Thiết chỉnh một số hoạt động viết trong sách giáo khoa Tiếng Anh lớp 11 để khuyến khích học sinh trường THPT Đường An học kĩ năng viết

LIST OF TABLES and Figures Table 1: Differences between Process Approach and Product Approach……….8 Table 2: Checklist of writing tasks in English textbook 11.………22 Table 3: The average

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NGUYỄN THỊ THUÝ

ADAPTING WRITING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH 11 TO MOTIVATE

11 TH GRADERS AT DUONG AN HIGH SCHOOL TO LEARN ENGLISH

FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES

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NGUYỄN THỊ THUÝ

ADAPTING WRITING ACTIVITIES IN ENGLISH 11 TO MOTIVATE

11 TH GRADERS AT DUONG AN HIGH SCHOOL TO LEARN ENGLISH

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CLT: Communicative Language Teaching

MOET: The Ministry of Education and Training

ESL/ EFL: English as a Second Language or a Foreign Language ELT (English Language Teaching)

LIST OF TABLES and Figures

Table 1: Differences between Process Approach and Product Approach……….8

Table 2: Checklist of writing tasks in English textbook 11.………22

Table 3: The average marks of the control and experimental group……….………28

Table 4: The average marks of the control and experimental group before the

experiment.………30

Table 5: Students’ motivation in learning writing English ……….………31

Table 6: Students’ participation in writing lessons.……… ……31

Table 7: Factors prevent students from participating in writing in the class.……….….32

Table 8: Students’ opinions towards English writing skills in the textbook English 1….33

Table 9: Students’ opinion about the way their teachers teach writing……… ……33

Table 10: Students’ evaluation towards their current writing lessons……… …34

Table 11: Results of experimental group’s participation……….…42

Table 12: Students' range in the two classes before and at the end of experiment.………43 Figure 1: The material evaluation process………14 Figure 2: A preliminary framework for materials analysis and action………15

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION……… …… …….i

ABSTRACT……… ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS……… iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ……… iv

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES ………v

TABLE OF CONTENTS……… vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION……… … ….… 1

1 Rationale for the study……… … 1

2 Research questions ……….2

3 Aims of the study ……… 2

4 Scope of the study……… 2

5 Methods of the study……… ……… ………… 2

6 Design of the study……… 3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT………4

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……… 4

1 An Overview of Writing……… 4

1.1 Definitions of writing……… 4

1.2 Roles of writing……… 4

1.3 Approaches to teaching writing……… 6

1.4 Writing teaching procedure……… 9

2 An Overview of Motivation ……… 9

2.1 Definitions of motivation……… 9

2.2 Roles of motivation……… 10

2.3 Types of Motivation……… 10

3 Materials Evaluation……… 13

3.1 The concepts of materials evaluation……… .13

3.2 The reasons for materials evaluation……… 13

3.3 Models for evaluation……… 13

3.4 Criteria for evaluation……… 16

4 Material adaptation……… 16

4.1 Definition of material adaptation……… 16

4 2 The purpose of adaptation……… 17

4.3 Techniques for adaptation……… 18

4.4 Levels of adaptation……….…… 19

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY……… 21

2.1 Research setting……… 21

2.1.1 The setting of the study……… … 21

2.1.2 Writing materials……… 21

2.2 Research design………23

2.3 Participants……… 24

2.4 Data collection instruments……….25

2.4.1 Classroom observations……… 25

2.4.2 The teacher interview……… 26

2.4.3 Student questionnaire……… 26

2.4.4 Follow-up student interview……….26

2.5 Data collection procedure……… … 27

CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS……….28

3.1 The students' level and motivation before the experiment……… 28

3.2 Results from questionnaire……… 30

3.3 Results from teacher interview……… 34

3.4 Results from the end of experiment observations……….37

3.4.1 Observations in control group……… …37

3.4.2 Observations in experimental group………37

3.5 Students’ participation in experimental and control group in three lessons at the end of the intervention………42

3.6 Comparison of students’ participation in experimental and control group … 43

3.7 Follow-up student interview……… 44

PART C: CONCLUSION……… 45

1.1 Summary of the study……….45

1.2 Implications………45

1.3 Limitations of the study ……….46

1.4 Suggestions for further study ……….46

REFERENCES ………47 APPENDICES

Part A: Introduction

1 Rationale of the study

The introduction of new English 10, 11, 12 textbook to school curriculum in 2006,

2007 and 2008 has marked a dramatic change in the way English is taught Along with three skills, namely, speaking, listening, reading, writing has been put in priority and integrated in the textbook

Although the books have shown a great deal of improvement as compared with the old series of grammar-based it seems that not all activities or tasks in the books,

especially in writing part are suitable to the different teaching and learning contexts of different localities within Vietnam

After 5 years teaching new English 11 at Duong An high school, I find out that in

comparison with other three skills, writing is considered the most complicated to teach and still remains neglected due to students‟ low level proficiency, time constraints and low motivation When students write, they find themselves confused with word choice, grammatical use, organization and generation of ideas They tend to translate ideas from

mother tongue into English, express ideas in long sentences, and are not aware of different kinds of writing, thus making them unable to write in real life Because of limited background knowledge, they often feel bored and do not want to write Naturally, teaching English writing in upper-secondary schools is a challenging job for many English teachers because it requires not only high language competence among the teachers themselves, but also the application of appropriate writing instruction Some teachers do not feel confident about their own English and shy away from designing writing tasks or getting students to write more than just grammatical exercises Sometimes teachers do not have enough ideas

to facilitate students In reality, most teachers follow what the tasks in the textbook require, and do nothing more about it They may even let students copy the models from the guide books or sample collection

On realizing students‟ problems, I assume that what English writing teachers need

to do is to improve the quality of students‟ pieces of writing, to give them a more cooperative learning environment, and to motivate them to participate in the writing lessons I myself have been making an effort to seek pedagogical methods which could help deal with the mentioned problems What is more, I suggest that adapting writing

activities in textbook could be a more effective strategy Many studies on the effectiveness

of this have proved that it can be applied in ELF writing classes to solve the above problems However, I have not found any research on this field in upper-secondary schools

in Vietnam in general and in Hai Duong in particular so far Related to my students‟

problems, I would like to conduct an experimental study titled “Adapting writing activities in English 11 to motivate 11th graders at Duong An high school to learn

English writing skill” in order to inspire our students in writing lessons

2 Aims of the study

The study aims at:

- investigating teachers‟ and students' attitudes towards teaching and learning writing at Duong An high school

- determining the effect of the adapted activities in motivating students at Duong An high school in writing lessons Basing on the findings, some implications and suggestions will finally be proposed by the researcher

3 Research questions

With the above aims, the research questions are:

1 What are teachers‟ and students' attitudes towards teaching and learning writing

at Duong An high school?

2 How do the adapted activities help motivate students at Duong An high school in writing lessons?

4 Scope of the study

There is a variety of aspects affecting students‟ motivation in class activities so there exist numerous methods to improve students‟ involvement However, it is not my attention to cover all of them because of time and length constraint of the study Adaptation of several writing activities in English 11 is focused on and tested in class 11A

at Duong An high school As the result, the samples of the study were restricted to 4 teachers and 40 students at 11th form at Duong An high school

5 Methods of the study

The method employed in this study is a quasi- experimental research to identify the teachers' and students' attitude towards teaching and learning writing skill After that found

out the reasons why teachers should adapt activities in English 11 to motivate students at Duong An high school in writing lesson The study attempts to find out whether the adapted activities can motivate students or not

Data were collected by means of textbook evaluation, interviews, questionnaires,

and observations and experiment Concerning interviews, 4 teachers who have ever taught

English 11 were involved in the study Survey questionnaires were conducted among 40 students from two classes at the school

6 Design of the study

This minor thesis is divided into three main parts

Part A, INTRODUCTION, presents the rationale, the aims, scope, methods, and design of the study The research questions are also mentioned in this part

Part B, DEVELOPMENT, consists of three following chapters:

Chapter one, Literature Review, presents various concepts most relevant to the

research topic such as definitions of writing, roles of writing, approaches to writing teaching, writing teaching procedure; concepts of motivation in language teaching and learning; materials evaluation Furthermore, the following are also included in this chapter: Definition of material adaptation, the purpose of adaptation, techniques for adaptation and levels of adaptation as well

Chapter two, namely “THE STUDY” describes the overall picture of the research

was carried out from the first step of determining the research design to the last step of

gathering the results Moreover, presentation of statistical results are describes in this chapter

Chapter three, “DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS” analyses the collected data

to answer the two research questions

Part C, CONCLUSION, addresses the key issues in the study, summaries some limitations revealed during the process of the completing this study

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1 An Overview of Writing

1.1 Definitions of writing

Writing is one of the four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing) that a learner is expected to master Writing has been defined in a variety of ways Firstly, writing is the process in which the writer expresses his thoughts or ideas in the form of

handwriting “Writing is communicating Good writing gets your ideas out of your head and into the reader‟s head without losing or distorting those ideas” (Leki, 1976) As for Tribble, writing is “a language skills which is difficult to acquire” (1996, p 3) He also

stressed that writing “normally requires some forms of instruction” and that “it is not a skills that is readily picked up by exposure” (1996, p 11) From my personal experience as

a classroom teacher, I share with Rivers‟ definition (1981) that “writing is not a skill that can be learned or developed in isolation but it should be taught and developed in cooperation with other skills and aspects of the language studied.” Furthermore, writing is

a productive skill, so it is writing that provides students with chances to put the language itself and practice communicative skills at the same time Through the act of writing students will realize what they are already good at and what they still need to learn to become better

1.2 Roles of writing

Writing emerges with its own functions and brings along communicative code of the writers When making a piece of writing, the writer implies a message or a certain purpose In the modern world, writing (written language) serves a range of functions in

everyday life As Nunan (1991:84) aptly points out, writing is:

(i) Primarily for action: public signs (on roads and stations), product labels and

instructions (on food, tools or toy purchased), recipes, maps, television and radio guides, bills, menus, telephone directories, etc

(ii) Primarily for social contact: personal correspondence, letters, postcards, greeting cards

(iii) Primarily for information: newspapers and magazines, non- fiction books (textbooks, public notices, advertisement, guidebooks and travel literature, etc.)

(iv) Primarily for entertainment: light magazines, comic strips, fiction books, poetry and drama, film subtitles, games including computer games

In classroom, teaching and learning writing also plays an important role Through writing, learners are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince other people We are able to discover and articulate ideas in the way that only writing makes possible Therefore, writing has always occupied a place in the language syllabus Discussing about this issue, White (1981, p 1) points out a number of reasons why writing merits a place in the language syllabus as follows:

(i) Writing remains the commonest way of examining students‟ performance in English (all public examinations include a composition) Consequently, ability to write remains a key to examination success

(ii) In the eyes of both parents and students, ability to write may be associated with evidence of having learnt the language Writing is tangible parents and students can see what has been done and what has been achieved So it has high „face validity‟

(iii) In classroom, writing may be used as one of a number of techniques to help

add variety and interest to lesson

(iv) Teachers may use writing as a testing device to provide feedback on what students have learnt Students‟ writing can provide useful evidence of successes or failures in learning, of confusions, and errors

(v) Writing requires thought, discipline and concentration It is relatively a permanent form and readers judge us by our style, content and logic So writing

demands care and thought

In CLT, the teaching of writing also aims at communication However, besides being used to communicate, writing helps students learn In Raimes‟ opinion (1983, p.3),

“first writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary that students have been taught Second, when students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learnt to say, to take risks Third, when they write, they necessarily become very involved in the new language, the effort to express ideas, and the constant use of eyes; hand and brain is a unique way to reinforce

learning”

With all the roles mentioned above, writing really becomes an integral part in almost every

language syllabus from elementary to tertiary level 1.3 Approaches to teaching writing

It is confirmed that teaching and learning writing is really complicated work For students, they must have knowledge of content, organization, discourse, syntax, lexis, and mechanical elements For teachers, they may be confused of a variety of approaches In other words, approaches to teaching ESL/ EFL writing have long been a topic of controversy for them, even for researchers It is being taught in many different ways, and each approach can be effective, if the teacher believes in what he or she teaches Ann Raimes (1983, pp 5- 10) presents six following approaches to teaching writing:

(i) The Control - to- Free Approach

The Control- to- Free Approach in writing is sequential In this approach, writing is considered as a reinforcement means of speech and is used to master grammatical or syntactic rules At lower level, students are often given sentence- level exercises or controlled compositions to imitate, copy or manipulate Students, therefore, make few mistakes Only at high or advanced level are students allowed to try some free compositions, in which they can express their own ideas

In short, this approach emphasizes accuracy rather than fluency Syntax and mechanics are main stresses of the approach

(ii) The Free- Writing Approach

Contrast to the Control- to- Free Approach, the Free- Writing Approach focuses more on fluency, and quantity of writing than quality Students are assigned a vast amount

of free writing on given topics with only minimal correction of errors They are allowed to write freely without worrying about grammar and spelling Content and fluency are taken into account first

(iii) The Paragraph- Pattern Approach

Different from the two approaches mentioned above, the Paragraph- Pattern Approach stresses on paragraph organization Students copy a model paragraph, analyze its form and then write a parallel one In this approach, students are provided with such kinds

of exercises as sentence ordering, sentence inserting or sentence deleting, etc

(iv) The Grammar- Syntax- Organization Approach

The name „the Grammar- Syntax- Organization Approach‟ fully reveals the characteristics of the approach Writing cannot be seen as composed of separate skills which are learned one by one Students need to pay attention to organization while they

also work on the necessary grammar and syntax For example, to write a clear set of instructions on how to use a phone card, the writer needs more than the appropriate vocabulary He needs the simple forms of verbs, an organizational plan based on chronology; sequence words like first, then, next, etc In the preparatory stage, these vocabulary and structures are reviewed and taught In general, this approach is the combination of the purpose and the form of the writing

(v) The Communicative Approach

The Communicative Approach aims at communicative competence, so it stresses the purpose of the writing and the audience for it Students are regarded as writers in real life and they are encouraged to ask themselves the key questions: What am I writing for? (purpose) and who will read it? (audience) Conventionally, the teacher acts as the audience for students‟ writing However, to make it more real- life- closed communication, students become readers for each other They read each other‟s writings, respond, rewrite

in another form or make comments, but not correct Sometimes the teacher creates a context in which students are real readers by making them role- play, exchange letters, reply, ask questions and comment

(vi) The Process Approach

The teaching of writing has recently moved away from a concentration on the written product to an emphasis on the process of writing, which leads to the emergence of Process Approach Process Approach to writing came into play in the 1970s This approach encourages students‟ communication of ideas, feelings and experiences It is more global and focuses on purpose, theme, text type, i.e the reader is emphasized Thus, writers not only concern about purpose and audience but also have to make decisions on

how to begin and how to organize a piece of writing Writing is a process, so students are

given time to set out ideas, make plan, write a first draft, revise what has been written after

a peer feedback, then they can edit their writing or write other drafts before the final

version is produced Brown (1994, pp 335- 336) points out some features of Process Approach as follows:

(1) focus on the process of writing that leads to the final written product

(2) help students understand their own composing process

(3) help them to build repertoires of strategies for prewriting, drafting, and

rewriting

(4) give students time to write and rewrite

(5) place central importance on the process of revision

(6) let students discover what they want to say as they write

(7) give students feedback throughout the composing process (not just the final

product) as they attempt to bring their expression closer and closer to attention

(8) encourage feedback from both the instructor and peers

(9) include individual conferences between teacher and students during the process

of composition

There are various approaches to teaching writing as mentioned It is true to say that there is not necessarily any „right‟ or „best‟ way to teach writing skills

Comparing the Product Approach and Process Approach, Steele summarizes their

differences in the table below:

* text as a resource for comparison

* ideas as starting point

* more than one draft

* more global, focus on purpose, theme,

text type, i.e., reader is emphasized

* collaborative

* emphasis on creative process

* imitate model text

*organization of ideas is more important than ideas themselves

From the analysis and the comparison of the two approaches, it is undeniable that

each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses It is also the fact that there are few

classrooms where teachers are devoted to one approach as to exclude all others Normally, they still use techniques drawn from other approaches as the students need them and those techniques are useful in the context of the class The writing lessons in new English 11 textbook were compiled following both Product Approach and Process Approach This Combined Product- Process Approach is found to be more popular, appropriate and

effective The suggested general outline for a writing lesson following this approach may

be: Stage 1: A model is given

Stage 2: Students work on the model, analyze its typical features, and pay attention to

the language and structure of the model

Stage 3: Students work in groups/ pairs to find out the ideas for the writing topic/ task

and produce an outline

Stage 4: Students write the first draft individually/ in pairs/ in groups The model is

used for comparison

Stage 5: Drafts are exchanged Students give comments on each other‟s work

Stage 6: Drafts are returned and changes or improvements are made based on peer

feedback

Stage 7: Students write final drafts

Stage 8: Final drafts are exchanged once more; students give response or reply to each

other

Stage 9: Teacher gives feedback

1.4 Writing teaching procedure

According to Brown (1994), teachers should follow the teaching procedure including two main stages: Pre- writing and While- writing This procedure is a combination of different approaches, especially the communicative approach and the process approach

(i) Pre- writing

- Exploiting the model text in terms of form, vocabulary, grammar, organization, etc

- Defining the task such as describe , write a letter of

- Limit the topic

- Generate the ideas

(ii) While- writing

There have been so far many researches on the theory of motivation Each author has his/her own way of explaining what motivation is since they look at motivation from different angles However, motivation is generally defined as an abstract concept used to

describe the willingness of a person to expand effort to reach a particular goal

According to Carol (1962), motivation decides the amount of time a learner will spend on

the task of language learning She claims: “The more motivation a learner has, the more

time he or she will spend on learning an aspect of a second language” (Carol, 1962)

Crookes and Schmidt (1991) define motivation in terms of students' interest in and enthusiasm for the materials and activities used in class, their persistence with the learning task as indicated by levels of concentration and enjoyment Learning is only effective if students enjoy activities and work hard

Among what have been mentioned, Crookes and Schmidt‟s definition is chosen to use in this thesis because of two reasons First, it is directly related to the process of teaching and learning language which emphasizes the important roles of students Theoretically, when students are interested in the activities and are persistent with the learning tasks, they will get better results in learning Second, it is similar to what would be studied in the research project that the researcher wants to examine the students‟ interest, satisfaction and concentration on the varied activities in class, so the working definition in the thesis is:

motivation is interest in and enthusiasm for the activities used in classrooms, attention or levels of concentration, the effort and persistence with the learning tasks as well as the challenge of the activities conducted by the teachers This definition will guide the

researcher to design a questionnaire survey to get the information about the students‟ learning motivation in the research

2.2 Roles of motivation

It can be concluded that motivation is significant in foreign language learning because when learners set the goal of learning a foreign language, motivation helps them produce effort and have a positive attitude to obtain the goal Therefore, in order to be successful, language learners really need motivation to continue their learning Motivation not only

plays an important role in learning, it helps the teacher as well Lite (2002) confirms that

“Motivation is the backbone of any classroom When the students are motivated, the

teacher can perform his/her job the best.”

Teachers are often familiar with two basic types of motivation: extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation Harmer (2001) states that extrinsic motivation is caused by such outside factors as the need to pass an exam, the hope of possibility for future travel, etc In contrast, intrinsic motivation is caused by inside factors like the enjoyment of the learning process itself or by a desire to make themselves feel better

2.3 Types of Motivation

According to theorists, there are some distinctions of types of motivation in foreign

language learning: integrative and instrumental motivation; intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

2.3.1 Integrative vs instrumental motivation

2.3.1.1 Integrative motivation

One form of motivation is known as integrative motivation It is thought that students who are most successful when learning a second language are those who like the people who speak that target language, admire the culture and have a desire to become familiar with the society in which the language is used (Falk, 1978) This

kind of motivation is considered a key component in assisting learners to develop some level of proficiency in L2 when they become residents in the community in which the target language is used in social interactions

According to Gardner and Lambert (1974: 98) “An integrative orientation involves

an interest in learning an L2 because of a sincere and personal interest in the people

and culture represented by the other language group” It occurs when learners wish to identify with the culture of the L2 group

2.3.1.2 Instrumental motivation

In contrast to integrative motivation is instrumental motivation This is characterized

by the desire to obtain something practical from the study of L2 (Hudson, 2000) With this kind of motivation, the purpose of L2 acquisition is more utilitarian Ellis

(1994: 75) mentioned “some functional reasons such as to pass an examination, to

get a better job, or to get a place at university These reasons motivate learners to

learn an L2 because it opens up educational and economic opportunities for them”

Instrumental motivation is often a characteristic of L2 acquisition, where little or no social integration of the learner into a community using the target language takes place

Littlewood (1998) replicating Gardner and Lambert (1972), concluded “ A learner with instrumental motivation is more interested in how the second language can be a useful instrument towards furthering other goals, such as gaining a necessary qualification or improving employment prospects” (1998: 57) It occurs when learners‟ goals for learning an L2 are functional With an instrumental motivation, learners can be successful in learning an L2 It is likely that incentives like money can help learning, but the effects maybe cease as soon as the reward stops

In short, Learners can have both integrative and instrumental motivation In some cases, integrative may be more powerful in stimulating L2 learning, in some other situations, however, instrumental counts far more In addition, the social contexts in which learning takes place strongly influence the level and type of motivation

2.3.4 Intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation

2.3.4.1 Intrinsic motivation

Intrinsic motivation refers to “motivation to engage in an activity for its own sake” (Woldkowski, 1991) He means that activity itself is our benefit, so we do not need any other kinds of rewards or punishment He states that intrinsic motivation “is the natural tendency to seek out and conquer challenges as we pursue personal interests and exercise capabilities” The factors of support of intrinsic motivation are: competence (feeling that you know how to do things), autonomy (being able to perform an activity by yourself without external help) and relatedness (connection with your social environment like helping the others)

2.3.4.2 Extrinsic motivation

Harmer (2001:51) gives an easily understandable definition that extrinsic motivation

“is caused by any number of outside factors such as: the need to pass an exam, the hope to of financial reward or possibility of future travel”

Most writers agree that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations interact with each other and play an important role in language learning As a result, learners can be either motivated by internal or external factors depending on the circumstances and conditions under which the activity is performed

3 Materials Evaluation

3.1 The concepts of materials evaluation

There are many ways of defining evaluation Nunan (1988) suggests that evaluation be “a process not a final product” that means it takes place at any time of the material design The first and foremost emphasis of evaluation is to determine whether the goals and objectives of a language program are being attained

According to Tom Hutchinson and Waters (1993) evaluation is really a matter of judging the fitness of something for a particular purpose “Given a certain need, and in the light of the resources available, which out of number of possibilities can represent the best solution? There is no absolute good or bad- only degrees of fitness for the required purpose”

From the above definitions, it can be inferred that materials evaluation involves the determination of what needs to be evaluated, the objectives and requirements for the materials, and the judgments of the value of the materials being evaluated in relation to the objectives and requirements determined

3.2 The reasons for materials evaluation

There are two main reasons for carrying out materials evaluation Firstly, there may be a need to choose among the materials available the most suitable ones to use for a particular situation Secondly, there can be a need for materials evaluation to determine whether the material which has been chosen works for that situation after it has been used for a period

of time (Ellis, 1997)

Robinson (1991) adds, evaluation can be used as part of quality control Through evaluation, we can know about the advantages and disadvantages as well as the effectiveness of the being used materials Then we can decide whether the materials can be reused or whether it needs to be adapted to meet the need of the particular teaching situation or we need to change it absolutely

In short, the findings of materials evaluation will provide input for responsible people to evaluate the effectiveness of the materials

3.3 Models for evaluation

According to Hutchinson and Waters (1987), evaluation is a process of matching needs to

available solutions Thus, the evaluation process is divided into four steps as follows:

- Defining criteria

- Subjective analysis

- Objective analysis

- Matching

The above steps are presented in the following diagram as the following:

Figure 1: The material evaluation process

(Cited from Hutchinson and Waters, 1987, p 98)

In Hutchinson and Waters‟ view, a teaching material in general and a course book

in particular has to suit the needs of a number of parties such as teachers, students, sponsors, so it is important that the subject factors should not be allowed to obscure objectivity in the early stages of analysis In order to have an objective matching, it is advisable to look at the needs and solutions separately However, in the final analysis, any choice will be made on subjective ground

DEFINE CRITERIA

On what bases will you judge material?

Which criteria will be more important?

SUBJECTIVE ANALYSIS

What realizations of the criteria do you

want in your course?

OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS How does the material being evaluated

realize the criteria?

MATCHING How far does the material match

your needs?

Another author, Littlejohn (1998) introduces the framework as follows:

Figure 2: A preliminary framework for materials analysis and action

(Cited from Littlejohn, 1998)

It can be demonstrated from the above diagram that the two steps of describing the target situation and analyzing materials are conducted spontaneously and independently The next step is matching and evaluation in which the level of appropriateness to the target situation is discussed In the last step, the decision on materials is made

Obviously, although these two models consist of different steps, they both set out the way to evaluate the material Based on the above discussion, the materials evaluation model suggested by Hutchinson and Waters is chosen as the framework for evaluation in this study

ANALYSIS OF TARGET

SITUATION OF USE

- The cultural context

- The institution

- The course (proposed aims,

content, methodology, measures

of evaluation)

- The teachers

- The learners

MATERIALS ANALYSIS From analysis:

1 What is their explicit nature?

2 What is required by users?

3 What is implied by their use?

3.4 Criteria for evaluation

Various scholars have suggested different ways to help evaluators become more systematic and objective in their method of evaluation by using a checklist

Hutchinson and Waters (1987, p.99-104) suggest five evaluation criteria for objective and subjective analysis as follows:

- Audience: the learners and the materials intended for

- Aims: the aims of the course and the aims of the materials

- Content: language description, language points, proportion of work on each macro-skill,

text-types, subject-matter areas, level of knowledge, types of topics, treatment, organization of content within the course units, sequence of content throughout the course, sequence of content within a unit

- Methodology: theory of learning, learners‟ attitudes, kinds of exercises,

teaching-learning techniques, aids, guidance/ support for teaching, the flexibility of materials

- Other criteria: price, quantities, availability

Another list of evaluation criteria is presented by Sheldon (1988) It consists of: rationale, availability, user definition, layout/ graphics, accessibility, linkage, selection/grading, physical characteristics, appropriacy, authenticity, sufficiency, cultural bias, education validity, stimulus/ practice revision, flexibility, guidance, and overall value for money He also emphasizes that in different situations, upgrading, modification and extension to these criteria are needed to suit the specific requirements

To sum up, in this thesis the researcher used the evaluation model by Hutchinson and Waters because the criteria defined by Hutchinson and Waters appeared to be more manageable and suitable to the objectives of the current study

4 Material adaptation

4.1 Definition of material adaptation

As far as we know, adaptation plays a very important role in foreign language teaching

I myself believe that a good teacher is constantly adapting In reality, no textbook can

totally be an effective tool for teachers to follow without any adaptation because of the disadvantage of the textbook such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity or lack of variety Adaptation is to compensate for those deficiencies There are a number of definitions of adaptation given by different scholars

In their book “Materials and Methods in ELT” (1993), McDonough and Shaw devote a

chapter to the issue of adaptation materials They quote Madsen and Bowen‟s definition

(1978: ix) “one or more a number of techniques: supplementing, editing, expanding,

personalizing, simplifying, modernizing, localizing, or modifying, or modifying cultural/ situational content”

Similarly, from Tomlinson‟s point of view (1998: xi), adaptation is referred to

“reducing, adding, omitting, modifying and supplementing” He supposes that most

teachers adapt materials every time they use a textbook in order to maximize the value of the book for their particular learners More or less, most of the scholars‟ viewpoints, which

I base my thesis on, agree on some kind of change and addition when mentioning

“adaptation”

4 2 The purpose of adaptation:

There are always sound practical reasons for adapting materials in order to make

them as accessible and useful to learners as possible However, reasons for adaptation have varied and changed as the field has developed and views on language acquisition and teaching practice have become better informed by research and experience There are two most frequently cited purposes for adaptation:

1 to make the material more suitable for the circumstances in which it is being used, i.e to mould it to the needs and interests of learners, the teachers' own capabilities and such constraints as time, or as Mc Donough and Shaw (1993:85) put it: “to maximize the appropriacy of teaching materials in context, by changing some of the internal characteristics of a course book to better suit our particular circumstances”

2 to compensate for any intrinsic deficiencies in the materials, such as linguistic inaccuracies, out-of-datedness, lack of authenticity (Madsen and Bowen 1978) or lack of variety

Looking deeper into McDonough and Shaw‟s definition of purpose we see that maximizing the appropriacy of teaching materials (by, e.g., modifying them in such a way that they seem more relevant to learners' interests and needs) is important because it can

stimulate motivation, and increased motivation is in turn likely to lead to a classroom atmosphere more conductive to learning In fact, when teachers make changes to a course

book “to better suit our particular purposes” what teachers are really trying to do is to improve students‟ participation to increase the effectiveness of the learning experience

4.3 Techniques for adaptation

4.3.1 Adding

The notion of addition is that materials are supplemented by putting more into them, while taking into account the practical effect on time allocation First, we can certainly add in this quantitative way by the technique of extending “This means that the techniques are being applied within the methodological framework of the original materials: in other words, the model is not itself changed” (McDough and Shaw, 1993: 89) We can do this in the following situation: A second reading passage parallel to the one provided is helpful in reinforcing the key linguistic features- tenses, sentence structures, vocabulary, cohesive devices – of the first text Second, more far-reaching perspective on addition of materials can be termed expanding This kind of addition is not just extension of and existing aspect

of content They go further than this by bringing about a qualitative as well as a quantitative change…This can be thought of as a change in the overall system” (McDonough and Shaw, 1993:90)

4.3.2 Deleting or Omitting

Deletion is clearly the apposite process to that of addition As can be seen in the previous section that materials can be added both quantitatively (extending) and qualitatively (expanding), the same point applies when a decision is taken to omit materials The most straightforward aspect of reducing the length of materials is subtracting

Addition and deletion often work together Material may be taken out and then replaced with something else The methodological change is greater when, for example, grammar

practice is substituted after the omission of an inappropriate communicative function, or when a reading text is replaced by a listening passage

4.3.3 Modifying

Modifying can be sub-divided under two related headings The first of these is rewriting, when some of the linguistic content needs modification, the second is restructuring, which applies to classroom management

- Rewriting may relate activities more closely to learners' own background and interest,

introduce model of authentic language, or set most purposeful problem-solving tasks where the answers are not always known before the teacher asks the question

- Restructuring: For many teachers who are required to follow a course book rather

strictly, changes in the structuring of the class are sometimes the only kind of adaptation

that is realistically possible For example, the materials may contain role-play activities for groups of certain size

4.3.4 Simplifying

The technique of simplification is a type of modification, namely a “rewriting” activity

The elements of a language which can be simplified are: The instructions and explanations that accompany exercises and activities, and even the visual layout of materials so that it

becomes easier to see how different part fit together However, texts, most often reading

passages are applied this technique Usually, the emphasis has been on changing various

sentences- bound elements to match the text more closely to the proficiency level of a particular group of learners

Textbook adaptation can be done at three levels The first level is macro

adaptation, which is ideally done before the language program begins After comparing

what is covered in a textbook and what is required by the syllabus or examination, the teacher may find that certain areas or even whole unit of the book can be omitted, and certain contents need to be supplemented

The second level of adaptation is adapting a unit This could be reordering the

activities, combining activities, omitting activities, rewriting or supplementing exercise material, etc Unit adaptation helps to make the classroom teaching more smooth and cohesive It also helps the teacher to better fulfill the aims of a unit

The third level is adaptation of specific activities in a unit Occasionally an activity

I regarded as valuable, but it is not well-designed or it is not feasible in particular class If the teacher does not want to give up the activity, he or she needs to adapt it

5 Summary

To conclude, this chapter has so far touched upon issues relating to the topic of the study It has discussed definitions of writing, roles of writing, approaches to writing

teaching, writing teaching procedure; concepts of motivation in language teaching and learning; materials evaluation Furthermore, the following are also included in this chapter: Definition of material adaptation, the purpose of adaptation, techniques for adaptation and levels of adaptation as well

Although writing in terms of definition can be seen differently, its roles cannot be denied Writing skills, therefore, must be taught thoroughly at school By recounting briefly the history of teaching writing, the author finds that language teachers may be confused by such various approaches It is unavoidable that they have problems in writing lessons because the students are demotivated Hence, adapting writing activities has taken into consideration In this study, I will adapt some writing activities in English 11 to make them more communicative, suitable to my students‟ ability at Duong An high school Adding and modifying are popular adaptation techniques used in the research Details of these above contents will be presented in chapter 3

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY

There are two parts in this chapter The first part will analysis the situation of the study with the description of the setting of the study, the subjects, writing materials The second part will offer a comprehensive analysis on the data collected from the class observations, teacher and student interviews, and student questionnaires

2.1 Research setting

2.1.1 The setting of the study

The study was conducted at Duong An high school, a rural school of Hai Duong

province The school has 33 classes with 60 teachers of all subjects English is taught as a compulsory subject Currently there are 5 teachers of English and over 1500 students ranged from grade 10 to grade 12 Most of the students come from villages and towns in Binh Giang district

Although most students are aware of the importance of learning English, this subject is not paid much attention by most of the students in school Few students choose English as a subject to take university entrance exam Teaching English, especially teaching English writing has met some difficulties The first is the large size classes There are about 45 students in each class It is hard for teachers to set up communicative activities, monitor class and give feedback The second is most students are not familiar

with teaching and learning in English They cannot understand lessons if teachers speak English most of the time and their background knowledge as well as vocabulary, structures are very poor The last is the lack of materials Materials for reference and self-study are not available There is not a library for students at all Furthermore, some facilities needed for learning such as computers and projectors are not enough

Normally, students have four periods of studying English every week It is a limited time for students to practice and develop skills as well as enrich their vocabulary and structure capacity What is more, English is hardly used outside classroom All these factors have great effect on the students‟ results in learning English especially in learning writing

2.1.2 Writing materials

The main material for English writing of grade 11 is a new set of English textbook- English 11 which was first introduced in 2007 Like English 10, English 11 was designed following communicative approach There are 5 parts in each unit arranging as follows:

reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus with a variety of exercises and tasks

The writing program at Duong An high school follows the syllabus of the MOET (Ministry of Education and Training) with the aim of improving students‟ abilities in writing Indeed, writing lessons make up 20 % of 86 periods of the English syllabus Although each lesson is not clearly divided into stages: Pre- writing, While- writing and Post- writing, it can be easily noticed that the initial tasks are a preparation for the final

task There are totally 16 units, so 16 writing lessons are designed with a view to making students familiar with real- life situations on text The required competences of writing lesson in each unit are detailed in the following table:

Unit 1: Friendship - Writing about your friend

Unit 2: Personal Experience - Writing a personal letter to describe a past

experience Unit 3: A Party - Writing an informal letter of invitation

Unit 4: Volunteer work - Writing a formal letter expressing gratitude

Unit 5: Illiteracy - Describing information in a table

Unit 6: Competitions - Writing a letter of reply

Unit 7: World population - Interpreting statistics on population from a chart

Unit 8: Celebrations - Describing a celebration‟s activities

Unit 9: The Post Office - Writing a formal letter to express satisfaction or

dissatisfaction Unit 10: Nature in danger - Describing a location

Unit 11: Sources of energy Describing information from a chart

Unit 12: The Asian Games Describing the preparations for the coming Asian

Games Unit 13: Hobbies - Writing about a collection

Unit 14: Recreation - Describing a camping holiday

Unit 15: Space Conquest - Writing a biography

Unit 16: The Wonders of the

world

- Writing a report on a man – made place

Table 2: Checklist of writing tasks in English textbook 11

2.2 Research design

This research was a quasi-experimental study, using observations before and at the end of the experiment, questionnaires for students and interviews with both the teachers of English and 11th graders at Duong An high school

The study adopted a quasi-experimental design for practical reasons In the context

of the secondary school, it is impossible to conduct a true experimental research with randomly selected samples However, a quasi-experimental study remains valid because “it

is conducted under conditions closer to those normally found in educational context” (Selinger& Shohamy, 1989: 149) Although the intact groups were used, both were in grade 11, and they were of comparable ability level.

Considering the two groups selected in the study, they were not removed from the normal teaching and learning context This intactness helps to increase the validity of the later generalization of the results to the population Furthermore, since this kind of research

is less intrusive and disruptive than the true-experimental one, it is easier to gain access to the subject population and thus easier to conduct such research (Selinger & Schohamy, 1989: 149) As a result, it saved the researcher a lot of time and effort in grouping the participants, which was impossible under the present conditions In short, the quasi-experimental design is the most practical and feasible for the researcher, all above factors are under consideration

 Variables

As mentioned above, the aim of this study is to determine the effect of the adapted activities in motivating students in writing lessons at Duong An high school In other words, experimental design is used in this study to determine how the Adapted activities in English 11 (The independent variable) causes the changes in students' motivation or participation in writing lessons (the dependent variable)

Independent variable: Adapted activities in English 11

Dependent variable: Students' motivation or participation in writing lessons

The values of the dependent variable were measured from the scores that the students gained in their writing products in both control and experimental groups In order

to measure students' participation in writing lessons, the observations before and at the end

of experiment as well as interviews were used as a valid and reliable means for the study

For this study, two groups of 40 11th graders at Duong An high school were asked

to participate in this experiment One group was employed as an experimental group The other was employed as a control group Each group consisted of 20 students The researcher taught each group 3 lessons using the current textbook English 11 The author was the teacher (herself) in two groups to ensure the designed lesson plans were strictly followed The teacher instructed the control group in the usual fashion The same lessons were taught to the experimental group with adapted activities With the assistance of the

three other English teachers, observations were administered for two groups during the

at Duong An high school

2.3 Participants:

The participants in this study were 40 11 th grade students from two classes: 11A and 11B at Duong An high school in Binh Giang district, Hai Duong The distribution of the students in each class is that the percentage of students at levels of “ Excellent”,

“Good”, “average”, “under average” in every class are nearly equal That is the students in

each class are similar in their background Duong An high school is a public school with

an enrollment of over 1500 students from grade 10 to grade 12 All students must attend 4 English classes a week The experimental group, group 11A, had 20 students with 9 females and 11 males while the control group, group 11B included 20 students with 13 females and 7 males The two groups seemed to have a relatively similar level of proficiency in English as determined bynot only the fact that they had spent five years studying English but also their previous school year exam on English listening, reading, writing and language focus In the researcher‟s observation, the levels of participation of the two groups in learning English in general and in learning writing in particular were relatively equal

2.4 Data collection instruments

2.4.1 Classroom observations

The class observations in this study were carried out in 3 English lessons during the treatment For each lesson, three other teachers observed in 30 minutes The researcher designed a checklist for what she wanted to observe: teacher's performance, students' involvement and teachers' comments

Before the experiment

The other English teachers observed the two classes in 2 writing periods to be aware of the degrees of the students‟ participation before the experiment The observers

just focused on how the students would take part in the lessons What is more, the teachers collected students‟ writing papers in order to compare the differences in students‟ writing performance between the two classes and pre – and post improvement stage of this research The before- experiment classroom observations are vitally important The result decided whether we would have the following research If the present level of participation were unsatisfactory, we would have to find out the way to improve their involvement The data collected from the before-experiment classroom observations would be used to compare with the degrees of participation of the control group and experimental group before the interventions

During the experiment

During the treatment, the teacher or the author herself and her teachings in both control and experiment groups with the three same lessons were observed by the three mentioned teachers The control group was taught the original activities in English 11

while the experimental group was taught adapted activities Then the researcher measured the students‟ motivation of both groups and then compared them to prove whether the adaptation of textbook activities would be helpful in increasing the students‟ involvement

in writing lessons

2.4.2 The teacher interview

An interview to 4 English teachers who have ever taught English 11 at Duong An high school was conducted to get information about their evaluation on writing activities in the textbook, their evaluations on students participation and what they have done to increase students‟ participation

2.4.3 Student questionnaire

The survey questionnaire is one of the instruments which are often used to collect data in social sciences Many significant advantages of using questionnaires are indicated by Gillham(2000): less pressure on respondents, not under pressure of interview bias, analysis

of answers is straightforward

However, a survey questionnaire with too many closed ended questions may be said to be imposing to some extent and one with too many open ended questions may take respondents a lot of time to complete So, these are points worth thinking before designing

a survey questionnaire Besides, it should be noted that not all of the being sent questionnaires are returned and not all of them are really reliable

Questionnaire was chosen as data collection instrument in this study because of the purpose of the thesis itself is to collect students‟ opinions and attitudes toward teaching and learning writing Students were requested to complete and return the questionnaire on the spot to the researcher

A ten- question questionnaire was delivered to students in two classes 11A, 11B concerning their evaluation on the writing activities in the textbook, their participation and what affected their participation in writing class The questionnaire was the same to the control and experimental groups because the researcher wanted to know if the two groups had equal levels of motivation and participation before the intervention

2.4.4 Follow-up student interview

Six students were randomly chosen from the experimental group and interviewed to give their evaluation on the level of participation, attitudes towards the adapted activities in the lessons they had been taught

2.5 Data collection procedure

First, the researcher investigated the students' range of knowledge to know the degrees of students' participation before the experiment Then a survey questionnaire was distributed among the students of the two groups to find out more their evaluation on writing activities and factors affecting their participation in the classroom writing activities To increase the validity of the data, the researcher met and interviewed 4 English teachers who have ever taught English 11 for their attitudes and evaluation about writing activities and their students‟ participation in the writing classes and their way of improving students‟ involvement

After collecting information from students' questionnaires and teacher interview, the researcher taught two groups three same lessons For the control group the three lessons were conducted using intact activities in the textbook For the experimental group, the lessons were applied adapted activities During the treatment, the three other English teachers observed and measured the effectiveness of lessons in both groups to get the data for the research Finally, the follow-up interview of six participants in experimental group was carried out after each lesson to get further information for the study