Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng các hoạt động nhóm để nâng cao kỹ năng viết đoạn văn tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Cao đẳng Y tế Thái Nguyên

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* VŨ THỊ HÒA IMPROVING ENGLISH PARAGRAPH- WRITING PERFORMANCE BY THE SECOND- YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN MEDICAL COLLEGE THROUGH COLLABORATIVE WRITING ACTIVITIES Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để nâng cao kỹ viết đoạn văn tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Cao đẳng Y tế Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* VŨ THỊ HÒA IMPROVING ENGLISH PARAGRAPH- WRITING PERFORMANCE BY THE SECOND- YEAR STUDENTS AT THAI NGUYEN MEDICAL COLLEGE THROUGH COLLABORATIVE WRITING ACTIVITIES Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để nâng cao kỹ viết đoạn văn tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Cao đẳng Y tế Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: PROF NGUYỄN HÒA Hanoi, 2014 i DECLARATION I certify that this thesis is the result of my own research and that this thesis has not been submitted for a degree to any other university or institution wholly or partially Signature Vu Thi Hoa ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to all those who have given me great assistance, encouragement and support in the completion of my research work First and foremost, I would like to express my profound gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor, Prof Nguyen Hoa for his invaluable and insightful comments, his deliberate guidance and wholehearted supervision during the study My thanks are also offered to all my respected lecturers in the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies, ULIS, VNU, Hanoi for their informative, valuable lectures and suggestions that have enlightened my research path of the study I am also grateful to all my colleagues and students at TMC for their enthusiastic participants in my research Last but not least, I would like to show my big gratitude to my family, my relatives, especially my husband who encourage and help me to carry out the study Hanoi, August 2014 iii ABSTRACT The study has been conducted for the purpose of enhancing the effectiveness through the application of collaborative writing activities to improve the second- year students at TMC in writing skills Participants are 40 second- year- students from the Department of Midwifery and Nursing at TMC divided into two groups: experimental group and control group The experimental group is taught in collaborative learning for eight weeks The control group is taught in the traditional method of the teacher- centered approach Findings from pre- and post tests, pre and post- questionnaires reveals that: i) Collaborative writing activities have improved students’ proficiency in writing skills; ii) the method has positive effects on student’s attitudes and opinions toward writing; iii) the study provides more information concerning the implementation of collaborative writing It is hope that the thesis will make some contribution to the improvement of learning and teaching writing skill based on collaborative activities These activities help students feel confident to write paragraph writings Moreover, they have more opportunities, are more comfortable and more interested in collaborative activities iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CWA: Collaborative Writing Activities TMC: Thai Nguyen Medical College CL: Collaborative Learning v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Checklists of writing tasks in Lifelines- Elementary Table 2: Students’ view on writing lesson before and after the experiment Table 3: The difficulties of students on writing lesson before and after the experiment Table 4: Students’ opinions about the way they like to writing in class Table 5: Students’ opinions of writing in English Table 6: Students’ opinions on collaborative writing activities Figure 1: Stages of the process approach to writing Figure 2: Pre- test results of both groups Figure 3: Post- test results of both groups Figure 4: Pre and post test results of the experimental group vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements .ii Abstract iii Table of contents iv List of abbreviations vi List of tables and figures vii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Aims of the study Research questions Scope of the study .2 Methods of the study Design of the study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical Backgrounds of paragraph writing performance 1.1.1 What is paragraph writing performance 1.1.2 Approaches to teaching paragraph writing skills in foreign language… … 1.2 Theoretical backgrounds of Collaborative writing activities 1.2.1 Definition of Collaborative Writing 1.2.2 Roles of collaborative activities in writing vii 1.2.3 Collaborative writing activities .8 1.2.4 Using collaborative writing in the classroom 1.2.5 Elements of collaborative writing 1.3 Previous studies of collaborative writing 11 1.4 Concluding remarks .12 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Restatement of Research question .13 2.2 Setting of the study and Participants 13 2.2.1 Setting of the study 13 2.2.2 Participants……… 15 2.2.3 The study 15 2.2.4 The experimental program………… ………………………………………17 2.3 Data collection 17 2.3.1 Data collection instruments .17 2.3.2 Data collection procedures .18 2.3.3 Data analysis procedures 18 2.3.4 Concluding remarks 19 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 3.1 Findings and discussions 20 3.1.1 From the writing tests .20 3.1.2 From the questionnaires 25 viii 3.2 Correlation between questionnaire and test scores………….… .… .….31 3.3 Concluding remarks 32 PART C: CONCLUSION Recapitulation (optional) 33 Conclusions 33 Limitations of the study 34 Pedagogical implications 34 Suggestions for further study 36 REFERENCES 37 APPENDICES Appendix I Appendix .II Appendix .III Appendix V Appendix .VI Appendix VII Appendix VIII Appendix .IX Appendix .XI Appendix 10 XIV Appendix 11 .XVII ... THAI NGUYEN MEDICAL COLLEGE THROUGH COLLABORATIVE WRITING ACTIVITIES Nghiên cứu việc sử dụng hoạt động nhóm để nâng cao kỹ viết đoạn văn tiếng Anh cho sinh viên năm thứ hai trường Cao đẳng Y tế. .. to show my big gratitude to my family, my relatives, especially my husband who encourage and help me to carry out the study Hanoi, August 2014 iii ABSTRACT The study has been conducted for the... tế Thái Nguyên M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: PROF NGUYỄN HÒA Hanoi, 2014 i DECLARATION I certify that this thesis is the result of my