of them had seen the Ponaga Cham Towers with their own eyes If students said “yes”, students recalled the information they remembered about this place If students said “no”, the teacher showed a picture of Ponaga Cham Towers and asked students to describe it The teacher asked Wh- questions to prompt when necessary (How many towers are there? Where is it located? When was it built? etc) Next, the teacher showed the picture of the Ponaga Cham Towers and the notes written by a visitor (page 184) The teacher explained the words or phrases which students did not know Then students had to write an outline based on the notes given This task was done individually for about 7 minutes The teacher went around and gave suggestions for those who had difficulties fulfilling the task Next, the teacher collected the outlines, chose the best written one and showed to the other students to comment After the above pre-writing activities, students could confidently write the report in the while-writing stage
Above were the main pre-writing activities that I implemented in the pre-writing stage of unit 13, 14, 15 and 16 (English 11) Throughout the writing lessons, I observed and made notes as to see how the students were working and their reactions to the pre-writing activities
These observations were based on several guidelines: “What problems are the students encountering as they work with these pre-writing activities? Are they still having problems with the content of the writing? Are there problems with individual, pair and group works?
These observations and notes were useful in making sense of any fluctuations I found in the end-of-study surveys I was able to discern the source of problems that affected students’ writing
At the end of each writing lesson, I had students share their comments on the pre- writing activities implemented by the teacher I noted down all these comments Students were also encouraged to send their written, individual comments to me, responding to the following questions: What problems did you encounter while you were doing your pre-writing activities?
Did you learn from the other students when working in pairs or in groups? Do the pre-writing activities implemented make it easier for you to write?
Finally, to see whether the pre-writing activities had any positive impact on students’ attitudes towards writing, I surveyed the students by asking the same questions that I had asked in the beginning survey.
Observation, collecting data and observing the effects of the action
While the action plan was implemented, the researcher collected the data and practiced the pre-writing activities in the classroom Data of the questionnaires collected in week 1, 2 of the action research was used to see which pre-writing activities were preferred most by students And then, the researcher implemented those activities and some other ones for students to see if there were any changes in their results The data was gathered after 8 weeks of implementing the action plan; the students did a writing post-test to collect data on how the pre-writing activities implemented affect the quality of their writing Students were also asked to answer the survey questionnaires distributed in the first week again The purpose of this action was to see if the students’ writing skill improved or not The analysis of these collected data was described in details in chapter 4.
Reflection, evaluating the action plan and the evaluated effects of the action 23 3.3.8 Data collection instruments and their procedures
The action research was evaluated basing on the collected results from the post-test and the post-study attitudinal survey questionnaire The researcher compared the results of the post-test and the post-study attitudinal survey questionnaire with the pre-test and the pre-study survey questionnaire From the findings of the action research and the students’ comments on the activities implemented, the researcher drew out the conclusion whether those activities helped improving students’ writing ability or not Some recommendations were also given after the study
3.3.8 Data collection instruments and their procedures
The pre-test was done in March 2009 and the post-test was done in May, 2009 The procedures of collecting data were carried out as follows:
Firstly, the pre-test was used for students in class 11A3, Tien Du 3 High School without any implementation of the pre-writing activities outside textbook to clarify the first step of the action research: Planning-identifying the current problems The teacher based on the result of the pre-test to identify whether the lack of pre-writing activities was the cause of the students’ writing difficulty This was also done to see if students’ writing result was better after some pre-writing activities had been implemented The topic of the pre-test was taken from Unit 13 (See appendix 1)
Secondly, to answer the second research question: “How do the pre-writing activities affect 11 th form students in Tien Du 3 High School in their writing?, the researcher conducted a post-test and a post-study attitudinal survey questionnaire after the pre-writing activities had been implemented in class The results then were compared with the results of the first stage to see how much changes students made.
Summary
In this part the research method and its different data collection instruments were introduced The reasons for the method selection were also discussed The data procedures, the implementation of the action plan were conducted in a strict order After the data from the pre- test and pre-study attitudinal survey questionnaire were collected, the causes of the students’ difficulties in writing were sought Then one action plan of implementing some useful pre- writing activities was developed during the last four units of the second term Basing on the analysis of the results from the action plan implementation, the data collected from tests, the action research was evaluated
Chapter 4: Data analysis and discussion
In this chapter, the researcher mainly focuses on the data analysis and some discussions of the major findings of the study Data and comments collected during the progress of doing the research will also be presented in this part
Data was analyzed by comparing students' responses on pre and post attitude surveys
Students were asked to respond to the same 6 questions at the beginning and at the end of the study
Data was also analyzed by comparing the results of the pre- and post-writing tests to determine if there was a difference in quality which would suggest that students were able to write in class better as a result of the pre-writing activities employed
Before evaluating the writing tests, each composition was photocopied and coded to reduce bias (Several students had a preference for using distinctively colored ink for writing assignments.) In order to reduce bias, a person not involved in the study who was also unfamiliar with the students randomly affixed numbered labels to the writing tests and mixed the pre and post-tests The labels were placed over students' names and were reinforced so that the names would not show through A list of names and corresponding numbers was prepared and placed in an envelope; it was not viewed by the researcher until after the writing tests were read and rated
The researcher used different criteria to rate the writing tests In general, there are five main criteria to assess the students’ writing The first criterion is developing and organizing the contents of the topic clearly and convincingly The second one is getting the grammar right The third one is using a range of vocabulary and sentence structures The next criterion is using the conventions of layout correctly, e.g in writing a letter or writing a report The final criterion is accuracy in spelling and meaningful punctuation
As an additional method of reducing bias in rating students' compositions, the initial ratings were recorded, then the compositions were remixed A person who was not involved in the study and was also unfamiliar with the students (in this study it was the same person who coded the compositions) read and rated the compositions based on the criteria previously described The researcher then compared the two sets of category placements If a composition was assigned to the same category by both the teacher and the rater, then it was placed permanently in that category All other compositions were reread, reevaluated by the teacher and the rater based on the placement criteria, and discussed until agreement was reached
The final marks of both pre- and post-tests were then compared to determine whether there were any changes to students’ writing results due to the application of different pre- writing activities
4.2 The results of the students’ pre-test and post-test
As stated in section 3.3.2.1, the aims of providing these tests are to examine the effects of using pre-writing activities on students’ writing result The researcher wants to know whether the pre-writing activities implemented help improving students’ writing or not
In this section, the results of the pre- and post-test were computed and analyzed using SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Science), version 17.0 The significant level used for this study is 05 if the probability value –P value (which is a number obtained from the research results SPSS, version 17.0) is less than or equal to the significance level (P ≤ 05 and
The results of the pre- and post-test were compared using Pair-sample T-test in order to determine whether there were any changes in students’ writing or not after developing the action plan of adding more pre-writing activities into the writing lessons for 8 final weeks of the second term Table 1 and chart 1 present the results of the pre- and post-test
Tests Mean N Std Deviation Std Error Mean T P
Table 1 The results of the pre-test and post-test
As can be seen in Table 4.1 and Chart 1, the results of the pre-test and post-test implied that there was a clear improvement in students’ writing skill Table 4.1 indicates that there was a significant difference between the pre-test and post-test result (T= -6.797 < -2; P = 000