Difficulties encountered by grade-10 students at Truong Dinh upper secondary school in learning writing skill with the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 = Những khó khă

============= KIỀU THU HIỀN DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY GRADE-10 STUDENTS AT TRUONG DINH UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL IN LEARNING WRITING SKILL WITH THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 10 NHỮNG

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KIỀU THU HIỀN

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY GRADE-10

STUDENTS AT TRUONG DINH UPPER

SECONDARY SCHOOL IN LEARNING WRITING SKILL WITH THE NEW TEXTBOOK TIENG ANH 10

( NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN HỌC SINH LỚP 10 TRƯỜNG THPT TRƯƠNG ĐỊNH GẶP PHẢI KHI HỌC KỸ NĂNG VIẾT VỚI SÁCH

GIÁO KHOA TIẾNG ANH 10 MỚI ) M.A MINOR THESIS

Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410

Supersivor : ĐỖ TUẤN MINH, Ph.D

Hanoi - 2009

1.2 Distinguishing features of written language from spoken language 4

1.3 The roles of writing in second language learning 6

1.4 Approaches to the teaching of writing in ESL classes 7

2.1 Overview of the teaching and learning of the writing skill at Truong

Dinh Upper secondary school 12

2.1.2 The schedule of learning writing skill in the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 12

2.3 Data analysis and discussion 16

CHAPTER THREE : SUGGESTIONS TO IMPROVE THE TEACHING AND

LEARNING OF THE WRITING SKILL AT TRUONG DINH HIGH SCHOOL

3.1 Raising the students’ awareness of the importance of the writing skill 37

3.2 Restricting students’difficulties arising from poor linguistic competence 37

3.3 Implementing good preparations for students’ writing 38

3.4 Carrying out appropriate collaborative activities 40

3.5 Making writing lessons well-equipped with conformable teaching aids 40

3.6 Setting a suitable time limit for each classroom activity 41

3.9 Establishing a positive and supportive learning atmosphere 42

References

Appendices

LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS

Tables

Table 1: Types of difficulties students coped with in learning 10 th form syllabus Table 2: Teachers’ writing stage application

Table 4: Teachers’ usage of writing tasks

Table 3: Teachers’ implementation of pre-writing activities

Table 6: Teachers’ application of work arrangement

Table 7: Types of written texts difficult for students to write

Charts

Chart 1: Students’ feelings of the writing skill

Chart 2: Frequency of students’ writing practice at home

Chart 3: Students’ general thoughts of the 10 th form – writing syllabus

Chart 4: Students’ frequency of getting a problem with vocabulary

Chart 5: How often teachers suggest key words or phrases in pre-writing stage

Chart 6: Students’ grammar mistakes in their writings

Chart 7: The ways the teacher used to make writing lessons more interesting Chart 8: Students’ writing under time pressure

Chart 9: Writing assignments

Chart 10: Teachers’ attitudes towards the importance of teaching writing skill Chart 11: Teachers’ assessment of students’ vocabulary

Chart 12: Teachers’ remarks on students’ grammatical mistakes

Chart 13: Teachers’ use of visual aids to make suggestions

PART ONE : INTRODUCTION

1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY:

Currently, as learning a second or a foreign language is paid more and more special attention to, there has been a growing tendency towards the emphasis on improving communicative competence in language teaching and learning Writing, therefore, is regarded

as a productive skill which provides students with opportunities to put all the language elements they have learnt into practice and to show communicative competence effectively However, in fact writing is not often as important to many students as other skills such as reading and speaking and it tends to get rather neglected in many Vietnamese language classes

In addition, writing itself is a very complex and difficult skill to acquire Thus teaching students to write well is one of the most challenging tasks in education In order to resolve this situation little by little, the Ministry of Education and Training have carried out comprehensive reforms of teaching and learning English at Secondary Education level by updating new and appropriate curricula with clear objectives The syllabus for high school students has changed completely and focused on developing both students‟ linguistic competence and communicative competence Accordingly writing is taught carefully in a separate class, which creates more chances for students to practise writing skills Besides these favourable conditions, there are still challenges faced by teachers and students at high schools since students have not got accustomed to new learning methods in the innovated syllabus and teachers have not got much teaching experience with the new textbook

As a teacher of English at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school for 6 years, I have been deeply aware of my teaching context in which my students have coped with a lot of difficulties

in learning English especially learning the writing skill Among four skills taught in English textbook 10, writing can be seen as the most boring and hardest one so many questions about teaching writing always concern me a lot : „What problems might my students face when learning writing ?‟ „What should be done to help my students overcome those problems?‟

„How should each form of written text be taught so that students can learn it effectively?‟

„How can I make the lesson fun, meaningful and memorable?‟ I, therefore, decided to do a

research on “Difficulties encountered by grade-10 students at Truong Dinh upper secondary school in learning writing with the new textbook Tieng Anh 10” in the hope that

the findings and solutions mentioned in this study will make a significant contribution to improving the teaching and learning of the writing skill at Truong Dinh high school as well as those at other high schools

2 AIMS OF THE STUDY

The primary purpose of this study is to explore the learning of the writing skill by grade-10 students at Truong Dinh high school It focuses on identifying the major factors that badly affect students‟ writing learning

The secondary aim is to propose some suggestions to deal with students‟ difficulties and assist them to learn writing more effectively

3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

This study attempts to seek answers to the following research questions:

1) What are the major factors causing difficulties of the tenth grade students at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school in learning the writing skill in the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 ?

2) What should be done to help the tenth-grade students at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school overcome their difficulties and acquire the writing skill more effectively?

4 METHOD OF THE STUDY

In order to guarantee the reliability of research results, my study was conducted in the form

of a survey research using both quantitative and qualitative method Three main instruments of data collection are questionnaires, classroom observation and interview

 Two forms of questionnaires (one for teachers and the other for students) are designed to collect information about grade-10 students‟ attitudes towards learning writing as well as difficulty perception of teachers and students The questionnaires both consist of three types of questions: close-ended questions, open-ended questions and scaling

 Observation and interview are used as other reliable sources of data collection Observation can help to get more insights into real situations of learning writing in some writing classes at Truong Dinh high school and interviews after observing probably provide more evidence for valid findings of the investigation

5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

Writing itself is a broad and complex area covering a variety of issues for research Yet, this study mainly concentrates on analyzing difficulties faced by grade-10 students at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school in learning writing with the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 On the basis of the discussion and findings from collected data, some recommendations of solutions will be put forward

6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Pedagogically, this study has brought lots of practical benefits in such a way that it may provide useful information about the source of problems that grade-10 students at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school encountered when learning writing The information can probably help the researcher and teachers at Truong Dinh high school identify the limitations in the teachers‟ teaching approaches and major students‟difficulties in order to find out relevant solutions Also, the results of this study may also be used as suggestions for teachers in other upper secondary schools as well as material developers

7 ORGANIZATION OF THE STUDY

The study is divided into three parts:

 Part I ( Introduction ): includes the rationale, the aims, the research questions, the scope, the method, the significance and the design of the study

 Part II ( Development ) : consists of three chapters as follows

- Chapter I ( Literature review ): presents the theoretical background of the study, which summarizes some views on definitions of writing, differences between written language and spoken language, roles of writing in second language learning, approaches to the teaching

of writing in ESL classes and what makes writing difficult to acquire

- Chapter II ( The study ) includes the context of the study, the research questions, the participants, data collection methods, procedures, analysis and discussion

The analysis and discussion part discusses and analyses difficulties encountered by grade-10 students at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school in learning writing skill with the new textbook Tieng Anh 10

- Chapter III ( Solutions ) suggests some relevant measures to deal with students‟ problems and learn writing skill more effectively

 Part III ( Conclusions ): sums up the study and indicates the limitations of the study as well as suggestions for further research

PART TWO: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Different views on what writing is

Up to now, quite a few researchers have taken interest in the teaching and learning of writing and defined writing in various ways Generally looking into the nature of writing, Donn Byrne (1991:1) stated: “When we write, we use graphic symbols: that is, letters or combinations of letters which relate to the sounds we make when we speak On one level, then, writing can be said to be the act of forming these symbols: making marks on flat surface of some kind The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences”

With a more profound view on writing, White (1991:3) assumed “Writing is far from being a simple matter of transcribing language into written symbols: it is a thinking process in its own right” He also stresses that it is not a simple process but a complex one “writing is a form of problem-solving which involves such processes as generating ideas, discovering a

„voice‟ with which to write, planning, goal-setting, monitoring and evaluating what is going to

be written as well as what has been written and searching for language with which to express exact meanings”

In language teaching, writing is considered as “a language skill which is difficult to acquire” (Tribble, 1996: 3) He also emphasized that “Effectively, everybody learns to speak at least one language fluently, but many are unable to write with confidence Why should this be

so ? One of the answers must be that writing normally requires some form of instruction It is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (1996:11)

Hedge (1988: 61) suggests that the way writing is taught should be close to life According to him, “Writing in the English language classroom can become unreal if it is only ever produced for one reader, the teacher, and if its purpose is limited to enabling the teacher to assess the correctness of the linguistic forms used Under these conditions students have to imagine context for their writing and motivate themselves to write appropriately for the imaginary readers It is far more motivating for them if their writing can become genuine pieces of communication with real audiences such as other students, visitors, the local newspapers, organizations, etc Then they can think carefully about the identifiable and particular context which will determine the exact message and style of their written communication”

1.2 Distinguishing features of written language from spoken language:

In language classes, it is very necessary for students to make comparison between spoken language and written language for several reasons If students have a better

understanding of how spoken and written texts differ, they can be much better placed to become confident writers They also need to see how the different types of language are constructed and understand that written texts are not just spoken texts What is more, distinguishing writing from speech can help student understand some of the difficulties they experience when they write Thus almost methodologies highlight the main differences between spoken language and written language

Byrne (1991:3) points out the advantages and disadvantages of writing compared with speech through their own distinctive features as follows:

2 Reader not present and no interaction

possible

2 Speaker and listener(s) in contact Interact and exchange roles

3 Reader not necessarily known to writer 3 Usually person addressed is specific

4 No immediate feedback possible Writer

may try to anticipate reader‟s reactions and

incorporate them into text

4 Immediate feedback given and expected (a) verbal: questions, comments

murmurs, grunts

(b) non-verbal : facial expressions

5 Writing is permanent Can be reread as

often as necessary and at own speech

5 Speech is transitory Intended to be understood immediately If not, listener expected to interact

6 Sentences expected to be carefully

constructed, and linked and organized to form

a text

6 Sentences often incomplete and sometimes ungrammatical Hesitations and pauses common and usually some redundancy and repetition

7 Devices to help convey meaning are

punctuation, capitals and underlining (for

emphasis) Sentence boundaries clearly

indicated

7 Range of devices (stress, intonation, pitch, speech) to help convey meaning Facial expressions, body movements and gestures also used for this purpose

Sharing the same opinion that the two processes, speaking and writing, are not identical, Raimes (1983:4-5) also indicates some typical differences:

 Speech is universal; everyone acquires a native language in the first few years of life Not everyone learns to read and write

 Speakers use their voices (pitch, stress, and rhythm) and bodies ( gestures and facial expressions) to help convey their ideas Writers have to reply on the words on the page to express their meaning

 Speakers use pauses and intonation Writers use punctuation

 Speakers pronounce Writers spell

 Speaking is usually spontaneous and unplanned Most writing takes time It is planned

We can go back and change what we have written

 A speaker speaks to a listener who is right there, nodding or frowning, interrupting or questioning For the writer, the reader‟s response is either delayed or nonexistent The writer has only that one chance to convey information and be interesting and accurate enough to hold the reader‟s attention

 Speech is usually informal and repetitive We say things like, “What I mean is ” or

“Let me start again” Writing, on the other hand, is more formal and compact It progresses logically with fewer digressions and explanations

 Speakers use simple sentences connected by a lot of and‟s and but‟s Writers use more

complex sentences, with connecting words like however, who, and in addition While we could

easily say, “His father runs ten miles every day and is very healthy”, we might well write, “His father, who runs ten miles every day, is very healthy.”

Due to some main differences mentioned above by Raimes, it can be seen that writing appears to

be a difficult skill to acquire and students cannot just “pick up” writing as they learn other skills

in ESL classes Hence writing must be taught and taught very carefully

1.3 The roles of writing in second language learning

To master a language, obviously it is impossible for learners not to learn writing skill well As a basic productive skill, writing provides students with a chance to put all the language elements they have learnt into practice Emphasizing the significance of writing, White (1991:1) wrote: “Through writing we are able to share ideas, arouse feelings, persuade and convince other people We are able to discover and articulate ideas in ways that only writing makes possible.”

According to Raimes ( 1983:3 ), writing is very important since it helps students learn

in some ways “First, writing reinforces the grammatical structures, idioms, and vocabulary that we have been teaching our students Second, when our students write, they also have a chance to be adventurous with the language, to go beyond what they have just learned to say,

to take risks Third, when they write, they necessarily become very involved with the new language; the effort to express ideas and the constant use of eye, hand and brain is a unique way to reinforce learning As writers struggle with what to put down next or how to put it down on paper, they often discover something new to write or a new way of expressing their idea They discover a real need for finding the right word and the right sentence The close relationship between writing and thinking makes writing a valuable part of any language course”

1.4 Approaches to the teaching of writing in ESL classes:

In order to produce a good piece of writing, learners have to deal with a lot of elements The following diagram demonstrates these elements clearly:

Producing a Piece of Writing ( Raimes, 1983:6)

stylistic choices, etc logic, etc

writing drafts,

paragraphs, vocabulary the reason for writing topic and support, idiom, tone

cohesion and unity

Raimes ( 1983:5-10) states that on the basis of stressing different features of this diagram and combining them with how teachers think writing is learnt, a variety of approaches

to the teaching of writing have been developed Accordingly, Raimes classifies approaches to teaching writing into six types, namely: The Controlled-to-Free Approach, The Free-Writing Approach, The Paragraph-Pattern Approach, The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach, The Communicative Approach and The Process Approach

1.4.1 The Controlled-to-Free Approach :

In the 1950s and early 1960s, the most popular approach used in ESL classes was the audio-lingual The controlled-to-free approach was a product of the audio-lingual period with its emphasis on step-by-step learning and formal correctness This approach stresses three features of the diagram above: grammar, syntax and mechanics It emphasizes accuracy rather

Clear, fluent and effective communication

of ideas

than fluency or originality In this approach, students are taught how to write by variously doing sentence, paragraph and manipulation exercises such as changing questions to statements, present to past, changing words or clauses or combining sentences With these controlled compositions, it is relatively easy for students to write a great deal with limited opportunity to make mistakes so the teacher‟s job of marking paper is quick and easy Gradually the amount of control is reduced And when students reach an advanced level of proficiency, they are allowed to try some free compositions, in which they can express their own ideas

Byrne (1991) regards the controlled-to-free approach as „accuracy-oriented approach‟ that

„produces many useful ideas on how to guide writing‟ although it is no longer fashionable

1.4.2 The Free-Writing Approach

In contrast with the controlled-to-free approach, the free-writing approach encourages students to write as much as possible and as quickly as possible without worrying about making errors Teachers in this approach have stressed quantity of writing rather than quality

by assigning vast amounts of free writing on given topics with only minimal correction of errors The important thing is that students can write down all their ideas on paper Grammatical accuracy, organization and the rest will gradually follow In this way, students feel that they are actually writing, not merely doing exercises of some kind so they can write what they want to write and as a result they find writing an enjoyable experience Thus in this approach concern for „audience‟ and „content‟ in the diagram are taken into consideration Byrne (1991:22) also supports the free-writing approach, a fluency-approach, for the cause that

“many students write badly because they do not write enough and for the same reason they feel inhibited when they pick up a pen Most of us write less well if we are obliged to write about something A fluency-approach, perhaps channeled into something like keeping a diary, can be

a useful antidote.”

1.4.3 The Paragraph-Pattern Approach

Different from two approaches above, the paragraph-pattern one highlights the importance of organization, another feature of the diagram This approach is mainly concerned

to teach students how to construct and organize paragraphs Students simply copy paragraphs, analyze the form of model paragraphs and imitate model passages Their concrete tasks are putting scrambled sentences into paragraph order, identifying general and specific statements, choosing or inventing an appropriate topic sentences and inserting or deleting sentences

This approach has its own advantages pointed out by Byrne (1991:23) “this approach identifies and tries to overcome one of the central problems in writing: getting students to express themselves effectively at a level beyond the sentence.”

1.4.4 The Grammar-Syntax-Organization Approach

From the viewpoint that writing cannot be seen as composed of separate skills which are learned one by one, this approach stresses the necessity to work simultaneously on more than one of the features in the composition diagram: grammar, syntax and organization Teachers give students writing tasks that lead them to pay attention to organization while they also work on the necessary grammar and syntax For instance, to write a clear set of instructions on how to operate a washing machine, students need more than the appropriate vocabulary They need the simple forms of verbs; an organizational plan based on chronology; sequence words like first, then, finally; and even sentence structures like “when ; then ” This approach can link the purpose of a piece of writing to the forms that are needed to convey meaning

1.4.5 The Communicative Approach

In reality, we normally have a reason for writing and we write to somebody These factors have often been ignored in teaching and practicing writing Yet the communicative approach can resolve this situation by providing students with the purpose and the audience for their piece of writing Student writers are encouraged to behave like writers in real life and to ask themselves the crucial questions about purpose and audience:

 Why am I writing this?

 Who will read it?

In the communicative approach, it is easy for teachers to devise situations which allow students to write purposefully For example, students can write to one another in the classroom

or use writing in role-play situations Also, teachers can specify readers outside the classroom, thus giving student writers a context in which to select appropriate content, language and levels

of formality

“Although, like the free-writing, this approach does not solve specific problems which students have when handling the written language, it does motivate them to write and shows how writing is a form of communication” (Byrne, 1991:23)

1.4.6 The Process Approach

In recent years, the concentration of teaching writing has not put on the written product but on the process of writing Student writers should ask themselves not only questions about purpose and audience but also the crucial questions:

How do I write this?

How do I get started?

This approach lays particular stress on a cycle of writing activities which move students from the generation of ideas and the collections of data through to the „publication‟ of a finished text The diagram below shows the whole process not as a fixed sequence but a dynamic and unpredictable process:

PREWRITING (specifying the task / planning and outlining / collecting data / making notes )

COMPOSING/ DRAFTING

REVISING ( reorganizing / shifting emphasis / focusing information and style for your readership )

EDITING (checking grammar / lexis / surface features)

PUBISHING

In this process approach, teachers in ESL classes give their students the opportunity to explore a topic fully in such prewriting activities as discussion, reading, debate, brainstorming and list making Students do not necessarily produce the first piece of writing in a restricted time and hand in the composition for the teacher to correct or grade Rather, they explore a topic through writing, showing the teacher and each other their drafts and using what they write to read over, think about, and move them on to new ideas After getting the appropriate feedback from readers, the teacher and other students, they will discover new ideas, new sentences and new words, then revise and edit what they have written in the first draft to prepare for the publication

of the second one

However, student writers do not often follow a neat sequence of planning, organizing, writing and then revising At any point in the preparation of a text, they can loop backwards or forwards to whichever of the activities involved in text composition they may find useful For instance, they may need to revise the plan radically in order to cope with changes that have developed in the argument, or may want to revise the style of earlier sections before going on to write later parts of the text as they come to appreciate how best to reach their intended audience Teachers who use this approach give their students two crucial supports: time for students to try out ideas and feedback on the content of what students write in their drafts They consider writing process as a process of discovery for their students: discovery of new ideas and new language forms to express those ideas

It can be concluded that although all the above-mentioned approaches address the various features that a student needs to consider in producing a piece of writing, they still have something in common No approach to teaching writing is seen as the most optimal and unique for every teaching context A teacher using a communicative or a process approach can still use techniques drawn from other approaches as the students need them; model paragraphs, controlled

compositions, free writing, sentence exercises and paragraph analysis are useful in all approaches Therefore, it is important for teachers to appropriately choose approaches for different circumstances and make the best use of the advantages of those approaches to help students make great progress in their writing learning

1.5 What makes writing difficult to acquire:

According to Byrne (1991:4), there are three problems causing writing to become a difficult activity for most people, both in the mother tongue and in a foreign language They are psychological problems, linguistic problems and cognitive problems

 Psychological problems :

As it is known, speech is the natural and normal medium of communication for us in most circumstances and accustoms us both to having someone physically present when we use language and to getting feedback of some kind Writing, on the other hand, is essentially a solitary activity and the fact that we are required to write on our own, without the possibility of interaction or the benefit of feedback, in itself makes the act of writing difficult

 Linguistic problems :

Oral communication is sustained through a process of interaction and except in special circumstances, such as a lecture, the participants help to keep it going Because speech is normally spontaneous, we have little time to pay attention either to organizing our sentence structures or to connecting our sentences : to some extent the latter is maintained through the process of interaction We repeat, backtrack, expand and so on, depending on how people react

to what we say Incomplete and even ungrammatical utterances usually pass unnoticed

In writing, we have to keep the channel of communication open through our own efforts and

to ensure, both through our choice of sentence structure and by the way our sentences are linked together and sequenced, that the text we product can be interpreted on its own

 Cognitive problems

We grow up learning to speak and in normal circumstances spend much of our time doing it

We also appear to speak without much conscious effort or thought and generally we talk because

we want to, about matters which are of interest or relevant to us socially or professionally Writing, on the other hand, is learnt through a process of instruction: we have to master the written form of the language and to learn certain structures which are less used in speech, or perhaps not used at all, but which are important for effective communication in writing We also have to learn how to organize our ideas in such a way that they can be understood by a reader who is not present and perhaps by a reader who is not known to us Furthermore, writing is a task which is often imposed on us, perhaps by circumstances This not only has a psychological effect; it may also cause a problem in terms of content – what to say Being at a loss for ideas is a familiar experience to most of us when we are obliged to write

CHAPTER II: THE STUDY

2.1 Overview of teaching and learning writing skill at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school

2.1.1 Teaching and learning context

The study was carried out at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school which is located in Hoang Mai district in the suburb of Hanoi It is an old school with unfavourable facilities for study Students‟standard in English is quite limited Though the English level they have to achieve after leaving their secondary schools is pre-intermediate, in fact they are almost at elementary level The reason is that their evaluation marks of entrance examinations to Truong Dinh high school were lower than those in other schools In addition to this, English was not a compulsory subject that students had to pass when they took the high school entrance examination They thus didn‟t consider English an important subject and spent little time studying it Besides, English is a subject among many subjects they have to learn at high school The reforms in education have been implemented not only for English but also for other subjects at high school Students have to acquire a large amount of knowledge in all subjects They cannot spend much time improving English regularly because they have to prepare exercises for many different lessons every day Consequently they are bad at four language skills especially writing skill with narrow vocabulary and many gaps in grammar knowledge All the above-mentioned reasons result in a lot of difficulties that teachers of English at Truong Dinh high school have to cope with when teaching English in general and teaching writing in particular Moreover, since the reformed syllabus has been carried out widely in a few recent years, the teachers of English have not had much experience in teaching writing with the new textbook In addition to this, some of them are rather old, which makes their adaptability to new teaching approaches slower and harder Hence, up to now the teaching and learning of writing

at Truong Dinh senior high school has been ineffective and got many challenges Being a teacher of English for 6 years at this school and grasping the teaching context, I decided to conduct this study in expectation of understanding more about students‟ problems of learning writing skill and seeking appropriate solutions to these problems

2.1.2 The schedule of learning writing skill in the new textbook English 10

The new textbook Tieng Anh 10 is designed to develop both students‟ linguistic competence and communicative competence Therefore, its contents are divided into 5 main parts (reading, speaking, listening, writing and language focus) taught in 16 units with diversified topics and after every three units students have a revision lesson called „Test Yourself‟ Thanks to the new syllabus, students can stand a chance of learning writing in a separate class In each writing lesson, students are expected to write a form of written text for a

personal communication purpose within 100 -200 words using a suggested model and word cues The syllabus sketch for learning writing in the textbook Tieng Anh 10 is presented clearly as follows :

Units Themes / Topics Forms of Writing Attainment Targets

1 A Day in the Life of Writing a narrative

Students will be able to write a narrative within 100 – 120 words using suggested word cues and a frame

2 School Talks Filling in a form Students will be able to fill in a

Students will be able to write a letter

of complaint within 100 -120 words using suggested word cues and a frame

5 Technology and You Writing a set of

instructions

Students will be able to write a set

of instructions of 100 – 120 words following a suggested model and word cues

6 An Excursion Writing a confirmation

letter

Students will be able to write a confirmation letter of 100 – 120 words using a suggested frame and idea cues

7 The Mass Media

Writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media

Students will be able to write about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media of 100 -120 words using a suggested model and word cues

8 The Story of My

Village

Writing an informal letter:

Giving directions

Students will be able to write an informal letter of 100 -120 words to give directions using a suggested model and word cues

9 Undersea World Describing information

11 National Parks Writing a letter of

acceptance or refusal

Students will be able to write a letter

of acceptance / refusal / declination

of 100 – 200 words using a suggested frame and word cues

Students will be able to write a profile of 100 – 120 words using a suggested outline and word cues

13 Films and Cinemas Describing a film

Students will be able to write about films / music / theatre of 100 -120 words using a suggested outline and word cues

14 The World Cup Writing an

announcement

Students will be able to write an announcement about sport events in school of 100 – 120 words using a suggested outline and word cues

15 Cities Describing a city

Students will be able to write about

a city of 100 – 120 words using a suggested model and word cues

16 Historical Places Describing a chart

Students will be able to describe information from a chart of 100 -

120 words using suggested word cues and idea prompts

2.2 The study:

2.2.1 Participants:

A total of 200 grade-10 students chosen randomly from seven different classes and 12 teachers of English from the language group at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school participated in the study

The students are both male and female at the age of sixteen and have been learning English for four years at junior secondary schools They had finished their syllabus of 10 -form

English before they took part in the study since they had experienced and identified all the problems of learning writing during their past school year

All the teachers of English at Truong Dinh high school chosen for the research have ever taught the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 for one year or more Of these 12 teachers, two are male and 10 are female They were willing to support the study by completing survey questionnaires and being ready for observation

2.2.2 Instruments ( Data collection methods ):

In this study, three instruments employed for collecting data are questionnaires, observation and interview

Questionnaires can be seen as the main instrument to get information from students and teachers It is believed that survey questionnaires are the most commonly used descriptivemethod in educational research There are a few advantages using survey questionnaire as a research method “The main attraction of questionnaire is their unprecedented efficiency in terms of (a) research time (b) research effort and (c) financial resources (Zoltan Dornyei (2003:9)) Two sets of questionnaires were designed to ensure data accuracy for the investigation The questionnaires were delivered to 200 grade-10 students and 12 teachers of English at Truong Dinh in order to investigate their perception of grade-10 students‟ difficulties in learning writing skill with the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 The questionnaire for students consists of 17 questions and the questionnaire for teachers includes 10 questions

Observation is another effective instrument employed in combination with others in order to get more valuable evidence on grade-10 students‟ classroom behaviors as well as their performances on writing tasks and learning activities In spite of some limitations in implementing classroom observation, this instrument is always regarded as a useful and practical one to verify the accuracy and reliability of the results obtained from questionnaires

Besides questionnaires and observation, short interviews were carried out to get more insights into students‟ challenges in learning writing skill It is known that interviews are beneficial to educational research in some ways First, response rates from interviews can be quite high Second, respondents are more likely to answer all the questions presented because

of their personal involvement with the interviewer Last but not least the interviewer can obtain more meaningful information because he or she can rephrase questions that are not clear to the respondent and probe for additional relevant information

2.2.3 Procedures of data collection:

 Questionnaires:

The questionnaire for students was delivered in their classrooms at the end of the school year in May when all the informants had finished the syllabus of their school year Before the questionnaire was administered, a brief explanation of the purpose of the study was provided to the subjects Subjects were advised that responses would not affect their academic

grades Subjects were also told that they had to answer in terms of how well the statement of each item in the questionnaire describes them Most of the students took about 20 minutes to finish all the questions The answered questionnaires were collected right after the subjects completed them

Twelve teachers of English at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school received the questionnaires in May when the school year was over Thanks to their teaching practice, they could give appropriate information about the difficulties facing grade-10 students in learning writing They were also elucidated about the research aims to ensure their confidence in providing data

 Observation:

Because of being a teacher of English at Truong Dinh high school, it is more favourable for the researcher to conduct classroom observation Some writing classes were observed at different periods of time throughout the whole term During these observations, the researcher would play a role of an observer and did not participate in any classroom activities Several teachers had been asked to have classroom observation Being informed about the purposes of the study, all the teachers were always ready to support it

 Interviews:

Right after observing each writing class, the researcher conducted informal interviews with students during class breaks Three students selected randomly took part in one-to-one interview in a quiet room Before interviews, the aims of the interview were explained to the students The short interviews with 5 questions lasted 10 -15 minutes to get students‟ opinions

of the writing lesson they had just learnt and their desires to have an interesting writing lesson The interviews were conducted in Vietnamese to make sure that the students could understand the questions clearly and be easier to express their ideas All the information was collected through the reseacher‟s careful note-taking for later analysis

2.3 DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

2.3.1 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES:

In this study, the researcher chose questionnaires to be an effective instrument to find out the teachers‟ perception and students‟ in Truong Dinh upper secondary school in terms of students‟ difficulties in learning the writing skill in English textbook 10 Thus the data collected from the questionnaire will be consolidated and categorized, then these results are subsequently tabulated or charted and converted to percentages for the conveniences of analysis Besides, the questions in the questionnaire will be discussed specifically one by one

by counting percentage and the major difficulties can be analyzed and concluded afterwards The results obtained from the questionnaires can help the researcher thoroughly look into students‟ main problems in learning writing skill with the new textbook

2.3.1.1 Analysis of the questionnaire for students

2.3.1.1.1 Students’ feelings of the writing skill

Chart 1: Students‟ feelings of the writing skill

When being asked about the attitudes towards the learning of writing skill, most of the students (70 %) admitted that they are not interested in it because they find it boring and difficult Only 20% of the students are keen on learning writing on account of its usefulness and interestingness The rest of the total said that they neither like nor dislike studying this skill

2.3.1.1.2 Frequency of students’ writing practice at home:

sometimes rarely never

20 %

5 %

Chart 2: Frequency of students‟ writing practice at home

Stemming from low motivation in learning writing, a large number of students

(75%) rarely practise writing skills outside classes 5 % do not do any writing tasks at all Only 20% of the students stated that they sometimes drill in writing at home Surprisingly, none of the students consider writing as an important skill that needs to be practised frequently In general, the data indicates that the lack of constant practice has resulted in students‟ difficulties in learning writing

75 %

2.3.1.1.3 Students’ general thoughts of the 10 form - writing syllabus:

Chart 3: Students‟ general thoughts of the 10 th form – writing syllabus

It can be seen from the above chart that students got a lot of challenges when learning writing skill in the grade -10 syllabus Most of the students think that writing tasks in the English textbook 10 are difficult and even very difficult ( 45 % and 25 % respectively) while only a minority of students find them indifferent ( 27% ) and easy (3 % ) No students claimed that writing tasks are very easy for them The teachers should base on the figures to investigate the reasons for these different attitudes

2.3.1.1.4 Types of difficulties students coped with in learning 10 form syllabus:

Kinds of difficulties in learning the writing skill Results

Table 1: Types of difficulties students coped with in learning 10 th form syllabus

The figures in the table have proved that there are lots of challenges in grade 10- students‟ writing leaning In detail, a majority of students acknowledged that their bad grammar ( 84% ) and narrow vocabulary (92%) make them incapable of writing well The lack of well-prepared idea organization ( 74%) and the insufficiency of teachers‟careful guidance (54%) also cause students quite a few difficulties In addition, the restriction of students‟ background knowledge (68%) affects their idea development Besides, some others (35 %) think that some factors such as little writing practice, time pressure, work arrangement, learning facilities also limit students‟ writing ability

2.3.1.1.5 Students’ idea organization before writing:

The data reveals that students themselves hardly brainstorm ideas before writing Only

24 % of the students are aware of making organization before writing meanwhile nearly 76%

of the students do not have the habit of brainstorming This can cause students‟ disordered and obscure writings In addition to this, students‟ writing may be discontinued because of not expanding ideas The teachers should pay attention to this problem to help students overcome it

2.3.1.1.6 Students’ frequence of getting a problem with vocabulary:

As it is known, vocabulary has a great influence on the quality of students‟ writing It is impossible for students to write well with narrow vocabulary However, the students‟ writing learning has been seriously impacted by lack of vocabulary Specifically, more than half of the students ( 63%) conceded that their writings were always discontinued by lack of vocabulary 27% of the students often found difficult to express their ideas due to their narrow vocabulary Only a small number of students (10%) said that sometimes they got a problem with vocabulary when writing None of the students wrote without any difficulties

Chart 4: Students‟ frequency of getting a problem with vocabulary

2.3.1.1.7 How often teachers suggest key words or phrases in Pre-writing stage:

As can be seen from the pie chart, approximately 48 % and 22 % of the students agreed that their teachers always or often provided them with some key words or phrases before writing Fewer students said that their teachers sometimes made word suggestions (20%) and seldom gave them word prompts (10%) The figures provided by students demonstrate that most of the teachers thoroughly understand the necessity of suggesting important words or

phrases in order to help students write easier

20 % 10%

48%

22%

always often sometimes rarely never

Chart 5: How often teachers suggest key words or phrases in Pre-writing stage

2.3.1.1.8 Students’ awareness of the close relationship between reading and writing

The data indicates that a majority of the students (80 %) are aware of the importance of increasing vocabulary by reading English materials frequently but a quarter of them often spend time on reading practice Only a small percentage of students (20%) do not realize the interaction between reading and writing It can be concluded from the information that although quite a few students are conscious of the usefulness of constant reading drill for widening vocabulary, they themselves have not made a habit of practising reading regularly

2.3.1.1.9 Students’ grammar mistakes in their writings

Among the factors affecting students‟ writing competence, grammar is thought to play

a very important role in the success of a writing piece However, the sad fact shows that 23 %

of the students always made so many grammar errors in their writings 57% of the total admitted that their writings were often badly-evaluated due to many grammar mistakes Only

15 % said that a few grammar errors could be found in their writings and 5% hardly made grammar ones In short, the figures demonstrate that one of the main factors which greatly influences the students‟ writing competence is grammar

Chart 6: Students‟ grammar mistakes in their writings

3.1.1.10 Teachers’ writing stage application:

With regard to the teachers‟ usage of writing stages, a very large number of students (80%) claimed that their teachers often skipped some stages in a writing lesson ( 55 % for warm-up stage, 15% for post-writing stage, 10 % for both warm-up and post-writing ) Just about 20% agreed that their teachers always carried out all the stages in each writing lesson However, among these students, 15% reported that their teachers often carried out the pre-writing stage without care and 5% expressed their dissatisfaction with the post-writing stage In short, it can be found from the figures that the stage elimination combining with careless stage implementation has considerably influenced students‟ writing results

Eliminating stages Implementing all the stages

Warm-up Post-writing Both Careless pre-writing Cursory post-writing

Table 2: Teachers‟ writing stage application

2.3.1.1.11 Teachers’ implementation of Pre-writing activities:

Teachers‟ implementation of Pre-writing activities Results

 carefully teach students the form of written text they are going to

 suggest necessary vocabulary for students‟ writing 58 %

Table 3: Teachers‟ implementation of Pre-writing activities

As can be seen from the table, most of the students (80%) were often asked to do the first task in Pre-writing It can be inferred that the teachers strictly followed the tasks in the text book They did not change anything to be suitable for their students Only a small number of students (20%) claimed that their teachers gave them a writing model Teaching students the form of a written text in a writing lesson is very important for their later writing practice However, just about 35% of the students agreed that their teachers carefully taught them the form of written text they were going to learn in the lesson Besides, approximately 58 % students were suggested vocabulary before writing It can be concluded from the data that pre-writing stage was not carried out carefully by the teachers, which would create a lot of difficulties for students‟ later writing

2.3.1.1.12 The ways the teacher used to make writing lessons more interesting:

Normally, a writing lesson will become more and more interesting if the teacher can make full use of visual aids besides the textbook However, the disappointing fact indicates that a large number of students (75 %) affirmed that their teachers had used nothing except for the textbook to make writing lesson more attractive Not over 20% of the students said that their teachers had effectively utilized visual aids such as pictures, maps, etc to catch student‟s attention A very small number of students (5%) happily mentioned that sometimes games had been used to make them more eager to get involved in writing activities

5 %

20 %

75 %

nothing visual aids games

Chart 7: The ways the teacher used to make writing lessons more interesting

2.3.1.1.13 Students’ participation in writing activities:

As it is known, good writing activities guided by teachers can contribute to the success

of a writing lesson Being questioned about this matter, a majority of students (97%) said that they had always done writing tasks individually Meanwhile, the number of students occasionally took part in pair-work activity and seldom worked in groups (50% and 20% respectively)

2.3.1.1.14 Teacher’s usage of writing tasks:

 The teachers did not change writing tasks in the text book at all 68 %

 The teacher made writing tasks suitable for writing stages and students‟

 The teacher provided students with some additional tasks 7 %

Table 4: Teachers‟ usage of writing tasks

Generally, all the writing tasks in lessons in the English textbook 10 are designed to help students get accustomed to diversified types of written texts which are commonly used in daily life It is necessary for teachers to change writing tasks to be suitable for students‟ levels

as well as stages in a writing lesson However, in fact more than half of the students (68 %) confirmed that their teachers had not made any changes in writing exercises in the textbook at all Approximately 25 % students agreed that their teachers had conformed writing tasks to

their levels and stages in a writing lesson Only 7 % students said that sometimes their teachers gave one or two additional tasks for students‟ further practice

2.3.1.1.15 Students’ writing under time pressure:

Chart 8: Students‟ writing under time pressure

The chart describes the setting of time for students‟ writing As can be seen from the statistics, a great number of students (70%) were not asked to write under time pressure whereas only 30% students wrote under planned time, most of whom admitted that they were often unable to complete their writings in time except for a few simple types of written texts It can be partly inferred that students had a lot of difficulties during their writing process

2.3.1.1.16 Ways of writing correction work:

 My teacher often asks a student to do the assigned writing task on the board,

then makes correction by himself / herself and tells others to correct their own

writings

32 %

 We correct our writings in pairs before general correction in class 5%

 My teacher asks a student to do a writing task on the board, and then tells

others to correct it and correct their own writings afterwards

63 %

Table 5: Ways of writing correction work

Writing correction can be regarded as the important post – writing activity which helps students identify main errors in their writings to avoid them in later writings Post-writing activities are implemented differently by the teachers at Truong Dinh high school 63 % of the students affirmed that the common way of writing correction applied by their teachers was calling on a student to do a writing task on the board, and then asking others to correct it and correct their own writing afterwards Besides, approximately 32 % declared that their teachers often corrected writing pieces on the board by himself or herself and after that asked the whole

class to correct their own writings The students (5%) had little chance to correct their writings

Chart 9: Writing assignments

Regarding giving students writing assignments, as can be seen from the data that the homework that the students were assigned at home was mostly undone writing task in class (65%) This implies that they could not complete their writings as they were expected Therefore, they were rarely given other writing assignments Not surprisingly, a smaller number of students (35 %) said that they sometimes had additional writing tasks None of the students agreed that they were always assigned more writing homework In short, it is little practice that makes students become worse and worse at the writing skill

2.3.1.2 Analysis of the questionnaire for teachers

 Personal information

In this part, teachers of English in Truong Dinh Upper Secondary School were asked to answer four questions about their personal information which may somewhat affect their teaching of writing

Among the teachers participating in this study, 2 teachers are male and others are female They are at the ages between 29 and 55 so most of them have had certain years of teaching experience, ranging from 6 years to 30 years However, the application of the new textbooks has been implemented for a few years so far They, therefore, have not had much experience of teaching the new text book especially the writing skill At the time of the conducted research, the maximum years of teaching experience that the teachers had obtained were merely three years That is the reason why they had not been used to the new syllabus with absolutely new teaching and learning approaches, which might partly impact on their teaching of writing

 Teachers‟ perception of the tenth-grade students‟ difficulties in learning

writing skill in the new textbook Tieng Anh 10

2.3.1.2.1 Teachers’ attitudes towards the importance of teaching writing skill :

Chart 10: Teachers‟ attitudes towards the importance of teaching writing skill

Through the data, it can be found that an overwhelming number of teachers (80%) do not think the writing skill necessary to be taught carefully They have assumed that the writing skill is not commonly used in students‟ English tests or exams so they find it less important than other skills In addition, they also believe that writing is a rather difficult and complicate skill for their students‟ level They, therefore, have not concentrated much on teaching writing thoroughly Only two teachers which make up 20% are aware of the importance of the writing skill since they generally think that forms of written texts in the new text book are practical and useful for students‟ personal communication purposes

2.3.1.2.2 Teachers’ assessment of students’ vocabulary :

0 0

67%

33%

very wide wide limited very limited

Writing skill in the new text

book is important to teach

carefully

The statistical results above demonstrate that basing on teaching practice, most of the teachers share the same evaluation of students‟ vocabulary 67% of the teachers thought that their students‟ vocabulary is limited and even 33% claimed that their students‟ is very limited None of them agreed that their students own a wide or very wide vocabulary The reasons for this problem are pointed out differently by the teachers Some reckoned that vocabulary must

be enriched little by little because their students have had a narrow vocabulary since their secondary school This results in their difficulties in learning skills in the new textbook especially the writing skill Another important reason is that students are not studious to improve their narrow vocabulary In addition, they do not have an appropriate approach of learning vocabulary In short, the improvement of vocabulary is one of the major challenges that the students in Truong Dinh Upper secondary school have to deal with if they want to make great progress in learning writing

2.3.1.2.3 Remarks on students’ grammatical mistakes:

The data collected indicates that the students had to cope with a serious problem of grammar when learning writing skill in the new textbook A majority of teachers remarked that they always found many grammatical mistakes (67%) and even so many mistakes (25%) in their students‟ writings Only one teacher out of the total who has taught a more advanced class declared that her students were quite good at grammar and made only a few small grammatical errors in their writings None of them assured that their students hardly got any problems with grammar in every writing lesson

a few few

no mistakes

Chart 12: Teachers‟ remarks on students‟ grammatical mistakes

2.3.1.2.4 Comments on students’ expression errors:

Regarding the students‟ expression errors, the teachers all approved that their students had difficulty in presenting their ideas for several reasons The main cause of this type of mistakes that most of the teachers stated is their students‟ limited linguistic competence That is, the students‟ bad grammatical knowledge and narrow vocabulary greatly affect their ability to express their ideas Also, some teachers pointed out some other reasons such as lack of

background knowledge of various life aspects or illogical idea organization in a written text In short, the students‟ weakness of idea expression is one of many problems that the teachers should take account of in order to help student resolve it

2.3.1.2.5 Teachers’ application of writing stages:

In the new textbook, reading and listening are the skills which are designed to be divided into three clear stages in each lesson However, stages in a writing lesson are advisable to be organized under each individual teacher‟s creativeness Being asked about this matter, more than three quarters of the teachers (10 teachers) admitted that they often had left out the warm-

up stage in almost writing lessons The simple reason for their warm-up elimination is time restriction They don‟t want to waste time on the warm-up stage which they consider as an unnecessary one for students They tend to put more emphasis on the next stages Only two teachers followed all the stages including warm-up stage in every writing lesson since they regard it as an important stage so that students can feel more excited to get involved in the next writing activities

2.3.1.2.6 Teachers’ use of types of work arrangement

Table 6: Teachers‟ application of work arrangement

It can be obviously seen from the table that the type of work arrangement that most of the teachers (10 teachers) always used in every writing lesson is individual work All of the teachers applied this kind of work arrangement in every stage of a writing lesson Pair-work was another activity that the teachers also enjoyed choosing in their witting lesson However, only half of the teachers often used pair work Meanwhile, the other half sometimes provided their students pair-work activities The teachers all often guided their students in pair-work activities in Pre-writing stage Since almost the teachers always left out Warm-up stage, the students of two teachers had chance to work in pairs in Warm up stage Of three types of work arrangement, group-work was least used by all the teachers Only three out of the total rarely carried out group-work activities for their students mostly in Warm-up or Pre-writing

The reasons for focusing more on individual work activities than pair work and work ones in writing lessons were given very simply and unconvincing That is, the number of students in a class is rather big so it is very hard for the teachers to control their students in pairs or groups Their students often made so much noise affecting other adjacent classrooms

group-In addition to this, the teachers claimed that not all the students took part in pair-work or group-work activities, many of whom did private things or made noise Consequently, these activities took a lot of time and were ineffective That is the reason why the teachers in Truong Dinh high school prefer individual work to other kinds of work arrangement

2.3.1.2.7 Using visual aids to make suggestions:

Chart 13: Teachers‟ use of visual aids to make suggestions

The results from the pie chart reveal that the teachers in Truong Dinh high school did not make use of benefits of visual aids in writing lessons Nearly half of them admitted that they rarely made suggestions by visual aids They explained that they wanted their students to focus on while-writing stage without wasting time on other stages Also, they added that it took them a lot of time to prepare visual aids for each writing lesson so they just utilized visual aids

in observed lessons Among the other teachers using visual aids, only two young teachers often made writing lessons more interesting through visual aids Five other teachers had writing lessons with visual aids from time to time

2.3.1.2.8 Teachers’ feedback of students’ writing

Giving feedback plays an important part in a writing lesson Concerning this activity, many teachers (8 teachers) approved of the idea that they often asked one or two students to do the writing task on the board and then corrected it / them with the whole class The rest of the teachers provided feedback by telling some students to submit their writings for the teachers‟ later correction and after that gave general comments None of the teachers chose the way of pair correction between students before giving common remarks on their writings

seldom gave his students extra homework Two out of 12 teachers reported that they often provided their students with the writing task similar to the one in the textbook in order to help them revise what they had learnt in class

2.3.1.2.10 Types of written texts difficult for students to write

Types of written texts difficult for students to write Percentages of teachers‟

agreement

7.Writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media 83 %

8 Writing an informal letter : giving directions 17%

11 Writing a letter of acceptance or refusal 25 %

Table 7: Types of written texts difficult for students to write

There are a variety of forms of written texts in English textbook 10 Many of them are not only unfamiliar to the students but also difficult for teachers to teach when the teachers do not prepare for them carefully The data from the table indicates that the writing forms seen as the difficult ones for the students were „writing a narrative‟ (100%), „describing a chart‟ (100%), „describing a city‟ (92%), “writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media‟ (83%), „describing a film‟ (83%), „writing a letter of complaint‟ (73%), “writing a set

of instructions‟ (73%), „describing information from a table‟ (67% teachers) Besides, some sorts of writing proved to be less difficult than the above ones were „writing a letter of invitation‟ (33%), „writing a confirmation letter‟ (25 %), „writing a letter of acceptance or refusal‟ (25 %) „writing an announcement‟ (25%), „writing an informal letter: giving directions‟ (17%), „writing a profile‟ (17%), „writing about people‟s background‟ (17%),

„filling in form‟ (8%) In short, the forms of written texts more or less create difficulties for the 10-form students

2.3.1.3 Main findings :

In order to seek the answer to the research question: “What are the major factors causing difficulties of the tenth-grade students at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school

in learning the writing skill in the new textbook Tieng Anh 10 ?”, a detailed analysis of the

data collected from the questionnaires for both grade-10 students and teachers at Truong Dinh Upper secondary school is presented clearly in the previous part The results obtained from the close analysis indicate that there are a considerable number of factors resulting in the tenth-grade students‟ problems in the process of acquiring the writing skill in the new textbook The main findings of these factors that will be discussed thoroughly below include teachers‟ and students‟ attitudes towards the writing skill, students‟ poor linguistic competence, students‟ lack of background knowledge, students‟ habit of not brainstorming and making idea organization before writing, teachers‟ stage elimination, teachers‟ careless instructions in pre-writing stage, inappropriate arrangement of collaborative work in classroom activities, teachers‟ infrequent use of visual aids, no time limit for students‟ writing, irrelevant correction work, few writing assignments and some difficult types of written texts

 Teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards the writing skill

Among four skills of English, writing is regarded as a complicated and difficult skill for both teachers and students to teach and learn When the new curriculum has been applied widely throughout the country, the writing skill as well as other skills is taught more clearly and systematically in a separate lesson This creates more opportunities for students to learn the writing skill carefully However, it can be concluded from the statistics that a majority of the tenth form students who participated in this study were not interested in the writing skill as they found it difficult and boring They were not aware of the benefits of learning writing for their daily practical purposes Thus most of them hardly spent time practising writing at home They only have a 45- minute lesson to learn the writing skill in each unit so it is hard for them

to improve their writing skill without any further practice

On the other hand, the fact also shows that most of teachers at Truong Dinh high school did not appreciate the necessity of learning the writing skill for students since it was not commonly used in English tests or exams at high school In addition to this, the teachers had not been used to the innovated teaching approach in the new textbook Hence they tended not

to concentrate much on the writing skill

To sum up, it is possible to infer that both the teachers and the grade-10 students did not attach importance to the writing skill in the new textbook, which might greatly influence the results of students‟ learning of writing

 Students’ poor linguistic competence:

In order to succeed in learning the writing skill as well as other skills in a foreign language, students must master knowledge of linguistics that is a core and indispensable means to

provide language input for their skill learning And yet, a large number of grade-10 students often had a lot of difficulties learning writing in the new textbook due to their poor grammar and lack of vocabulary Their limitations of linguistic competence hindered them from organizing and expressing their ideas logically Their writings were often badly evaluated with poor expression and many grammatical mistakes since they had to write within their restricted linguistic competence Although the students themselves clearly knew how to widen vocabulary by much reading practice, they did not get themselves into a habit of reading English materials at home To minimize students‟ shortage of vocabulary, the teachers also tried to suggest some key words or phrases before writing Yet, the problem could not be solved absolutely Accordingly, a vital duty for students is improving their linguistic competence if they want to make much progress in learning the writing skill

 Students’ lack of background knowledge

Limited background knowledge is the students‟ another weakness which needs improving

To produce a good written text, the knowledge of social ideas is really needed for students to make contents of their writings more profound and persuasive However, owing to insufficient background knowledge, the students often had difficulty organizing ideas and developing them according to the requirements of writing tasks This might results in disordered writings with poor idea expression Lacking background knowledge is one of the factors partly influencing students‟ results of writings

 Students’ habit of not brainstorming and making idea organization before

writing

Brainstorming and outlining ideas are quite important activities to help students write more logically and clearly However, the students hardly took this into account so they did not make

a habit of brainstorming and arranging ideas before writing They often started to write based

on their personal opinions without idea arrangement or selection As a result, they were able to get stuck while developing their ideas and the organization of their writing would be unclear and incoherent Hence the teacher should take this problem into consideration and help students to surmount it in writing lessons

 Teachers’ stage elimination

In a writing lesson, the implementation of stages can make a significant contribution to the success of the lesson Each stage has a separate role and aim in a writing lesson Among four stages (warm-up, pre-writing, while-writing and post-writing), most of the teachers often left out the warm-up stage because they thought that it was an unnecessary stage They wanted to save time for other stages seen as more important Consequently, the elimination of warm-up stage made writing lessons become more boring and monotonous The lessons could not attract students‟ attention and correspondingly decreased the interestingness of the lessons as well as

students‟ eagerness to get involved in the next writing activities It is advisable for the teachers

to take account of this situation and improve it so as to enhance the quality of writing lessons

 Teachers’ careless instructions in Pre-writing stage

In order to assist students to carry out their writings easier and more smoothly, writing‟ stage should be prepared thoroughly under the teacher‟s guidance since the purpose of this stage is providing students with indispensable language input used for later stages Nevertheless, many teachers at Truong Dinh high school appeared to make light of the pre-writing stage They absolutely depended on the textbook They did not make any changes in writing tasks to be suitable for stages and the students‟ levels Many of the teachers did not focus much on teaching the students forms of written texts or guiding students to brainstorm and organize ideas for their writings Some of them even did not suggest any key words or phrases for students before writing The only thing they often did was strictly following the order of the writing tasks in the textbook From the above reality, it can be found that the teachers carried out the pre-writing cursorily, which created a lot of difficulties for students in

„Pre-„While-writing‟ stage and made students feel discouraged to go on their writing because of not comprehending how to write and lacking needed language input

 Inappropriate work arrangement applied in classroom activities :

The results from the questionnaires reflect that there was a tendency towards using individual work chiefly in all stages of writing lessons Only several teachers gave their students opportunity to work in pairs but very little Group work was hardly chosen by most of the teachers in writing lessons The fact shows the teachers did not make use of the benefits from pair-work or group-work activities in some writing lessons demanding students‟ collaboration such as „writing about advantages and disadvantages of the mass media‟,

„describing a city‟, „describing a chart‟, etc They explained that their students did not get used

to working in pairs or groups and it was not easy for them to manage students in pairs or groups due to crowded classes What is more, just a small number of students participated in collaborative activities under teachers‟ guidance whereas others did their private matters or made noise As a result, pair-work or group-work activities were often ineffective and time-consuming For these reasons, the teachers tended to restrict pair or group activities in writing lessons so the students rarely had chances to exchange their opinions to collect useful ideas for their writing

 Teachers’ infrequent use of visual aids

Obviously, visual aids have a lot of good uses for language teaching and learning if they are carefully prepared and creatively exploited in class Lessons with good exploitation of suitable visual aids are always more exciting and successful than the others without any aids Yet, the data indicates that most of the teachers at Truong Dinh high school seldom used visual