Improving learners' academic IELTS writing performance through modeling = Nâng cao khả năng viết IELTS học thuật cho học viên qua việc giới thiệu bài m

LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Learners’ view on IELTS writing Table 2: Learners’ feelings when writing Table 3: Factors causing difficulties for the learners to write Table 4: Learners’ pro

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT

-**0** -

ĐOÀN THỊ HƯƠNG

IMPROVING LEARNERS’ ACADEMIC IELTS WRITING

PERFORMANCE THROUGH MODELING

(NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT IELTS HỌC THUẬT CHO HỌC VIÊN

QUA VIỆC GIỚI THIỆU BÀI MẪU)

M.A MINOR THESIS PROGRAM 1

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2012

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT -**0** -

ĐOÀN THỊ HƯƠNG

IMPROVING LEARNERS’ ACADEMIC IELTS WRITING

PERFORMANCE THROUGH MODELING

(NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT IELTS HỌC THUẬT CHO HỌC VIÊN

QUA VIỆC GIỚI THIỆU BÀI MẪU)

M.A MINOR THESIS PROGRAM 1

Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410

Supervisor: LAM THI PHUC HAN, M.A

Hanoi, 2012

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

EAP: English for Academic Purposes

IELTS: International English Language Testing System TOEFL: The Test of English as a Foreign Language L2: A second Language

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Learners’ view on IELTS writing

Table 2: Learners’ feelings when writing

Table 3: Factors causing difficulties for the learners to write

Table 4: Learners’ problems in their writing

Table 5: Teaching techniques in IELTS writing class

Table 6: Learners’ preference on teachers’ teaching techniques

Table 7: The frequency and percentage of errors in pretest and posttest of group A Table 8: The frequency and percentage of errors in pretest and posttest of group B Table 9: The learners’ opinions about the use of model texts to improve their

IELTS writing skills

Table 10: Teachers’ opinion about the use of model texts to improve their learners’

IELTS writing skills

Table 11: Teachers’ suggestions for the use of model texts in IELTS writing classes

TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE

Statement of Authorship……… ……i

Acknowledgement……… ………….ii

Abstract ……… …………iii

List of Abbreviations……….……….iv

List of tables ……….……… ……… v

Table of contents……….vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION……… ……… 1

1 Rationale of the study……… ……… 1

2 Aims of the study……… …… 2

3 Significance of the study……… ……… 2

4 Scope of the study……… …2

5 Method of the study……… …3

6 Organization of the study……….…….3

PART B: DEVELOPMENT 5

CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……… ……5

1.1 The nature and theory of writing……… ……….5

1.1.1 The nature of writing……….………5

1.1.2 Types of writing……….……7

1.1.3 Approaches to the teaching of writing……… ……… 9

1.2 IELTS Test……… ……… 10

1.2.1 General information of IELTS……… ….10

1.2.2 IELTS writing test……… ……… …… …11

1.3 Model Texts……… …….… … 12

1.4 Situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Viet Nam and in London Foreign Language Centre……… ….…………14

1.5 Previous studies……….14

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY……… ………… 17

2.1 Participants……… ….……….17

2.2 Instruments……… ….…….17

2.3 Data collection procedure……… …………20

2.4 Data analysis procedure……….…………20

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION……… …… ………21

3.1 Report of the results……… ……… ……… 21

3.1.1 Report on students-questionnaire data……….…… 21

3.1.2 Report on the results of pretest and posttest……….…….27

3.1.3 Report on interviews with learners and the teachers……….……29

3.2 Discussion of the results……….………33

PART C: CONCLUSION……….……….36

1 The major findings of the research……… …… 36

2 Pedagogical Implications and Recommendations……….…….37

3 Limitations and suggestions of the study……… …………39

REFERENCE

APPENDIXES

PART A: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale for the study

During the last decades, there have been a number of English learners wishing to work and study in English speaking countries However, one of the prerequisites for their entrance is that they have to sit for either the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) As a result, many non-native learners are trained to pass these kinds of tests IELTS, which is widely recognized as a language requirement for entering universities and working mainly in the United Kingdom, Australia, USA and New Zealand, is administered by the British Council or IDP Education Australia in Hanoi The test aims at testing candidates’ four skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing As a matter of fact, those who want to get high score

to be admitted to target universities try to take part in some preparation courses before taking the test Therefore, there are a great number of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Centers in Hanoi who run IELTS preparation courses to meet the demands

Clearly, IELTS writing is one of the important skills for both teachers to teach effectively and for learners to improve themselves However, due to the complexities of learning to write well in a second language (L2), there has been a vigorous debate on more efficient and effective teaching methods and feedback among EAP teachers and L2 writing researchers

Being an IELTS teacher and also an IELTS learner, the author realizes that IELTS writing requires not only learners’ proficiency in English but also their wide knowledge of the language, culture and country as well As a result, the learners often encounter a lot of difficulties in writing This fact has encouraged the author

to investigate the difficulties faced by Vietnamese learners in learning IELTS writing Moreover, in recent years, several studies on techniques for teaching IELTS writing which have been carried out have proven that the use of model texts

in a writing class as a teaching tool has positive effects on learners’ writing

performance This inspired the author to do the research to further explore how this technique affects learners’ writing skill and how teachers and learners assess this kind of technique

2 Aims of the study

The purpose of the study is to investigate the difficulties encountered by the IELTS learners in learning writing skill It also aims at investigating how the learners improve their writing performance as a result of being exposed to model texts and what the learners and the teachers think about this teaching technique

In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the study will be conducted to answer three research questions below:

1 What difficulties do learners face in learning IELTS writing?

2 How is the learners’ writing performance improved as the result of being exposed to model texts?

3 What are the learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts in improving learners’ writing skill?

3 Significance of the study

This study analyzes and finds out the real difficulties that Vietnamese learners face when learning IELT writing skill By doing this, the author would like

to help learners foresee the problems and overcome them in order to improve their writing scores More importantly, the study is done to investigate the progress in IELTS writing the learners can make after attending the writing course using model texts as a teaching tool and how the learners and teachers think about this technique Therefore, teachers who have been teaching IELTS writing in both the target place and in other educational settings can benefit from this study They will adopt appropriate teaching techniques to teaching this skill

4 Scope of the study

The study focused on learning and teaching IELTS writing skill to Vietnamese learners who were taking part in IELTS preparation courses However, due to the small scale of the study, only London Foreign Language Centre was

chosen as the research setting The participants of the study, as a result, were 4 IELTS teachers and 30 learners who were able to provide reliable and valid information for the study

5 Method of the study

In order to achieve the aims of the study, the researcher applied both quantitative and qualitative methods as follows:

As for data collection, the author used survey questionnaire, tests, and interviews Firstly, survey questionnaire was conducted to find out the difficulties in learning IELTS writing and the techniques teachers used in the writing class Secondly, tests (pre and post tests) were designed for the learners to check how they improve their writing skill after the course Thirdly, semi-interviews were conducted among four teachers and fifteen learners who were attending preparation courses in London Foreign Language Centre to investigate what they think about the use of model texts in IELTS writing classes

As for data analysis, the standard IELTS global codification system on a scale of 1 to 9 was employed for rating the participants’ performances on both tests Then, the data from questionnaire and tests were collected to carefully and thoroughly analyze in order to provide the answers to research questions In addition, the interviews were recorded, then transcribed and analyzed so as to answer question 3

6 Organization of the study

The study is divided into three parts The first part is the introduction dealing with the rationale, aims, scope, significance, methods and organization of the study

The second part is the main part of the paper with three chapters

Chapter 1: provides the background for the study, including a review on key concepts relating to the research topic This chapter also briefly discusses the literature in the field to reveal the research gap that needs to be filled

Chapter 2: present the research methods adopted in the study Justifications of the chosen research instruments as well as their implementation are also provided

Chapter 3: reveals the results of the study and the discussions of the results

The last part is the conclusion that summarizes the major findings of the study This chapter also gives recommendations to both learners and teachers in order to improve the learning and teaching IELTS writing skills Besides, some limitation of the study and suggestions for further studies are put forward Following this part are the Appendices and References

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter provides the theoretical background to the study, including the key concepts and related research in this field to disclose the research gap It also provides the current situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Vietnam in general and at the investigated centre in particular

1.1 The nature and theory of writing

In terms of skills, producing a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is to do in language It is something most native speakers never master For second language learners, the challenges are enormous, particularly for those who go on to a university and study in a language that is not their own

This section will discuss the issue of writing in general and writing in EFL in particular The section is divided into three parts: the nature of writing, a brief discussion of types of writing, and approaches of teaching writing in EFL/ESL classroom

1.1.1 The nature of writing

Writing in general has a very important role in society (Tribble, 1996; Martin, 1985) Writing can make people become more effective in social life Writing is also “associated with status and power” (Tribble,1996:13) Writing, therefore, enables people to “have control not only of information, but of people” (Tribble,1996:13)

However, writing is not as easy for the learners to acquire as the speaking skill According to Tribble (1996) , writing is a language skill which is difficult to acquire It also takes a long time to master this skill The difficulty of writing lies in its nature Writing is “de-contextualised “, and it is “one-way communication” (Tribble, 1996:10) Ronald (1987) also states that writing “is not a natural activity”,

so people have to be taught how to write

Moreover, in terms of language used, good writers should be very skillful at the implementation of elaborated and complex sentences, as well as at the choice of lexical items to make their writing tasks as vivid as what is there in their minds Besides, learning to write is associated not only with learning new genres and new ways of using grammar but also with different ways of dealing with the world because the social functions of writing tend to focus on “recording things, completing tasks, developing arguments and assembling ideas” (Tribble, 1996:9) Obviously, “writing is a process requiring writers to explore, oppose, and make connections between propositions for themselves” (Boughey, 1997:127)

Hedge also claims that the process of writing involves not only composing but also communicating (Hedge, 1988:9) According to him, when writing in real life, writers often bear in mind the reader they are writing to This “provides the writers with a context without which it is difficult to know exactly what or how to write” (Hedge, 1988:9)

It is clear that “ for any writing task, a successful writer draws on knowledge

of the genre (content and context), knowledge of the language system, and knowledge of appropriate writing process” (Tribble,1996: 68)

Thus, writing tasks should be designed in such a way that they can meet the needs of the following requirements: first, the tasks should “reflect the ultimate goal

of enabling students to write whole texts which form connected, contextualized, and appropriate pieces of communications” Second, the tasks should provide students with “opportunities to practice various forms and functions in writing and within these to develop the different skills involved in producing written texts” Third, “the writing tasks need to be set up in ways that reflect the writing process in good writers” That is, “students need to be encouraged to go through a process of planning, organizing, composing, and revising” Fourth, there should be a “variety

of audience and clear instruction for communicative purposes of the tasks” (Hedge, 1988:8-10)

Apart from this, when designing writing tasks, the teacher should pay attention to the process of marking, the time spent in the classroom for writing, and collaborative writing in the classroom (Hedge, 1988:10-12) All these will probably help to reduce the difficulty that writing may cause to the learners This may also help learners to write efficiently, and so may increase their interest in writing

However, what types of writing tasks should be assigned to students in EFL classroom needs to be considered The next section will discuss the various types of writing, which may be of great help for the EFL/ ESL teachers who are interested in teaching writing in English

1.1.2 Types of writing

There are many ways of classifying types of writing In Hedge’s (1988) opinion, there are six categories of writing: personal writing, study writing, public writing, creative writing, social writing and institutional writing (Hedge, 1988: 95-6)

Personal writing refers to “writing for oneself” It “includes various kinds of aide- memoirs, as well as diaries and journals” (Hedge, 1988: 95) Though “these writing activities would normally be carried out in the first language, there may be good motivational reasons for using them in the foreign language classroom” (Hedge, 1988: 95)

Similarly, study writing is another type of writing for oneself, such as making notes while reading, taking notes in lectures “These kinds of activities are still useful for students who learn English for study purposes” (Hedge, 1988: 95) Public writing, however, focuses on certain conventions in writing This involves

“writing letters of inquiry, complaint, letter to the editor, form filling, and applications” (Hedge, 1988: 95)

Creative writing refers to writing poems, stories, dramas, which seem rather rare in EFL classroom However, with a careful selection of the materials and

relevant teaching techniques, these writing activities can bring interest and confidence to the students because “creative writing helps students boost their self-confidence” Students can “take control over their new language by governing its production” (Ransdell, 1993:44)

Social writing, which includes personal letters, invitations, notes with congratulations, condolences, telegrams, and telephone messages, help to establish and maintain the social relationships with family and friends (Hedge, 1988: 96) These writing activities are really useful for the students in a sense that they can provide students with correct formats and formulas of certain written texts

The last category refers to institutional writing, which “relates to professional roles and is needed by business executives, teachers, engineers, and students” (Hedge, 1988: 96) The typical examples of this type of writing are reports, summaries, minutes, memos, etc However, “each area of activity will have its own specialized texts, such as legal contracts or academic essays” (Hedge, 1988: 96)

Martin, on the other hand, mentions only two categories of writing, which is narrative/expressive writing and factual or expository writing (Martin, 1985: 53) According to Martin, “factual writing is used by a ruling class” (Martin, 1985: 53) Expository writing is considered as a powerful tool to understand and challenge the world (Martin, 1985:57) So, when students learn this type of writing they are likely

to benefit from this socially They will in particular learn how to present ideas logically, how to make a successful and convincing argument and this may be quite interesting for students, especially adult students in higher education

Another classification of types of writing is offered by Harris (1993) Harris identifies three criteria for classifying different types of writing According to him,

“for writing to be successful, writers need to know the purpose, the form and the readership for a piece of writing.” So, “the notion of types of writing needs to be seen as a complex interrelationship of these dimensions” (Harris, 1993:24)

1.1.3 Approaches to the teaching of writing

There are three approaches to the teaching of writing: product approaches, process approaches and genre approaches (Tribble, 1996:37)

The product approach focuses on form It is “a traditional, text-based approach”, in which “the teacher often presents authoritative texts for students to imitate or adapt”, so the teacher “is likely to use textbooks which give a good range

of models” (Tribble, 1996:37) In this approach, learning to write has four stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing, and free writing In the familiarization stage, the learners are introduced to certain features of a particular text And in the controlled and guided writing stages, the learners are required to practice the skills with increasing freedom until they are ready for the free writing stage, when they are able to use the writing skill as part of a genuine activity such as

a letter, story or essay (Pincas, 1982a:22), cited in Badger & White, 2000:153) In short, according to Badger &White, “product-based approaches see writing as mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language, and writing development as mainly the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts provided by the teacher” (Badger & White, 2000:154)

The process approach, as a reaction against the product approach, “focuses

on the writer as an independent producer of texts It lays particular stress on a cycle

of writing activities” (Tribble, 1996:37) In addition, the process approach focuses

on “ linguistic skills such as planning and drafting, and there is much less emphasis

on linguistic knowledge such as knowledge about grammar and text structure” (Badger & White, 2000:154) In other words, in the process approach the teacher’s role is primarily to “facilitate the learners’ writing providing input is considered to

be less important” (Badger & White, 2000:154) There are four general stages that writers go through in producing a piece of writing: prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, and editing (Tribble, 1996:39)

The third approach- the genre approach- “ is more socially oriented and focuses on the ways in which writers and texts need to interact with readers” (Tribble, 1996:37) This approach emphasizes the communicative purposes of the texts On the other hand, the genre approach is similar to the product approach in the sense that it “regards writing as pre-dominantly linguistic” (Badger & White, 2000:155)

It is often suggested that a combination of process and genre approaches to the teaching of writing would be very beneficial The combination of these approaches will help to compensate for what each of these approaches does not take into account in isolation In other words, teaching writing following both process and genre approaches is seen as “a series of stages leading from a particular situation to text, with the teachers facilitating learners’ progress by enabling appropriate input of knowledge and skills” (Badger & White, 2000:160)

Therefore, a good writing lesson can be the one in which teachers can provide students with relevant input in terms of the linguistic knowledge and text types

1.2 IELTS Test

1.2.1 General information of IELTS

IELTS is a test of English for academic and vocational purposes managed by three partners: the British Council, the University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations and IDP IELTS Australia The test measures the language ability of candidates who need to study or work where communication is done in English Test scores are reported for overall performance and for individual sections in the form of bands at nine different levels from Non User to Expert User (www.ielts.org)

IELTS consists of two modules, General training and Academic ones, either

of which can be chosen by candidates according to their reasons for taking the test

If a candidate intends to enter an undergraduate or postgraduate course, they are

advised to take the Academic Module If a candidate intends to continue their secondary education in English, work or undertake training or to emigrate, they often need to take the General Training Module

The test is divided into four sections: Speaking, Listening, Reading and Writing Speaking and Listening tests are the same for both, the Academic and General Module, but Reading and Writing tests differ The writing section consists

of descriptive (Task 1) and argumentative (Task 2) essay-writing tasks IELTS scores (academic module) have been used to determine whether the applicants have sufficient academic skills to follow studies at an undergraduate or postgraduate level in English speaking countries IELTS has been adopted by many English-medium universities all over the world, mainly in the United Kingdom and Australia (www.ielts.org)

1.2.2 IELTS writing test

In task 1, examinees are given questions containing some visual information such as tables, graphs, charts, and diagrams Examinees are expected to write a short description of the information presented in the visual data They must write at least 150 words for this task

In Task 2, candidates are asked to write an argumentative essay in response

to a problem, opinion or controversial proposition They need to show that they can express and support an opinion by means of drawing on their experience and weighing their opinion against opposing views The minimum word length of this task is 250 words

Writing tests are assessed by Cambridge trained and certified examiners Task 1 and 2 are marked individually and the total score is reported on a scale of 1 to 9 at intervals of 0.5 The total score is calculated from both tasks combined but the weight of Task 2 is more than that of Task 1 as it is also longer Below are the official IELTS assessment criteria for Writing Tasks (UCLES, 2007):

1 Task achievement (task 1) / Task Response (task 2): Task achievement is the criteria on whether and/or not to what extent candidates’ writing successfully

fulfilled the task requirements using the limited number of words Task response assesses whether candidates construct an argument responding to the prompt given in the task and the argument is supported by their knowledge, personal experiences, solid evidence, and concrete examples

2 Coherence and Cohesion is the criterion regarding clarity and fluency of the passage Specially, coherence means how each sentence and paragraph are logically linked, and cohesion refers to the proper use for cohesive device (e.g: conjunction, pronoun, repetition of synonym) to achieve the referential relationships between sentences and paragraphs

3 Lexical Resource: this criterion refers to the range of accuracy of vocabulary the candidate use and how appropriate the use of vocabulary is as response to the prompt

4 Grammatical range and Accuracy: this criterion examines how variedly and accurately the candidate uses grammatical resources at sentence-level

1.3 Model texts

Model texts in general are good examples of writing provided by instructors

or by textbooks for students to read and imitate Charney and Carlson (1995) defined a model as a text produced by a specific writer in a given situation, which exemplifies a genre that can be generalized across writers in the same situation

Model texts are commonly used by L1 writing instructors to enhance students’ writing skills A survey conducted among 70 university composition teachers indicated that about 76 % of them used modeling regularly in their writing classes (Stolarek, 1994) Similarly, Watson (1982) indicates that many ESL teachers believe that an effective way to teach writing is to make the students read and imitate models Wu (2002) also maintains that although using models in writing classrooms is still a controversial issue, it is not uncommon

In addition, by reading model texts, L2 students can become familiar with a particular genre, namely, description, narration, contrast and comparison, exposition, and argumentation and obtain specific information from specified

writing works to be able to take actions within the genre (Miller, 1984) Model essays supply students not only with genre-specific examples and input but also topic-specific ones which learners can make use of in their own writings Models texts, thereby, focus on the attention of the students on the features of texts and are mainly concerned with developing the students’ abilities in producing those features accurately Hence, it might be claimed that using model essays features a product approach towards writing and “has its origin in the traditions of rhetorics” (Hedge, 2000:319)

Swales (1990) and Raimes (1998) also indicated that through exposure to models of standard paragraphs and essays as well as genres of writing, including flyers, magazine articles, letters, and so forth, learners may be able to communicate more effectively with their audience Text analysis is another application of model texts By means of analyzing the text, L2 learners become aware of how particular grammatical features are used in authentic discourse contexts Atkinson and Ramanathan (1995) stated that as students progress, they need to become aware of a variety of forms that “serve the writer’s purpose instead of the other way around” (p.548) This is in line with the genre analysis approach within text analysis (Hedge, 2000) in which writing is viewed as “being linked to the values and expectations of

a particular discourse community” (p.320) This entails writing which is effectively organized if we interpret serving the writer’s purpose quoted above as demonstrating the writer’s voice in addressing the audience in the intended discourse community Then one comes to the conclusion that both teachers and learners need “criteria for effectiveness” (Hedge, 2000: 321) and essay models can

provide such criteria for teachers and learners

The next part provides the information about the situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Vietnam in general an in London Foreign Language Centre in particular

1.4 Situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Viet Nam and in London Foreign Language centre

Recently, the numbers of Vietnamese learners who want to study or work in English speaking countries is getting higher and higher Therefore, there are a lot of English Language Centers that run IELTS courses such as Language Link, Apollo, Summit, Clever Learn, London, etc where students of all levels have taken in different preparation courses to get themselves well-equipped with sufficient

English

More noticeably, some colleges and universities have started to teach their students IELTS skills, and the students have had to pass the IELTS test as a requirement of the university programme However, the textbooks used at each centre and university are different, and the majority of the teachers teaching IELTS

courses there are Vietnamese ones

Established in 1997, London Foreign Language Centre has provided a variety of English programmes such as general English, business English, Sat preparation, IELTS preparation, etc Teachers working there are both native and Vietnamese depending on each course Learners who would like to take part in an IELTS course in this centre have to take a placement test and based on the result of the test the learners are placed in different classes with suitable levels of English During the course, there are three practice tests to examine the learners’ progress periodically

1.5 Previous studies

During the last decades, finding methods to teach essay writing efficiently and effectively has been a challenge for EFL English teachers Therefore, there have been several studies investigating the use of model texts or model essays to improve students’ writing performance The role of models in IELTS writing test is also exploited by Makoto Abe (2008) in the study titled “Exploring the role of model essays in IELTS writing test: A feedback tool” The participants in his study were

14 Japanese ESL learners All of them had studied English in Japan for more than

six years at junior and high school levels The study attempted to investigate the role of a model essay as a feedback tool for L2 writing instruction

More specially, it aims to reveal how Japanese ESL learners notice their language problems by comparing their own writing with a model essay in the context of preparation for IELTS writing test The results showed that the model essays led the L2 learners to notice various aspects of language The findings also indicated that learners’ proficiency levels and the differences of the writing tasks were significant factors in explaining the difference in quantity and quality of their noticing The analysis of the level of the students’ awareness revealed that the students’ frequent noticing of a certain aspect of language did not necessarily mean the noticing was at a high level of awareness

Similarly, Mohammad Zare and Mohammad S Bagheri (2009) carried out a research “The role of using IELTS model essays in improving learners’ writing and their awareness of writing features” to explore the role of using IELTS model essays in improving Iranian EFL learners’ writing ability It further sought to explore these learners’ perceptions as of what aspects of their writing they noticed

to have improved after being exposed to model essays The participants were 65 learners, participating in three groups; group A: intermediate students with no model essay exposure, group B: intermediate students with model essay exposure, and group C advanced students with model essay exposure The result showed that model essays written by native or native-like proficient writers can draw students’ attention to various aspects of the English language writing Moreover, these models draw the learners’ attentions to the features of writing in which they have the most problems Thus, model essays could serve as a useful resource to encourage L2 writers to pay more attention to the various aspects of their writing skills and hence, improve their writing

In Vietnamese context, Huong (2010) in her MA thesis attempted to shed more light on what aspects of a language teachers can exploit from model essays to teach IELTS writing in Foundation Studies Department of Hanoi University Moreover,

this study aimed at investigating some difficulties teachers face when exploiting model essays as a teaching tool She concluded that language use, idea delivery, essay organization and sentence types/ structures are the aspects teachers can exploit from model essays to teach their students She also showed that explaining the description of data proved to be the most problematic in task 1 Meanwhile, in task 2 teachers felt most uncomfortable to illustrate the delivery of argument (ideas)

In addition, Farnaz Sahebkheir (2011) in his study titled “The effect of model essays on developing accuracy and complexity of EFL learners’ writing in the Iranian context” investigated the effect of model essays on EFL learners’ noticing different aspects of language which were classified into four categories (lexicon, grammatical form, discourse and content) and on developing accuracy and complexity of EFL learners’ writing The participants were 40 female EFL learners The results of the study showed that the students mostly noticed vocabulary in the model essays and modeling of native speaker writing significantly affected the accuracy and complexity of their writing The findings also suggested that model essays should be included in writing courses and teachers should encourage students

to use models by promoting noticing

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

This chapter enhances the main points regarding the methodology applied in the study, namely the participants, research instruments as well as data collection procedure

2.1 Participants

The participants in this study were 30 Vietnamese learners aged from 16 to 22 They were taking a preparation course in London foreign language centre Their scores raged from 4 to 5 (this is in accordance with the definition of intermediate in IELTS writing module) All of them had been studying English for at least seven years and had been taught some other types of writing in English such as writing letters, writing a description of a place or a person They had acquired not only the basic knowledge of writing but also a certain amount of experience in composing different English text types

The subjects were divided into two groups of the treatment: group A (15 students with no model essay exposure), group B (15 students with model essay exposure)

In addition, four IELTS teachers were also chosen in this study They all graduated from Vietnam National University- College of Foreign Language They have been teaching IELTS for 4 years Two teachers taught the learners in this writing course The others were teaching for other courses in London Foreign Language Centre

2.2 Instruments

The study aims to investigate the role of model essays in improving Vietnamese intermediate learners’ writing ability with a particular focus on the problem they have to face in IELTS writing In addition, it also aims to investigate how the learners can improve their writing performance due to exposure to model essays as well as their attitude towards the use of model essays as a teaching tool

In order to maximize the aims, this study used a variety of research instruments and sources of data such as questionnaires, tests and interviews

2.2.1 Questionnaire

The aim of the learner questionnaire (see Appendix 3) was to obtain general information about the learners, their views on learning IELTS writing, the challenges in learning IELTS writing skills and the techniques their teachers often used in writing lessons The questionnaires were distributed to all the participants and it took about 15 minutes to answer the questionnaire

2.2.2 Tests

The writing tests given to each participants were exercise versions of IELTS writing tests (academic module) randomly selected from Barron’s IELTS edited by Lin Lougheed (2006) (see appendix 1 and 2) The writing test includes two writing tasks: descriptive and argumentative essays There is a minimum requirement word length (at least 150 words for task 1, and 250 words for task 2)

Task 1: for pretest, the learners had to write a descriptive report of a table

about the sales at a small restaurant in a downtown business district Similarly, a descriptive report of a table about the sales made by a coffee shop in an office building on a typical weekday was used for the posttest In this kind of tasks, it is not necessary for each writer to show their opinions, experience and knowledge so what learners compose tends to be similar to the models

Task 2: The learners had to write two argumentative essays on the topic of

technology for pre and post tests

The tests were then marked using the standard IELTS global codification system on a scale of 1-9 with the focus on task response/ task achievement, cohesion and coherence, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy (See Appendix 9 and 10)

2.2.3 Interview

The interview conducted with 15 students in group B was used following the posttest The aim of the interview is to clarify the researcher’s understanding of the students’ reactions and feelings towards the teaching technique and the writing task

The interviews were conducted in the students’ mother tongue (Vietnamese) and later translated into English The interview was based on only one question:

Do you think that model texts are helpful for you to improve your IELTS writing skills? Why? Why not?

An interview was also conducted with the two teachers who are teaching IELTS writing for this course and two other teachers at London foreign language centre The aim of the interview is to seek information about the teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts as a teaching tool in this course

The questions for the teachers are:

Do you believe that the use of model texts is helpful in improving the students’ writing skills? Why? Why not?

What suggestion do you have for the use of model texts as an effective teaching tool?

2.3 Data collection procedure

The data collection procedure consists of four stages

Stage 1: The researcher carefully designed the questionnaire for the students

who were involved in the study Then all of them had to do the pretest which was administrated for both control and experimental groups before the treatment

Stage 2: This stage took place at the target department While group A

received the routine writing instruction of the IELTS program during the course, those in group B were given 20 model essays written by native and native-like writers apart from the routine writing training of group A These model essays were taken from 3 books, namely Barron’s IELTS, a book for IELTS, and IELTS on tracks As the teacher was working on model essays, she explained different academic writing aspects such as organization of the essay, cohesive devices, domain words, relevant supporting ideas, topic related opinions, structural points, etc provided by the writers in the essays

Stage 3: At the end of the term, the writing posttest was administered among

all 30 learners of the two groups followed by interviews with all the learners in group B and the teachers

Stage 4: The last stage was for synthesizing and classifying the data

collected from the questionnaire, pretest and posttest, interviews and class observations

2.4 Data analysis procedure

The data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed and summarized so

as to provide more information for the study

For the pretest and posttest, the official assessment criteria for IELTS writing tasks were used to analyze the data The frequency count of different types of errors

in the pretest and posttest were used to answer the second question of the study

The researcher also transcribed the interview in details to analyze and answer the third question

In a word, the chapter has justified the methodology applied in the present study by clarifying four aspects, namely participants, instruments, data collection as well as data analysis procedure The next chapter analyses the various kinds of data collected and interpretations are made with an attempt to answer the research questions

CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter presents and discusses the findings that arise from three types of data collected: questionnaire, tests and interviews The outline of the chapter is as follows:

 Report on learner- questionnaire data

 Report on the results of pretest and posttest

 Report on learners’ interviews and teachers’ interviews

 Interpretation and discussion of the findings with reference to the research questions

3.1 Report of the results

3.1.1 Report on learner-questionnaire data

This section presents and discusses the questionnaire data A summary of the responses obtained from the learner- questionnaire is presented in 6 tables (See from table 1 to table 6)

The questions in the questionnaire can be divided into 6 categories as follows:

 Learners’ view on IELTS writing

 Learners’ feeling when composing a piece of IELTS writing

 Factors cause difficulties for the learners

 Learners’ problems in IELTS writing

 The teachers’ teaching techniques and activities used in writing lessons

 The teaching techniques and activities preferred by the learners

Below is the summary of the learners’ responses to each question and the discussion

of their responses

Learners’ view on IELTS writing

(You may tick more than one answer)

Table 1: Learners’ view on IELTS writing

As shown in table 1, the majority of the learners (28) thought that IELTS writing was necessary, but more than half of them (22) considered it to be a difficult skill Only few of them (2) found IELTS writing was a waste of time More than one third of the learners (11) believed that it was boring and eight of them though it was enjoyable It is clear that writing plays an important role in this learning program, so the learners wanted to master writing to get good results at the end of the course

Learners’ feelings when writing

The learners’ responses to question 2 are summarized in table 2 below Table

2 presents the reasons why the learners found IELTS writing difficult Many of them claimed that they felt nervous, demotivated, and uncomfortable (16, 12 and 11 respectively) Some (8) often felt confused to understand the data given in task 1 Surprisingly, although only few learners felt relaxed, more than one third of the learners were motivated enough to write This could be explained that the learners were fully aware of the importance of IELTS writing

Q2 When writing, you often feel……

(You may tick more than one answer)

Table 2: Learners’ feelings when writing

Factors causing difficulties in learning IELTS writing skills

Question 3 was to find out the sources of difficulties the learners had to cope with and the table below presents the factors causing those difficulties It is clear that different learners had different problems in learning writing One third had to cope with the problem of unfamiliar topics and interpretation of diagrams or data given More than half of the learners found the lack of vocabulary and errors in sentence structures and language use really problematic, especially in writing task 2 (16 and 19 respectively) Some complained they lacked ideas to write and did not know how to organize and develop the ideas Only few (5) thought that their limited background knowledge was a factor causing difficulties in learning IELTS writing

From the findings, it can be concluded that poor knowledge of sentence structures and language use often caused difficulties in writing for IELTS learners

Q3 What factors cause challenges to you when you learn

IELTS writing skills?

(You may tick more than one answer)

Total

D How to organize and develop the ideas 8

E Errors in sentence structures and language use 19

F Interpretation of diagrams or data given 11

G Limited background knowledge 5

Total: 30

Table 3: Factors causing difficulties for the learners to write

Learners’ problems in their writing

Q4 What problems do you often have in your writing?

(You may tick more than one answer)

Total

A Having no ideas to write 4

B Having poor organization 15

C Using irrelevant ideas 11

D Using inaccurate grammar 22

E Using only simple sentences 7

F Being unable to use a wide range of appropriate vocabulary 20

Total: 30

Table 4: Learners’ problems in their writing

Table 4 shows the problems the learners often have in their writing Notably, most of the learners could not use their grammar accurately and failed to use a range

of appropriate vocabulary (22 and 20 respectively) A half of them had problems with their writing organization One third (11) were unable to make their writing more relevant Some (7) failed to use a mix of complex and simple sentences Only few (4) claimed that they had no ideas to write

The teaching techniques and activities the teachers use in writing lessons

As shown in table 5, the techniques most teachers used were assigning the task for learners to write in a limited time frame (23 learners chose this), doing correction of learners’ writing tasks (20 learners agreed), and organizing group work or pair work discussion to brainstorm ideas or to make outlines Besides this,

“swapping learners’ product for checking” and “offering new structures and essential vocabulary” were also teacher’s techniques The other techniques such as

“using visual aids, pictures, graphs, tables, charts and diagrams” and “giving a model text” were used less frequently than the other techniques (only 2) The results seem to indicate that the teachers focus much more on the learner’s practice of writing rather than on the provision of sufficient preparation or model texts for their writing

Q5 What does the teacher do in your writing lesson?

A Giving a visual aids: picture, graphs, tables, charts, and diagrams 2

B Offering new structures and essential vocabulary to be used in the

D Doing the correction of your writing tasks 20

E Assigning the tasks for you to write in a limited time frame 23

G Swapping your writing product so that you can check each

others’ product

5 Total: 30

Table 5: The teaching techniques in IELTS writing class

The teaching techniques and activities preferred by the learners in IELTS writing classes

The response to question 6 indicates learners’ preference of the teaching techniques and activities used by the teachers in writing classes As can be seen from table 6, the majority of the learners would like the teacher to use model texts and correct their writing tasks (23 and 24 respectively) Most of them liked the teacher to get them to discuss and work in pair or in groups Some liked being asked

to write in a limited time frame It is clear that the use of model texts and teachers’ constant correction of learners’ writing play an important part in improving learners’ writing skills

Q6 What would you like your teacher to do in your writing

lesson?(You may tick more than one answer)

Total

B Giving time for making drafts 9

C Asking you to do the writing in a limited time frame 11

D Correcting your writing tasks 24

E Providing enough time to brainstorm the ideas individually 6

F Writing in group or in pair 18

addition, almost all the learners said that unfamiliar topics as well as errors in sentence structures and usage were two main factors causing problems for them to write As a result, most of the learners believed that they needed to improve their grammar and vocabulary in order to have higher marks

Concerning the teaching techniques, most learners would like the teachers to correct their writing constantly and using model texts in teaching writing They also like the teachers to get them to discuss in group or in pair to generate ideas

The next section will analyze the data from the pretest and posttest of all the learners

3.1.2 Report on the results of pretest and posttest

The data from pretest and posttest will help to investigate how much the learners can improve their writing performance due to the exposure to model texts Therefore, all papers of the two tests were collected and the errors which are related

to four major categories (task response/ task achievement, cohesion and coherence, lexical resource, grammatical range and accuracy) are counted and shown in table 7 and table 8 below

F % F % Task response/ task achievement (relevance) 36 11 19 10 Coherence and cohesion (discourse) 46 14 27 15 Lexical resource 61 18 45 25 Grammatical range and accuracy (form) 190 57 90 50

Table 7: The frequency and percentage of errors in pretest and posttest of group A

Table 8: The frequency and percentage of errors in pretest and posttest of group B

According to the results displayed in table 7 and 8, the most frequent errors

in both pretest and posttest were related to grammatical range and accuracy, lexical resource, coherence and cohesion, and relevance respectively Noticeably, there were noteworthy drops in the frequency of errors in all four categories from the pretest to the posttest of both group A and group B (group A from 333 in the pretest

to 181 in the posttest; group B from 327 in the pretest to 117 in the posttest) More interestingly, although grammatical range and accuracy was the most common errors in both pretest and posttest, there was a considerable improvement in this kind of errors in group B Clearly, there were 182 of such errors occurred before the model essay exposure while there were only 60 after the treatment (nearly one third reduce) in comparison with group A (from 190 in the pretest to 90 in the posttest) Similarly, both group A and group B had much fewer errors of lexical resource and coherence and cohesion in the posttests However, there were big differences between the two groups The number of these errors decreased much more in group

B than in group A The learners in group B made 68 and 43 errors of lexicon and discourse respectively in the pretest but only 27 errors of lexicon and 18 errors of discourse in the posttest while those in group A made 61 errors of lexicon and 46 errors of discourse in the pretest and those numbers of errors reduced to 45 and 27 errors respectively in the posttest

F % F % Task response/ task achievement (relevance) 30 9 12 10

Coherence and cohesion (Discourse) 43 13 18 15 Lexical resource 68 21 27 23 Grammatical range and accuracy (form) 182 56 60 51

Summary

In short, the findings showed that the IELTS learners made errors of form most frequently and modeling teaching technique had positive effects on the learners’ writing performance Especially, models of native speaker writing significantly affected the complexity and accuracy of the learners’ writing

3.1.3 Report on interviews with learners and the teachers

Fifteen learners in group B took part in the interviews The learners’ responses

in the interviews contribute to the researcher’s understanding of the learners’ opinions about the use of model texts to improve their writing performance A summary of the learners’ responses (translated version) is given below

IELTS writing skills? Why?

L1 With the help of model texts, we are able to pay more attention to sentence structures and word usage

L2 Through model texts we can learn how to organize our essays

L3 They are good examples, so we can imitate them

L4 When analyzing model texts, I become familiar with particular features of writing

L5 I am often confused when writing because I do not know how to express ideas clearly but model texts help me to solve this problem

L6 I can learn how particular grammatical features are used

L7 I do not really like my teacher’s using models in writing lessons I believe that they may make us become more passive

L8 Reading samples of good writing makes you acquainted with interesting and useful expressions

L9 Using models is not always the good way to improve our writing skill I think the most important is that you must practice, practice and practice L10 In my opinion, the best ways to improve my writing ability are read more and write more, so reading model essays is one thing I often do at home L11 Sometimes I am confused with my teacher’s explanations, but when she shows model texts, everything is clear and easy to understand

L12 I think good writers are good readers As we read, remain thoughtful and critical, asking ourselves what it is we like about the author’s writing, what we do not like and whether or not we agree with the writer’s perspectives so that we can learn how to write

L23 Models present new sophisticated phrases, expression and domain words

to learn

L14 It is clear that model essay gave us new ideas to develop and support our opinions related to the topic

L15 When our teacher uses model texts to teach us how to write, we learn a lot

of vocabulary and impressive expressions It is really useful

Table 9: The learners’ opinion about the use of model texts to improve their writing skill

The information in table 9 reveal that although two learners (L1 and L9) were not in a favor of using model texts in writing class, most learners liked being exposed to model texts for different reasons Some claimed that model texts helped them improve vocabulary, grammar, idea expressions Some believed that models helped them know how to write an essay, how to develop the ideas The others thought that they became familiar with particular features of writing and could

imitate the model effectively

Four teachers were also interviewed and their responses were recorded and transcribed as in table 10 below

Q2 Do you believe that modeling is helpful in improving the students’ writing skills? Why?

T1 I don’t believe using model answers is a good idea, mainly I think it can be

a danger that students will simply copy the teacher’s model, rather than working through the process of writing, editing, and re-drafting an essay

by themselves There is certainly some truth in this, and there’s nothing worse than receiving an essay that has simply copied whole chunks of the model provided by the teacher

T2 I agree that using model texts in writing class is really helpful I often use model essays when teaching my students how to write an essay and I think they are quite interested in writing After being exposed to the model texts, they can write better

T3 Using model texts as a teaching tool to teach writing is absolutely a good idea Models give learners the whole picture of a complete essay As a result, the learners can learn easily how to write and especially what should

be included in each part Moreover, models provide them a lot of vocabulary, useful expression and interesting ideas I totally support this kind of teaching technique

T4 I’m personally convinced that we do need to use model answers in class Some learners feel nervous and confused before the examination Using model texts may be a solution to this problem It was my personal experience that some learners had no idea how to write – how to structure

a piece of writing, what type of language to include, and so on Only when

I gave a few examples did they start to be able to write decent pieces of writing, and feel confident that they were doing the right thing

Table 10: Teachers’ opinion about the use of model texts to improve their learners’ writing skill

As revealed in table 10, most of the teachers supported the use of using model texts as a teaching tool except teacher 1 who believed that teachers’ using models in writing classes had negative impact on learners’ writing performance because they just only copied the models

In addition, the researcher asked the four teachers to give some suggestions for the use of models in writing classes and their responses as follows