Trang 1 CỘNG HOÀ XÃ HỘI CHỦ NGHĨA VIỆT NAMĐộc lập - Tự do - Hạnh phúcĐƠN ĐỀ NGHỊ CÔNG NHẬN SÁNG KIẾN Tên sáng kiến: Deploy IELTS reading materials to develop writing ability of gifted st
INTRODUCTION
The aim of the study
The study was conducted with the aim of identifying the effectiveness of deploying IELTS reading materials to develop writing ability of gifted students, with the assumption that IELTS reading materials support students to build and develop academic vocabulary and writing style,thereby improving the ideas in students’ essay.
Scope of the study
This study was conducted with the participation of grade-10 students in Major English classes to investigate the influences of utilizing IELT reading passages on developing ideas of their writing pieces
1.4 The significance of the study
It is hopeful that the research could provide a more insightful understanding of the potential of this approach to learning and devise more appropriate techniques and strategies including guides for lesson planning implemented in classroom as well as proposals of ways to enhance students’ self-study A collection of practice exercises and samples is also included so that teachers and students can utilize it as a source of teaching and learning materials. n
Significance of the study
The concept of writing has long been discussed and investigated by many researchers in order to find out how to improve this productive skill effectively As a result, opinions are divided in answering such questions as what writing skills are and how to teach them.
Writing is a linguistic skill that is necessary for us to successfully express ourselves in our daily lives, especially in complex circumstances where logic is highly demanded, according to Pardede (2014, p 57) Writing itself, according to Knapp and Watkins (2005, p 82), is a disciplined activity that requires platforms for exchanging and assessing ideas like conversation or self-reflection Sianturi, Silalahi and Purba (2020) also state that writing is the process of thinking and creating some ideas, mesages in sequences of orders The sequences might just be two or three sentences long but the words have to be arranged and connected and make sense as a whole In other words, they put emphasis in the significance of idea development, idea organization or coherence in general.
Lack of language knowledge: The main barrier to developing and practicing writing skills in students is their inadequate academic vocabulary Students frequently experience difficulties coming up with words and ideas when studying a challenging subject like science, politics, technology … which can render them anxious when brainstorming In some cases, students fail to use vocabulary naturally in the right context Many students invariably want to show that they are academically superior by employing academic vocabulary Nevertheless, they sometimes minimize the significance of specific terminology for particular themes They utilize complex terms without fully understanding the context, which leads to misunderstanding the idea of content to convey.
Lack of background knowledge is also an obstacle for students' writing process Nation
(2006) draws the following conclusion: "Learners need to know roughly 98% of the terms in the written or spoken language to be able to grasp what they hear or read well.” In other words, a student's ability to form ideas will not be hindered when exposed to novel or out-of-curriculum issues if they have a solid and comprehensive background, whereas students who lack background knowledge or who are unfamiliar with the subject would struggle.
As can be referred from the previous part, writing is truly complex and it requires a lot of effort to be enhanced There arises the need of looking into common problems hindering the process of teaching writing skills.
According to Westwood (2008), writing is the most challenging skill to master since it needs the efficient cooperation of cognitive, linguistic, and psycho-motor processes There are five n
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of writing skill
The concept of writing has long been discussed and investigated by many researchers in order to find out how to improve this productive skill effectively As a result, opinions are divided in answering such questions as what writing skills are and how to teach them.
Writing is a linguistic skill that is necessary for us to successfully express ourselves in our daily lives, especially in complex circumstances where logic is highly demanded, according to Pardede (2014, p 57) Writing itself, according to Knapp and Watkins (2005, p 82), is a disciplined activity that requires platforms for exchanging and assessing ideas like conversation or self-reflection Sianturi, Silalahi and Purba (2020) also state that writing is the process of thinking and creating some ideas, mesages in sequences of orders The sequences might just be two or three sentences long but the words have to be arranged and connected and make sense as a whole In other words, they put emphasis in the significance of idea development, idea organization or coherence in general.
Challenges in Teaching Writing
Lack of language knowledge: The main barrier to developing and practicing writing skills in students is their inadequate academic vocabulary Students frequently experience difficulties coming up with words and ideas when studying a challenging subject like science, politics, technology … which can render them anxious when brainstorming In some cases, students fail to use vocabulary naturally in the right context Many students invariably want to show that they are academically superior by employing academic vocabulary Nevertheless, they sometimes minimize the significance of specific terminology for particular themes They utilize complex terms without fully understanding the context, which leads to misunderstanding the idea of content to convey.
Lack of background knowledge is also an obstacle for students' writing process Nation
(2006) draws the following conclusion: "Learners need to know roughly 98% of the terms in the written or spoken language to be able to grasp what they hear or read well.” In other words, a student's ability to form ideas will not be hindered when exposed to novel or out-of-curriculum issues if they have a solid and comprehensive background, whereas students who lack background knowledge or who are unfamiliar with the subject would struggle.
As can be referred from the previous part, writing is truly complex and it requires a lot of effort to be enhanced There arises the need of looking into common problems hindering the process of teaching writing skills.
According to Westwood (2008), writing is the most challenging skill to master since it needs the efficient cooperation of cognitive, linguistic, and psycho-motor processes There are five n components of effective writing namely purpose, audience clarity, coherence, and unity Writing is therefore typically categorized as a complicated intellectual task.
Writing becomes such a unique skill because instructional context is usually restricted to classroom settings Progress with this skill is difficult if the teacher attempts to teach how to write together with what to write (Alidmat & Ayassrah, 2017) Feronica, Apriani and Edy (2021) also figure out the challenges of teaching language proficiency to high school students who acquire English comprehensively with higher accuracy and efficiency targets. n
APPLICATION
The effects of the IELTS reading for writing approach on the writing ability of the learners
When it comes to the usage of specific phrases, authentic resources, especially “IELTS reading passages” are significantly more helpful than language provided in textbooks or any other educational materials Because their primary audience is native speakers, they feature completely different topics, language, syntax, and other elements than traditional materials that have been adapted for second-language learners Therefore, the integration between reading and writing will enable students understand and use English to a native level
IELTS reading passages provides examples of truly exceptional writing, thereby offering pupils with training in voice, structure, syntax, and language.
Through IELTS reading texts, students also gain background knowledge in various academic fields, which might help them come up with ideas more effectively when writing essays.
Procedures
- Reading passages will be chosen and categorized according to the topics listed below.
Politics Tourism/ Travel Education Science
3.2.2 Highlight academic vocabulary and ideas
Teacher and students work together to analyze IELTS reading text and identify academic vocabulary, background information and topic-related ideas The examples below show how reading material will be utilized to assist students enhance their vocabulary, phrases, and ideas. New words are highlighted and explained the meaning in the right column while ideas and expressions are underlined n a ENVIRONMENT
The romantic notion that early humans lived in harmony with their environment has taken quite a battering lately Modem humans may have started eliminating other species right from the start; our ancestors stand accused of wiping out mega fauna – from giant flightless birds in Australia to mammoths in
Asia and the ground sloth of North America – as they spread across the planet.
Even so, by around 6,000 years ago there were only about 12 million people on earth
That’s a far cry from today’s 6.6 billion, many of us guzzling fossil fuels , churning out greenhouse gases and messing with our planet’s climate like there’s no tomorrow So it may seem far-fetched to suggest that humans have been causing global warming ever since our ancestors started burning and cutting forests to make way for fields at least
Yet that’s the view of retired climate scientist
William Ruddiman, formerly of the
Ancient farmers were pumping climate- warming carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere long before recorded history began, he says Far from causing catastrophe, however, early farmers halted the planet’s descent into another ice age and kept Earth warm and stable for thousands of years.
Could a few primitive farmers really have changed the climate of the entire globe? If you find this hard to believe, you’re not the only one Ruddiman’s idea has been hugely controversial ever since he proposed it in
Harmony /ˈhɑːməni /: the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce chords and chord progressions having a pleasing effect synonyms:euphony, polyphony, consonance, tunefu lness eliminating/ ɪˈlɪmɪneɪtɪŋ /: completely remove or get rid of (something) synonyms: remove, get rid of, abolish, put an end to, do away with, end,terminate, eradicate, destroy accused/əˈkjuːzd /: charge (someone) with an offense or crime synonyms:charge with, indict for, arraign for, take to court for, put on trial for… fauna/ˈfɔːnə /: the animals of a particular region, habitat, or geological period guzzling/ ˈgʌzlɪŋ /: eat or drink (something) greedily churning/ ˈʧɜːnɪŋ /: to produce large amounts of something quickly, usually something oflow quality far-fetched / ˈfɑːˈfɛʧt /: unlikely and unconvincing; implausible pumping / ˈpʌmpɪŋ /: force (liquid, gas, etc.) to move by or as if by means of a pump synonyms:force, drive, push, send, transport, raise, inject, catastrophe/ kəˈtổstrəfi /: an event causing great and often sudden damage or suffering halted / ˈhɔːltɪd /: bring or come to an abrupt stop synonyms:stop, come to a halt, come n controversial ones, die out pretty fast It doesn’t take science long to weed them out,’ he says Yet five years on, his idea is still not dead On the contrary, he says the latest evidence strengthens his case ‘It has become clear that natural explanations for the rise in greenhouse gases over the past few thousand years are the ones that are not measuring up, and we can reject them,’he claims.
There is no doubt that the soaring levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that we see in the atmosphere today – causing a 0.7° C rise in average global temperature during the 20thcentury – are the result of human activities In the late 1990s, however,
Ruddiman started to suspect that our contribution to the global greenhouse began to become significant long before the industrial age began This was when an ice core drilled at the Vostok station in Antarctica revealed how atmospheric C02 and methane levels have changed over the past 400,000 years
Bubbles trapped in the ice provide a record of the ancient atmosphere during the past three interglacials.
What we see is a regular pattern of rises and falls with a period of about 100,000 years, coinciding with the coming and going of ice ages There are good explanations for these cycles: periodic changes in the planet’s orbit and axis of rotation alter the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth We are now in one of the relatively brief, warm interglacial periods that follow an ice age.
Within this larger pattern there are regular peaks in methane every 22,000 years that coincide with the times when the Earth’s orbit makes summers in the northern hemisphere warmest This makes sense, because warm northern summers drive strong tropical monsoons in southern Asia that both to a stop, come to a standstill, come to rest primitive / ˈprɪmɪtɪv /: being the first or earliest of the kind or in existence, especially in an early age of the world synonyms: prehistoric, primal, primary, original, aboriginal weed / wiːd /: remove unwanted plants from
(an area of ground or the plants cultivated in it) suspect / ˈsʌspɛkt /: have an idea or impression of the existence, presence, or truth of (something) without certain proof synonyms:have a suspicion, have a feeling, feel, be inclined to think, fancy… drilled / drɪld /: produce (a hole) in something by or as if by boring with a drill synonyms:bore a hole in, make a hole in, cut a hole in, drill a hole in, bore, pierce,puncture revealed / rɪˈviːld /: make (previously unknown or secret information) known to others synonyms:divulge, disclose, tell, let out, let slip, report, declare, post, communicate interglacials /ɪntɝːˈɡleɪ.si.ɚ/ relating to a period of milder climate between two glacial periods orbit / ˈɔːbɪt /: the curved path of a celestial object or spacecraft around a star, planet, or moon, especially a periodic elliptical revolution synonyms:course, path, track, rotation, cycle, round monsoons / mɒnˈsuːnz /: gió mùa ^^ n encourage the growth of vegetation and cause flooding, during which vegetation rotting in oxygen-poor water will emit methane Around the Arctic, hot summers thaw wetlands for longer, again promoting both vegetation growth and methane emission.
In recent times, however, this regular pattern has changed The last methane peak occurred around 11,000 years ago, at about
700 parts per billion (ppb), after which levels began to fall But instead of continuing to fall to what Ruddiman says should have been a minimum of about 450 ppb today, the atmospheric methane began to climb again
Working with climate modellers Stephen
Verves and John Kutzbach, Ruddiman has shown that if the levels of these gases had continued to fall rather than rising when they did, ice sheets would now cover swathes of northern Canada and Siberia The world would be heading into another ice age
So why did both methane and C02 rise over the past few thousand years? In other words, why has this interglacial period been different from previous ones? Could humans be to blame?
Agriculture emerged around the eastern
Mediterranean some 11,000 years ago, then shortly afterwards in China and several thousand years later in the Americas.
Farming can release greenhouse gases in various ways: clearing forests liberates lots of stored carbon as the wood rots or is burned, for instance, while flooded rice paddies release methane just as wetlands do.
To find out more about early farming,
CONCLUSION
Summary of findings
All things considered, deploying IELTS reading material is of great benefits in honing writing skill of the special target learners – 10 th grade English gifted students in terms of academic vocabulary and idea development They will accumulate a wealth of knowledge and skills for their later academic study if teachers have good approach and appropriate task design Reading authentic materials which are designed for native speakers seems to be an obvious challenge at first; notwithstanding, I hold a firm belief that with intensive practice, their writing skill will upgrade to a new level.
Limitations
Despite the authors’ notable efforts, the study still bears a number of shortcomings within its scope, as the result of some unexpected problems
In the first place, there is the limitation of the number of IELTS reading passages in each theme to illustrate
Secondly, the writers admit that their knowledge and experience are still limited; therefore,minor mistakes are inevitable Therefore, any constructive comments, suggestions and recommendations would be highly appreciated
Suggestions for further studies
This study is only a partial investigation into the use of IELTS reading materials in improving students’writing ability in terms of academic lexico resources and idea developments. Many dimensions still remain unanswered From the researcher’s point of view, further studies can be conducted including: “The use of other authentic materials to improve student’s writing ability”. Furthermore, the authors expect that teachers will work together to build a learning resource for students by adding reading texts which are analyzed lexico and ideas to a shared drive link.
Alidmat, A O H., & Ayassrah, M A (2017) Development of Critical Thinking Skills through Writing Tasks: Challenges Facing Maritime English Students at Aqaba College, AlBalqa Applied University, Jordan International Journal of Higher Education, 6(3), 82-90.
Feronica, R A., Apriani, E., & Edy, S (2021) The Implementation of Higher Order Thinking 71 Skill (HOTS) in Junior High School: Teaching Practice and Problems ENGLISH FRANCA: Academic Journal of English Language and Education, 5(2), 185- 200.
Knapp, P and Megan W (2005) Genre, text, grammar Sydney: University of New South Wales
Meyers, A (2005) Gateways to academic writing: Effective sentences, paragraphs, and essays Longman, USA.
Nation, I.S.P (2006) ‘How large a vocabulary is needed for reading and listening?’ Canadian Modern Language Review 63, 1: 59-82.
Ur, P (1996) A Course in Language Teaching, Cambridge University Press, Great Britain.
Pardede, H (2014) The effectiveness of using text to improve writing skill for grade III students Retrieved from http://repository.usu.ac.id/bitstream/handle/123456789/64805/Effectiveness.pdf?sequence
Sianturi, L P D., Silalahi, D E., & Purba, C N (2020) Improving Students’ Writing Ability based on Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) Questions at 8th Grade in SMP.
Westwood, P (2008) What teachers need to know about teaching methods? Camberwell: Victoria