VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ELEVENTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNIN[.]
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ELEVENTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AT A RURAL HIGH SCHOOL A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN THI HUONG LAN Supervised by NGUYEN THU HUONG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2022 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES & HUMANITIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS & LITERATURE AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE ELEVENTH GRADERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AT A RURAL HIGH SCHOOL A thesis submitted to the Faculty of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By NGUYEN THI HUONG LAN Supervised by NGUYEN THU HUONG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, JULY 2022 i ACKNOWLEDGMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest appreciation to Dr Nguyen Thu Huong for his invaluable advice and continuous support at every stage of my research project This endeavor would not have been possible without the comprehensive knowledge and professional experience I have gained from his Advanced Teaching Methodology class I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to the teachers and staff at Nguyen Van Linh Highschool for giving me the opportunity to pursue my Master's degree at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities and for assisting me to conduct the research Lastly, I would like to acknowledge my family, colleagues, and friends for their constant encouragement all throughout my studies ii STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY With this statement, I hereby declare that to the best of my knowledge, this thesis, entitled " An investigation into the 11th graders' perceptions of learning English writing skills at a rural high school" is the product of my own work The intellectual content of this thesis has not been submitted for any degree or other purposes elsewhere All the assistance received in preparing this thesis and sources has been acknowledged Ho Chi Minh City, July 2022 iii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby declare that I, Nguyen Thi Huong Lan, being the candidate for the degree of Master of Arts in TESOL, accept the requirements of the University referring to the retention and use of the Master's thesis deposited in the Library Regarding these conditions, I agree that the origin of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for study and research purposes, in conformity with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan, and reproduction of the thesis Ho Chi Minh City, July 2022 Nguyen Thi Huong Lan iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT i STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ii RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATION vii LIST OF TABLE viii LIST OF FIGURES ix ABSTRACT x CHAPTER INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study 1.2 Statement of the problem 1.3 Aims of the study 1.4 Research questions 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Scope of the study 1.7 Limitation of the study 1.8 Outline of the thesis CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Definitions of terms 2.1.1 Perception 2.1.2 Writing 10 2.2 Learning English writing skills 11 2.2.1 Writing instruction 11 2.2.2 Textbook 14 2.2.3 Writing ability 17 2.2.4 Challenges 20 v 2.3 Review of the previous studies 22 2.4 Conceptual framework of the study 27 2.5 Summary 29 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 31 3.1 Research questions 31 3.2 Research design 31 3.3 Research site 32 3.3.1 The setting 32 3.3.2 The new English textbook Tieng Anh 11 32 3.4 Research participants 33 3.5 Research instruments 34 3.5.1 Questionnaire 35 3.5.2 Interview 36 3.5.3 Summary of research tools 37 3.6 Data collection procedure 39 3.6.1 Distributing the questionnaires 39 3.6.2 Conducting the interview 39 3.7 Procedures of data analysis 41 3.7.1 Analyzing data from the questionnaire 41 3.7.2 Analyzing data from the interview 43 3.8 Summary of the chapter 43 CHAPTER RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 44 4.1 Analysis of data 44 4.1.1 Reliability Statistics 44 4.1.2 Results from the questionnaire to students’ responses 47 4.1.3 Participants' opinions in the interview 58 4.2 Discussion of results 61 4.2.1 Students’ perceptions of writing instruction 61 4.2.2 Students ‘perceptions of the new English Textbook Tieng Anh 11 63 4.2.3 Students’ perceptions of their writing ability 65 4.2.4 Students’ perceptions of challenges in learning English writing skills 66 vi 4.3 Major findings 68 CHAPTER CONCLUSION, SUGGESTIONS & RECOMMENDATIONS 70 5.1 Conclusion 70 5.2 Suggestions 71 5.3 Limitations of the study 73 5.4 Recommendation for further study 73 REFERENCES 74 APPENDICES 79 APPENDIX A- B -COVER OF THE NEW ENGLISH TEXTBOOK 79 APPENDIX C- the rubric by Pike-Baky’s (2009, p.23-24) 80 APPENDIX D-E BOOK MAP OF THE TEXTBOOK 82 APPENDIX F-THE SYLLABUS AT THE SCHOOL 83 APPENDIX G- VIETNAMESE QUESTIONNAIRE 85 APPENDIX H -ENGLISH QUESTIONNAIRE 90 APPENDIX I -INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (VIETNAMESE VERSION) 95 APPENDIX J- INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (ENGLISH VERSION) 96 APPENDIX K —TRANSCRIPT - INTERVIEW 97 APPENDIX L —TRANSCRIPT - INTERVIEW 100 APPENDIX M - FULL RELIABILITY OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE AND DISCRIPTIVE STATISTICS 103 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATION • English textbook Tieng Anh 11 = ETTA11 • Ninh Thuan province = NTP • English writing skills = EWS • English as a Foreign Language = EFL • Nguyen Van Linh = NVL viii LIST OF TABLE Table Demographic characteristics of student respondents 34 Table Summary of research tools 38 Table 3 A specific time for collecting data 41 Table Coding scheme for the Likert Scales verification 42 Table Interpretation of Mean Score 43 Table Reliability of students' perceptions of writing instruction 44 Table Reliability of Students ‘perceptions of writing tasks of Textbook 45 Table Reliability of students ‘perceptions of their writing ability 45 Table 4 Reliability of students' perceptions of challenges in learning English 46 Table Descriptive Statistics Satisfaction with learning EWS 47 Table Descriptive statistic of students’ perceptions of writing instruction 49 Table Descriptive statistic of students’ perceptions of textbook 52 Table Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions of their writing ability 54 Table Descriptive statistics of students’ perceptions of challenges 57 92 93 94 95 APPENDIX I -INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (VIETNAMESE VERSION) 96 APPENDIX J- INTERVIEW QUESTIONS (ENGLISH VERSION) 97 APPENDIX K —TRANSCRIPT - INTERVIEW Interviewer: Good morning My name is Huong Lan First of all, I would like to thank you for participating in this interview Today, I want to ask you about your opinions regarding learning English writing skills using the new English textbook Could you please introduce yourselves? S8: I'm Hoang Trong Thuc I'm an 11th grader at Nguyen Van Linh high school S7: I'm Tran Trong Thanh I'm also in grade 11 at Nguyen Van Linh high school Interviewer: When did you start learning the new set of English textbooks? S8: Since we were in 10th grade S7 So was I Interviewer: I know that you just finished taking your final exam for the second semester So you must have finished your English textbook for grade 11, right? Both participants: Yes, that's true Interviewer: Are you satisfied with your English writing skills after finishing your new English textbook for grade 11? S8: I'm not that satisfied with my English writing skills I think that I still am limited I also don’t know much about English writing S7: I'm dissatisfied with my English writing skills My vocabulary is still limited I don’t know how to link sentences together Interviewer: Ok What about your English writing lesson in class I mean, what steps of the writing instruction you participate in? Please list them out one by one for me S8: We get to go through every step of the writing instruction in class They are peer review, revision, editing, publishing/submitting, and evaluating S7: We also have the step of planning and drafting For these steps, the class often brainstorm together to create an outline, and the teacher will suggest some ideas to add to the outline Then each student will write a draft on their own Interviewer: Are there any activities that you dislike? S8: I don’t like to create an outline I tend to lack ideas, and sometimes, organizing them together is not an easy task S7: I'm not confident about publishing my writing I'm afraid of showing my mistakes to the whole class by writing them on the board There is also not enough time for me to complete my own writing beforehand Interviewer: Ok, I got it Let's find out what you think of your new English textbook Tieng Anh 11 What has each activity in the Writing module of the new English textbook achieved? Does it have a guiding section to help you proofread and edit your writing? S8: I think the book has a lovely cover, there are lots of pictures and graphic images to make it engaging for students There is a list of vocabulary related to the topic and basic grammatical structures already featured in the book However, some modelled essays are too long and hard for me to understand 98 S7: I also think that the book has an amazing look The content of the book is structured logically There are even some detailed instructions for each step of the writing instruction provided in the book Interviewer: Does it have a section that contains an evaluation checklist for you to edit your own writing? S8: No, it doesn't I can't edit the writing by myself because there is no such section in the book S7: If there was a section that could help us to check and evaluate my writing, English writing wouldn't be so difficult for me Interviewer: Ok, so which writing topic you like the most? S8: I enjoy writing about Global warming the most That is because this topic is not complicated, and I can think of many ideas just by brainstorming on my own S7: I also love the topic of Global warming the most I think this topic is very necessary as we all need to know about the world nowadays Interviewer: Is there any topic that you detest writing about? S8: I don’t like to write an essay on the topic of Our world heritage That is because I know nothing about this topic, so it is difficult for me to S7: I don't like writing about the topic, called Being part of ASEAN I don’t know much about these countries in ASEAN Interviewer: Let's move to your English writing ability What can you in your writing lesson with your current writing ability? S8: I can write parts of the essay, namely the Introduction and the Conclusion These parts are short and don’t require much background knowledge or any difficult grammar rules S7: I could write the introduction and the conclusion for an essay I find writing these parts easier to than writing all the body paragraphs Interviewer: What can't you with your current writing ability? S8: I can't complete the final draft by myself I lack the vocabulary and grammatical structure needed to write an entire piece of academic I also lack the time to finish my entire essay S7: I can't create an outline For me, it is difficult to organize my ideas and form a good structure for my essay Interviewer: What types of writing are you most interested in doing? S8: It's letters I think the structure of letters is basic, the vocabulary used is simple and this type of writing is common in my daily life as I often write letters to my family members S7: I enjoy writing a cause-and-effect essay because I can easily generate ideas The topics for this type of writing are also easy and familiar to my day-to-day life 99 Interviewer: Now for the last question of the interview, could you please share with me the challenges in writing you encounter during each English writing lesson? S8: I have trouble organising my ideas, and creating a structure for my writing I still make a lot of spelling mistakes and grammatical errors at times Also, English writing would be much easier if there were a guiding section in every writing assignment in the new English textbook This would motivate me to proofread and edit my work more frequently S7: I face a lot of difficulties when trying to write an English academic essay Also, I don't know much about the vocabulary, grammatical rules and the organisation of ideas in my writing The reason for this is that I still have a poor command of English, as well as limited vocabulary Also, after finishing my work, I can't edit it myself because the book doesn't give me a guiding section Interviewer: Thank you so much for taking part in this interview and answering all of my questions The data you provided is so helpful to the writing and completion of my thesis about this topic Hope you have a great day and I will see you in the next school year 100 APPENDIX L —TRANSCRIPT - INTERVIEW Interviewer: Hello, I'm Lan Today I will ask you some questions about your opinions on the learning and teaching of English writing skills at our school - Nguyen Van Linh high school The data and information collected from this interview will be tremendously important for the writing of my Master of Arts thesis paper So could you guys please introduce yourselves a little bit? S11: My name is Le Giang I'm in class 11C1 of Nguyen Van Linh highschool S10: My name is Thu An I'm in class 11C1 of Nguyen Van Linh highschool Interviewer: When did you start studying using the pilot set of English textbooks? Both participants: Since grade 10 Interviewer: I know that you just finished taking your final exam for the second semester So you must have finished your English textbook for grade 11, right? Both participants: Yes, that's true Interviewer: Are you satisfied with your writing skills after finishing your new English textbook for grade 11? S11: For me, I am satisfied with my English writing skills Because my writing skills have improved slightly Now, I can write an academic essay in English with a basic structure Even though it is not the best but I'm still happy with how my writing has improved S10: Although my writing is not excellent; I am also satisfied with my English writing skills after finishing learning the new English textbook Interviewer: Now I will ask you about your English writing lesson in class In each English writing lesson in class, what steps of the writing instruction you participate in? Please list them out for me S11: I think we participate in every step of the writing instruction If I'm not mistaken, they are planning, drafting, peer review, revision, and editing S10: I agree with Giang We participate in every step of a writing lesson in class But there are two more steps that I like to add They are submitting and evaluating Interviewer: Are there any activities that you dislike? S11: Because I've always liked learning English so every step of the writing instruction is interesting I don't particularly hate anything in an English writing lesson S10: I think there are some difficult steps to do, such as peer review, publishing and submitting However, I still try my best to take part in those steps This is because the writing assignments in class will prepare us to well in our upcoming English exams in the future Interviewer: Now, let's move on to the next question about our new English textbook What has each activity in the Writing module of the new English textbook achieved? Does it have a guiding section to help you proofread and edit your writing? S11: I think the book is attractive in terms of the way it is designed It's so colourful which makes us focus better in class The book also provides helpful information to help us the 101 writing assignment, such as essential topic-related vocabulary and some core grammatical structures S10: I really love the cover of the textbook The design and layout of the textbook are beautiful The book also offers a variety of exercises that are helpful for personal activity and group discussion I think that the writing assignments in the textbook also help me to train my writing for upcoming English exams Interviewer: Does the book have a section that contains an evaluation checklist for you to edit your own writing? Both participants: No, I don't think so The book doesn't have that Interviewer: Which writing topic you prefer the most? S11: I love the topic of Global warming I know a lot about the causes and effects of Global warming, so writing about it is fun S10: I like the topic of Climate change Because it is common knowledge and the book already provides a lot of necessary information Interviewer: Got it Is there any topic that you hate writing about? S11: I hate learning the name of illnesses, so I don’t want to write an essay about the topic of Healthy lifestyle and Longevity S10: I don’t like to write an essay on the topic of Our world heritage That is because I know nothing about this topic, so it is difficult for me to Interviewer: I want to hear your opinions about your own writing ability What can you in your writing lesson with your current writing ability? S11: I can generate ideas for writing This seems to be the easiest job for me among all the steps of writing instruction S10: I can generate ideas for my essay First, I use Vietnamese to brainstorm all the ideas, and then I translate them into English Interviewer: What can't you with your current English writing ability? S11: I can't write the final writing by myself It is difficult for me to write an entire essay because I don’t have the proper vocabulary and I also make a lot of grammatical errors S10: I don't know how to organize ideas I don’t know where to put my ideas to make my essay logical Interviewer: What types of writing are you most interested in doing? S11: Cause-and-effect writing The causes and effects of the problem are usually pretty easy to think of S10: I could write a paragraph introducing myself As I am the one who knows myself the most, it's pretty easy to generate ideas for my writing Interviewer: We have now come to the last question of the interview For this question, can you tell me about the challenges you encounter during each English writing lesson in class? These problems are caused by factors: the writing instruction in class, the new English textbook Tieng Anh 11 and your own writing ability in English 102 S11: I think writing in English is difficult, no matter what type of writing it is I guess it's because I don’t understand a lot of grammar rules in English I also make a lot of grammatical mistakes in terms of grammar, spelling, and content S10: I face a lot of difficulty in English writing as my vocabulary is poor and I don’t have much knowledge about lots of topics The book also did not assist me in checking and evaluating my own writing There is no evaluation checklist section in the book Interviewer: Thank you so much for participating in this interview The information you provided will be utilized during my thesis paper completion Hope you have a great day today I will see you again next school year 103 APPENDIX M - FULL RELIABILITY OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE AND DISCRIPTIVE STATISTICS Items - Perceptions of writing instruction) Scale Mean if Item Deleted 22.76 Scale Variance if Item Deleted 17.924 Corrected Item-Total Correlation 324 Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted 692 B1.1 Generate ideas B1.2 22.92 17.190 460 665 B1.3 Build up vocabulary and grammatical structures Organize ideas to make a mind map 23.24 17.957 314 694 B1.4 Write the first draft 24.00 15.443 611 627 B1.5 Consult with peers to evaluate and suggest possible changes Drafts are returned and improvements are made based on peer feedback Edit the final draft 24.08 15.485 493 653 24.56 17.922 350 686 24.13 17.163 318 697 Submit the writing and receive feedback/remarks from the teacher at the end of the lesson 22.97 17.868 315 694 B1.6 B1.7 B1.8 Item-Total Statistics Perceptions of the new English textbook B2.1 B2.2 B2.3 B2.4 B2.5 Cover familiar and interesting writing topics Provide writing tasks for practice with essential language and grammatical structures Provide writing tasks for practice in pairs, individually, or in groups Provide a diversity of writing topics beneficial for your test or exam Provide a guiding section (a checklist to evaluate your writing Scale Mean if Item Deleted 13.21 Scale Variance if Item Deleted 4.857 Corrected Item-Total Correlation 504 Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted 590 13.37 4.729 514 583 13.26 4.686 420 631 12.82 5.066 410 631 14.69 5.757 301 673 104 Appendix Item-Total Statistics Perceptions of writing ability Scale Mean if Item Delete d Correcte d ItemTotal Correlati on Cronbac h's Alpha if Item Deleted 17.98 Scale Varian ce if Item Delete d 14.344 B3.1 Generate ideas for your writing clearly, impressive 594 724 B3.2 18.35 16.134 486 747 B3.3 Use tenses, subjects, verbs, plurals, and articles correctly Write English words without any spelling errors 17.87 16.147 478 748 B3.4 Use punctuation marks correctly 17.82 15.984 444 752 B3.5 Organize ideas logically and effectively 17.77 14.965 510 741 B3.6 17.31 15.987 378 765 B3.7 Develop and elaborate ideas based on the initial outline Use appropriate language in writing 18.11 15.610 483 746 B3.8 Use appropriate sentence structures in writing 17.82 15.788 421 757 Appendix Item-Total Statistics Student's perceptions of challenges Scale Mean if Item Deleted Scale Variance if Item Deleted Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach's Alpha if Item Deleted B4.1 Lack of vocabulary and grammatical structures 27.60 12.638 413 678 B4.2 Difficulty generating ideas 28.29 12.144 337 687 B4.3 Inappropriate use of verb tenses 28.18 11.919 351 684 B4.4 28.32 11.665 345 687 B4.5 Misuse of punctuation marks, especially commas and apostrophes Many misspelled words 28.39 10.471 591 628 B4.6 Difficulty organizing ideas 28.44 10.643 519 644 B4.7 Difficulty for self-assessment after rereading your writing Difficulty in self-correction and editing your writing before submitting 28.76 11.859 320 692 28.18 11.722 323 692 B4.8 105 Descriptive Statistics Perceptions of the new English textbook N B2.1 Cover familiar and interesting writing topics 62 Provide B2.2 writing tasks for practice with essential language and grammatical structures 62 B2.3Provide writing tasks for practice in pairs, individually, or in groups 62 B2.4Provide a diversity of writing topics beneficial for your test or exam 62 B2.5 Provide a guiding section (a checklist to evaluate your writing 62 Valid N (listwise) 62 Std Minimum Maximum Mean Deviation 3.63 794 3.47 824 3.58 933 4.02 820 2.15 698 106