A Study On The Application Of Writing Portfolio Technique To Second Year English Majors An Action Research Project At Hanoi College Of Commerce And Tourism.pdf

Chapter One Introduction VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** ĐINH THỊ NHUNG A STUDY ON THE APPLICATI[.]

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** ĐINH THỊ NHUNG A STUDY ON THE APPLICATION OF WRITING PORTFOLIO TECHNIQUE TO SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT HANOI COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND TOURISM Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng hồ sơ làm môn viết sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh năm thứ hai: Nghiên cứu hành động trường cao đẳng thương mại du lịch Hà nội M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Hanoi - 2016 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** ĐINH THỊ NHUNG A STUDY ON THE APPLICATION OF WRITING PORTFOLIO TECHNIQUE TO SECOND YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS: AN ACTION RESEARCH PROJECT AT HANOI COLLEGE OF COMMERCE AND TOURISM Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng hồ sơ làm môn viết sinh viên chuyên ngành tiếng Anh năm thứ hai: Nghiên cứu hành động trường cao đẳng thương mại du lịch Hà nội M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr Đỗ Tuấn Minh Hanoi - 2016 DECLARATION I, the author of this research, certify that this thesis is result of my own work and that I have provided fully documented references to the work of others The material in this research has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution Hanoi,2016 Đinh Thị Nhung i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my most sincere gratitude and thankfulness to my supervisor, Dr Do Tuan Minh, for his detailed instructions from the beginning of the thesis to the valuable comments till the end I would like to express my gratitude to all of my lecturers at faculty of post-graduate studies as well, who provided me with precious knowledge and helped me gained unforgettable experiences in pursuing my studies Certainly, this study would not have been completed without the participation of the students at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism I thank them for their enthusiastic attitude in learning and participating in the study Besides, I am deeply indebted to Ms Luu Thi Duyen, the Dean of English Department at Hanoi College of Commerce and Tourism, who helped and supported me all the time My deepest appreciation is for my husband who always supported and encouraged me with his love so that I could finish my thesis Without all their help, this thesis would not be completed as expected ii ABSTRACT This action research explores the effects of writing portfolio technique on second year students’ writing skill and the possible challenges encountering by both teachers and students during the application process Students created portfolios by including all the final drafts and rough drafts into a folder; and together with students’ submitted portfolios, two sets of questionnaires: pre and post-portfolio questionnaires, and interviews are also used to collect the data for the research The findings showed that the portfolio technique not only helped to improve students’ writing skill, especially in terms of vocabulary, and grammar, which meet student’s demands but also changed students’ attitude to the writing skill positively and contributed to the development of students’ other skills such as commenting, editing, reading, internet using, and group work skill as well However, during the process, there happened some problems For example, this method requires students to give written feedbacks to each other, which is quite challenging to them Especially, students quite easily got demotivated by negative comments from their peers Or, students felt boring and tiring when having to write up to three drafts for the same topics Nevertheless, the benefits of this technique outweigh all and prove to be effective in helping students learning writing iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Page 1.Chart 1: Students’ attitude to Writing 25 Chart 2: Students spending time on practising and developing the 26 writing skill Chart 3: The subject with lowest score 27 Chart 4: What students want to improve in writing skill 28 Chart 5: Students’ knowledge about the use of portfolio 29 Chart 6: Students’ agreement to the improvement of their 30 vocabulary knowledge Chart 7: What students improve in terms of vocabulary 31 Chart 8: Students’ agreement to the improvement of their grammar 32 knowledge Chart 9: What students improve in terms of grammar 33 10 Table 1: Students’ attitude to writing 34 11 Table 2: Students’ opinion towards writing portfolio 35 12 Table 3: Summary of submitted portfolios 38 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS page DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii ABSTRACTS iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iv PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Method of the study 1.6 Design of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: Literature Review 2.1 Writing and Teaching Writing skill 2.1.1 Definition of Writing 2.1.2 Approaches to Teaching Writing skill 2.1.2.1 Product Approach 2.1.2.2 Process Aprroach 2.2 Portfolios in Writing 10 2.2.1 Definition of Portfolios 10 2.2.2 Characteristics of Portfolios 11 2.2.3 Types and Contents of Portfolios 12 2.2.4 The effects of Portfolios on Writing skill 16 2.2.5 Summary 17 CHAPTER 2: Research Methodology 18 3.1 Context of the study 18 3.1.1 The college 18 3.1.2 Teachers and students 18 3.1.3 The writing course 19 3.2 Participants 20 v 3.3 Data collection instruments 20 3.3.1 Survey questionnaires 20 3.3.1.1 Pre-portfolio questionnaire 20 3.3.1.2 Post-portfolio questionnaire and interviews 21 3.3.2 Submitted portfolios 21 3.3.2.1 The type of submitted portfolios 21 3.3.2.2 Portfolio evaluation 22 3.4 Procedures 23 CHAPTER 3: Data Analysis and Discussion 25 4.1 Data analysis of students’ pre-portfolio questionnaire before the 25 application process 4.1.1 Students’ attitudes to the writing skill 25 4.1.2 Students’ time studying writing skill 26 4.1.3 Students’ score on writing 27 4.1.4 What students hope to improve most in writing 28 4.1.5 Students’ knowledge of portfolios 29 4.2 Data analysis of students’ post-portfolio questionnaire after the 30 application process 4.2.1 Students’ vocabulary knoweledge 30 4.2.2 Students’ grammar knowledge 32 4.2.3 Students’ attitude to writing skill 34 4.2.4 student’s opinions towards portfolio 35 4.3 Data analysis of interview after the application process 36 4.3.1 Problems of portfolio 36 4.3.2 Benefits fo portfolio 36 4.4 Data analysis of students’ submitted portfolios 38 4.4.1 Fluency analysis 39 4.4.2 Accuracy analysis 40 4.4.3 Complexity analysis 41 4.5 Summary 42 CHAPTER 4: Findings and Suggestions for Using Portfolio Technique in 43 vi Writing 5.1 Major findings and discussions 43 5.1.1 Students’ attitude to writing skill 43 5.1.2 The effects of writing portfolio technique in students’view 44 5.1.3 Teacher and students’ difficulties in implementing writing portfolio 45 technique 5.2 Suggestions for teachers when applying portfolios in writing 45 5.3 Summary 46 PART III: CONCLUSION 47 6.1 Summary of the study 47 6.2 Limitation of the study 48 6.3 Suggestions for further research 48 References 49 Appendix 1: Pre-portfolio questionnaire I Appendix 2: Post-portfolio questionnaire III Appendix 3: Interview questions V Appendix 4: Writing checklist VI vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the thesis Nowadays, it cannot be denied that globalization is affecting every corner of the world and that due to it most countries are experiencing changes in aspects like economics, politics, education and culture; and in that globalised world, English is considered a main medium of communication Therefore, it seems obvious that if a nation wishes catching up with others in those aspects, its government should raise public awareness about the significance of English and motivate them to learn and master the language Recognizing this social trend, Vietnamese educational authorities have implemented specific policies encouraging their citizens to learn and use English Now, English is a compulsory subject which is taught from primary schools to universities and an obligatory one in Vietnamese national exams Furthermore, various professional courses and conferences aimed at enhancing English teachers’ teaching skills and language competence are provided to ensure a better educational service Also, English teachers are required to get appropriate certificates aligned with CEFR to be qualified for the job What’s more? More and more state-owned or private companies, factories or organisations prefer and employ only labor who demonstrate their ability to use English at work and these employees are paid much higher and easily get promotion than others Apparently, English is one of measures for one’s career success The above reasons explain why teaching and learning English is recieving much concern from society Scholars, educators or teachers are continuously exploring suitable and effective teaching approaches and teaching methods to improve the English teaching and learning quality Especially, teachers who directly work with students and understand their needs, their intersts, their learning styles play an important role in helping students achieve their academic and future professional success Therefore, it’s the teacher’s duty to discover and solve problems which the majority of his students have one or more areas The collection must include student participation in selecting contents, the criteria for selection, the criteria for judging merit and evidence of student selfrelection.” (Paulson, Paulson and Meyer, 1991:60) Similarly, According to Arter and Spandell (1992, p.210) portfolio is seen as “a purposeful collection of student work that tells the story of the student’s efforts, progress or achievement” or it can be “ a collection of materials assembled by students to demonstrate achievement” (Freeman and Lewis, 1998, p.271) Portfolios, therefore, can allow teacher to track progress, view individual growth and foster student reflection (Baack, 1997; Melville, 1996) Grace (1992: 1) considers portfolio as a record of the child’s process of learning: “what the child has learned and how she has gone about learning; how she thinks, questions, analyzes, synthesizes, produces, creates; and how she interacts-intellectually, emotionally and socially-with others” Likewise, Winson and Ellefson (1995: 68), share the same opinion about the definition of portfolios but develop it more They describe portfolios as “a fusion of process and product It is the process of reflection, selection, rationalization, and evaluation, together with the product of those processes” In addition, “portfolio is a cumulative and ongoing collection of entries that are selected and commented on by the student, the teacher and/on peers, to assess the student’s progress in the development of a competencey” (Simon and Forgette-Giroux, 2000:36) In the context of writing instruction and assessment, a portfolio can be defined as “ a colection of texts the writer has porduced over a defined period of time” (Hamp-Lyons, 1991:262) In this study, portfolios are understood as that way and also a way to reflect the students’ performance, efforts, progress, and achievement over a period of time 2.2.2 Characteristics of portfolio The characteristics of a portfolio are determined differently by different researchers For example, according to Sharon S.Moya and Michael L’Malley (1994) in an article A portfolio Assessment Model for ESL, the following five characteristics feature a portfolio: *Comprehensiveness: the potential for determining the depth and the breadth of a student’s capabilities can be realised through comprehensiveness data collection by the students 11 ... this chapter, detailed procedure of the study is presented: population selection, and methodology for data collection and data analysis Chapter 3: Data analysis In this chapter, all the data collected... primary schools to universities and an obligatory one in Vietnamese national exams Furthermore, various professional courses and conferences aimed at enhancing English teachers’ teaching skills and. .. more? More and more state-owned or private companies, factories or organisations prefer and employ only labor who demonstrate their ability to use English at work and these employees are paid much