Some effective activities applied to teach writing in the pre writing stage to the 11th grade students at nguyen duc thuan high school

2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY --- BUI THI DUYEN SOME EFFECTIVE ACTIVITIES APPLIED TO TEACH WRITING IN THE PRE - WRITING STAGE TO THE 11 TH – GRADE STUDENTS AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHO

HANOI PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY NO 2 FOREIGN LANGUAGE FACULTY -

BUI THI DUYEN

SOME EFFECTIVE ACTIVITIES APPLIED TO TEACH WRITING

IN THE PRE - WRITING STAGE TO THE 11 TH – GRADE

STUDENTS AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHOOL

(GRADUATION PAPER SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE

DEGREE OF BACHELOR OF ARTS IN ENGLISH)

SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN THI LE NGUYEN, M.A

Hanoi, May 2014

Second, I am grateful to 100 11th – grade students and two teachers in Nguyen Duc Thuan high school for their cooperation and support in collecting data for this paper

Then, sincere thanks is given to all of my friends, especially some of my classmates, from those I have received whole hearted help and support

Last but not least, I would like particularly to dedicate to all my members

in my family for their constant assistance, love and encouragement during the time I was carrying out this study

ABSTRACT

In recent years, pre-writing activities have been commonly adopted and applied in the English writing class practice The objective of this study was to find out the current situation of the application of the pre-writing activities in the teaching and learning of writing skill to 11th – grade students in Nguyen Duc Thuan high school This study aimed to investigate how pre-writing activities have been applied in teaching writing to 11th form students in Nguyen Duc Thuan high school in reality, the research conducted by both quantitative and qualitative The data collected from students’ survey questionnaire and class observation showed that pre-writing activities has little to do with the teaching

of writing skill to 11th – grade students in Nguyen Duc Thuan high school Most

of students often get obstacles in learning writing skill as well as using writing activities Moreover, almost students also claimed that their teachers have not used pre-writing activities often and with variety of techniques

pre-Based on the results of the survey, the major findings such as roles of writing skill and pre-writing activities, the preferences, difficulties, evaluation and expectations of students as well as types, time duration and effectiveness of pre-writing activities have been found Some pre-writing activities such as brainstorming, free-writing, cubing, listing, clustering and interviewing have been suggested

It is hoped that this study will help both teachers and 11th form students Nguyen Duc Thuan high school apply effectively pre-writing activities in writing lessons

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I certify that no part in this study has been copied or reproduced from any others without acknowledgements and that is originally written by me under guidance from my supervisor

Date submitted: May 2014

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF TABLES/ FIGURES viii

PART ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1

1.2 Objectives of the study 2

1.3 Significance of the study 3

1.4 Scope of the study 3

1.5 Task of the study 3

1.6 Methodology of the study 4

1.7 Organization of the study 4

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT Chapter one THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1 Literature review in brief 6

2 Theoretical background 8

2.1 Teaching writing .8

2.1.1 Definition of writing 8

2.1.2 The importance of learning and teaching writing 10

2.1.3 Approaches to teaching writing 11

2.1.3.1 The Product Approach/ the Controlled-to-Free Approach 12

2.1.3.2 The Free-Writing Approach 13

2.1.3.3 The Paragraph-Pattern Approach 14

2.1.3.4 The Grammar –Syntax-Organization Approach 14

2.1.3.5 The Communicative Approach 15

2.1.3.6 The Process Approach 16

2.1.4 Principles for writing proficiency 19

2.1.5 Factors in learning and teaching writing 21

2.2 Pre – writing activities 22

2.2.1 Definition of pre – writing activities 22

2.2.2 The importance of pre – writing activities in learning writing 23

Chapter two RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 2.1 Methodology 25

2.1.1 Method orientation 25

2.1.2 The characteristics of the study 25

2.1.3 The participants 26

2.1.4 The instrument of the study 27

2.1.4.1 Survey questionnaire 27

2.1.4.2 Class observation 27

2.2 Data analysis 28

2.2.1 Data analysis of students’ questionnaire 28

2.2.1.1.Students’ attitudes towards writing skill and pre-writing activities to the 11th – grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school 29

2.1.1.2 Students’ preferences for pre - writing activities 30

2.1.1.3 Students’ frequency of learning writing skill 32

2.1.1.4 Students’ writing ability 32

2.1.1.5 Students’ difficulties in pre - writing activities 33

2.1.1.6 Students’ evaluation on actual pre -writing activities used in writing classes 34

2.1.1.7 Students’ expectations in pre – writing activities 36

2.2.2 Data analysis of class observation 37

Chapter three MAJOR FINDINGS AND SOME EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES TO TEACH WRITING IN THE PRE – WRITING STAGE TO THE 11 TH – GRADE STUDENTS AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHOOL 3.1 Major findings 39

3.1.1 Major findings of students’ questionnaire 39

3.1.1.1 Roles of writing skill and pre – writing activities in writing classes to the 11th – grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school 39

3.1.1.2 Students’ preferences for pre - writing activities 40

3.1.1.3 Students’ difficulties in participating in pre - writing activities 40

3.1.1.4 Students’ evaluation on actual pre -writing activities used in writing classes 41

3.1.1.5 Students’ expectations in pre – writing activities 41

3.1.2 Major findings of class observation 42

3.1.2.1 Types of pre-writing activities used in writing lessons 42

3.1.2.2 Time duration of pre-writing activities 43

3.1.2.3 The effectiveness of using pre – writing activities in writing lessons 44

3.2 Some effective classroom activities to teach writing in the pre -

writing stage to the 11 th – grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high

school 45

3.2.1 Pre-writing activities related to brainstorming 46

3.2.2 Pre- writing activities related to free-writing 52

3.2.3 Pre- writing activities related to cubing 53

3.2.4 Pre- writing activities related to listing 56

3.2.5 Pre- writing activities related to clustering 59

3.2.6 Pre- writing activities related to interviewing 62

PART THREE CONCLUSION 1.1.CONCLUSION 64

1.2 LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER STUSY 65

1.2.1 Limitations of the study 65

1.2.2 Suggestions for further study 66

REFERENCES ……… viii

APPENDICES………xii

APPENDIX 1……….xiii

APPENDIX 2……… xv

APPENDIX3……… xix

LIST OF TABLES/ FIGURES

Figure 2.1 Producing a piece of writing by Ann Raimes (1983) 12

Figure 2.2 Spark’s (1984) diagram of rhetorical triangle in writing 16

Figure 2.3 White and Arndt’ s (1991) diagram of process approach 17

Figure 2.4 Curry’ s (1996) diagram of the writing process approach 18

Figure 2.5. Scarcella and Oxford's (1992) diagram of abilities underlying writing proficiency 19

Table 2.1 Students' attitude towards writing skill 29

Table 2.2 Students’ attitudes towards pre-writing activities 30

Table 2.3 Students’ preferences for pre - writing activities 31

Table 2.4 Students’ amount of time spent on learning each skill 32

Table 2.5 Students’ writing marks 32

Table 2.6 Students' difficulties in pre-writing activities 33

Table 2.7 Students' reflection of teachers' pre-writing activities 34

Table 2.8 Students' evaluation on actual pre-writing activities 35

Table 2.9 Students' expectation of pre-writing activities 36

Figure 3.1 Pre-writing activities-brainstorming 1 47

Figure 3.2 Pre-writing activities-brainstorming 2 48

Figure 3.3 Pre-writing activities-brainstorming 3 50

Figure 3.4 Example of mind-mapping 61

PART ONE INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale for the study

Along with the globalization trend, English has been considered as a compulsory subject in the curriculum of all state schools from the sixth onwards

In order to keep pace with the development of society, the need for good communication is put in one of the top demand for English language including writing skill It is undeniable that writing skill plays a significant role in daily communication and educational process In spite of its importance, writing has long been the neglected skill in second language for many years as writing is placed poor fourth

According to Tricia, H (1996), a good deal of writing is undertaken as an aid to learning , for example, to consolidate the learning of new vocabulary and structures or to help students remember new items of language However, in the social context in Vietnam, English language teaching has its low quality, which has yet to meet the demand for competent English – speaking people Moreover, due to the little time and efforts that are spent on teaching and learning writing leads to Vietnamese high school students’ unsatisfactory results in writing These low results are due to numerous factors including students’ lack background knowledge and low language competence They do not often know how to express their ideas in English because they lack vocabulary and structures or run out of ideas, etc For many students, writing skill is a very inhibiting and painful activity Sometimes, they are putted under lots of pressure when being asked to perform a writing paper within a limited time Thus, it is beneficial to give some perspective techniques for teaching writing in order to improve students’ writing abilities

Over the past decade, many authors from different countries stated that

There have been new teaching techniques and strategies developed as well as new perspectives techniques One of these perspectives techniques is best taught

as a process of stages prewriting, revising, reshaping and rewriting a piece of writing until it becomes a better product As mentioned in William, Z., prewriting activities are supposed to the foremost phrase to start for a successful writing task As his ways of thinking, pre-writing stage could considerably solve the problems of ideas stuck, vocabulary limitation, and raise the students’ interest in learning writing

Nevertheless, as a matter of fact, few researches have been carried out on the activities when teaching of prewriting stage particularly for the 11th form students in Vietnam Together with the above reasons, teacher of English in the future who is aware of this fact and wish to contribute some suggestions for improvements in teaching and learning writing skill Hence, the study “SOME EFFECTIVE ACTIVITIES APPLIED TO TEACH WRITING IN THE PRE-WRITING STAGE TO THE 11TH – GRADESTUDENTS AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHOOL” was carried out

1.2 Objectives for the study

The objective of this study is to find out the current situation of the application of pre-writing activities to the 11th – grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school and then suggest some possible pre-writing activities here

In brief, this study would answer four following questions as followed:

1 What are the students’ attitude towards writing skills in general and pre-writing activities in particular?

2 What kinds of pre-writing activities are used actually in writing lessons?

3 What difficulties do the students encounter in their learning writing, especially the pre-writing stage?

4 What suggestions could be given out to improve the current situation of applying pre-writing activities?

1.3 Significance of the study

As we all know, activities before the actual writing play a vital role in the process of writing in general and in the pre-writing stage in particular In fact, how these pre-writing activities could be applied in the actual writing lessons to

11th form students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school and whether these activities are various and fully effective or not It is an undeniable for both students and teachers in learning and teaching writing skill Thus, it comes up with a point that a study should be conducted to deal with the questions above It

is hoped that the study would be a contribution to the techniques of teaching and learning writing, especially pre-writing activities to the 11th – grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning English writing skill

1.4 Scope of the study

As it is clearly stated in the title of the study, neither all aspects of teaching and learning writing skills are discussed in this paper It is meant that the focus of this study is on designing in-class prewriting activities to 11th – grade students in Nguyen Duc Thuan high school The object of this study is pre-writing activities in learning writing skill which are applied in the class only, regardless of outdoor ones and indoor ones for the 11th course book Moreover, much focus pays only attention on the prewriting stage, not the whole process of teaching and learning writing What is more, due to the scale of the study as well

as the limitation of the time and knowledge, the participants of the study are 100

11th form students n Nguyen Duc Thuan high school

1.5 Task of the study

As it is mentioned from the objective, it is obviously affirmed that this study intended to investigate the students’ attitude towards writing skill in general and pre-writing activities in particular The study, then, find out how pre-writing activities have applied in the process of teaching and learning writing, especially in the pre-writing stage Based on the data from students’ survey and observation, the study would figure out the difficulties which the

students often deal in pre-writing stage Additionally, some effective activities used before the actual writing would be given

1.6 Methodology of the study

In order to answers to the objective as mentioned above, two methods namely qualitative and quantitative method are used First, the students’ survey questionnaire was conducted to get quantitative information which would be great value to support my research The survey was carried out among 100 11thform students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school The purpose of this survey is

to collect data about the current situation of using pre-writing activities involving the students’ attitude, common troubles, comments on teachers’ actual writing, and their expectations for adjustments from teachers Secondly, observation is to be chosen because some aspects of the issue examined could not be included in the survey It is mainly to find out the types of activities which teachers often applied in pre-writing stage, time duration and the effectiveness of these activities Thus, observation help confirm information collected through survey questionnaire

1.7 Organization of the study

The study would be divided into three major parts namely INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMEMT and CONCLUSION The study is firstly presented with a general INTRODUCTION with the rationale, objectives, significance, scope, task, methodology and the organization respectively The study is then gone on with three chapters

Chapter one, namely as T HEORETICAL BACKGROUND, which consists of two small components: literature review in brief, and theoretical background The second component provides some conception of writing, the role and approaches of teaching writing, principles for writing proficiency and factors in learning and teaching writing Consequently, some general background knowledge on pre-writing activities such as the definition and the importance of it are also discussed

Chapter two is called RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, contains information on qualitative and quantitative methods in the process of conducting this study as well as the data collected from the students’ survey and class observation and their data analysis

Chapter three entitled MAJOR FINDINGS AND SOME EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES TO TEACH WRITING IN THE PRE – WRITING STAGE TO THE 11TH – GRADE STUDENTS AT NGUYEN DUC THUAN HIGH SCHOOL The focus of the study is revealed in this chapter, in which the major findings from survey and observation and possible pre-writing activities to 11th form students were suggested

Last but not least, the part three of the study is named CONCLUSION, which is the summary of the paper along with my awareness of unavoidable limitations and suggestions for further research

PART TWO DEVELOPMENT

Chapter one THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

1 Literature review in brief

In fact, there are four major English skills including speaking, listening, reading, and writing, which must be mastered by the students Especially, writing skill is such a complex one in teaching and learning English that much discussion has been devoted to it In addition, there is no denial that the teachers and learners are fully aware of the role of activities in the writing lessons especially in the pre-writing stage How to make writing lessons effectively and how to motivate students before writing tasks? In fact, it has been studied by many linguists like Oluwadiya, A (1992: 3), White & Arndt (1991), Tribble, C (1996), Raimes, A (1983), Nunan, D (1991), Mark, S (1982), Melanie, D (1998), Harmer, J (1991), and Harmer, J (2004) and so on Each of them gives different opinions to improve writing skill at the pre-writing stage

Oluwadiya (1992: 3) in Some Prewriting Techniques for Students Writer

gives the procedure and techniques in teaching writing including activities in the Pre-writing stage, in Practicing Writing in Hello and in the Post-writing stage

"If a student has nothing to say, writing will not occur Pre-writing activities provide students with something to say and how to say it" According to him, pre-writing activities give students ideas for writing, provide a structure for the writing and identify the vocabulary they will need The main goals of pre-writing activities are to motivate students, to generate topics and to acquire content for writing Especially, he claimed that pre-writing is the stage that provides students with vocabulary, syntax and language structure as well as

ideas for their writing He makes a list of activities in the pre-writing stage including oral group or individual brainstorming and dictation (asking questions), cubing (describing, comparing, analyzing…), interviewing and reading

Apart from that, in the book Process Writing, White & Arndt (1991),

Tribble (1996) stated that the “working with ideas” stage can be subdivided into three smaller tasks describes as “generating:, “focusing” and “structuring” According to them, firstly, generating activities help students find out what they want to write about and to overcome imaginative blocks Second, focusing activities will promote students to determine priorities in what they have to say Last but not least, structuring activities encourage students to review the way in which they are organizing their texts so that they will effectively communicate with potential readers

The book Techniques in Teaching Writing is written by Ann Raimes

(1983), describes practical procedures for teachers to follow at every stage, including ways to stimulate students to write through pictures, readings and discussions, and ways to respond to student writing as a form of communication

Moreover, as Harmer, J (1991) suggests that in the pre-writing stage, teachers can help students define the topic in the pre-writing stage by analyzing the instruction of the writing tasks, and limit the topic by teaching them some techniques used in the pre-writing stage like brainstorming, free writing, etc

Nunan, D (1991) lists some activities that the learners should use in the

pre-writing stage in Language Teaching Methodology such as group

brainstorming, clustering, rapid free-writing, and Wh-questions

In brief, each person can have a different viewpoint to improve writing skill and we cannot tell which is better because each of them focuses on one important matter of writing skill However, the findings they drew out were too simple and general They do not find out the real situation of teaching and learning writing skill at the pre-writing stage In fact, there are a lot of

difficulties that the learners have to face before starting writing Therefore, being a language teacher, we must understand the nature of writing thoroughly

to help our students write effectively

2 Theoretical background

In this section, the relevant literature which has helped from the theoretical background and conceptual framework for the study is presented First, definitions of writing and the importance of learning and teaching writing have been given Second, some approaches to teaching writing suggested by different theorists have been presented and taken into consideration What is more, principles for writing proficiency and factors in learning and teaching writing have been mentioned In addition, the definitions and the importance of pre-writing activities in learning writing have also been reviewed

2.1 Teaching writing

2.1.1 Definition of writing

It has been argued that the term writing seems to be very common and familiar in language teaching and learning The ability to write fluently and expressively is something that all language learners regardless of whether the language in question is a first, second language finds it hard to achieve All children, apart from those with physiological disabilities, want to write, in fact, need to write, before they want to read There have been numerous definitions of writing each of them is the reflection of its author’s view of the writing process According to David Nunan (1989:35), “writing is not a natural activity All physically and mentally normal people learn to speak a language Yet all people have to be taught how to write This is a crucial difference between the spoken and written form of language There are other important differences as well Writing, unlike speech, is displaced in time Indeed, this must be one reason why writing originally evolved since it makes possible the transmission of a message from one place to another A written message can be received, stored

and referred back to at any time It is permanent in comparison with the ephemeral “here one minute and gone the next” character of spoken language – even of spoken language that is recorded on tape or disk”

Donn Byrne (1988), the author of “Writing and teaching writing” states

that “Writing can be considered as the act of forming graphic symbols (letters or combination of letters) which relate to sounds we make when we speak It is somehow like the making marks of flat surface of some kinds However, writing

is not just the production of graphic symbols, just as speech is more than production of sounds” (1988:1) In other words, it is obviously much more complicated than the production of graphic symbols “Writing is the process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever in to a message with a definite meaning” (1988: 3)

When we write, these symbols have to be "arranged to form words according to certain conventions and then words must be arranged to form sentences" (Lannon, J.M (1989: 9) In fact, we do not write just one sentence of even a group of unrelated sentences We always produce a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular organization and linked together in certain way, which makes the writing become coherently and logically The process to form a coherent whole which can be called a “text” that is by all means of complicated thinking process It demands conscious intellectual efforts, the cognitive skills and the patience as well

Another definition notes that “writing is a medium of communication that represents language through the inscription of signs and symbols In most languages, writing is c complement to speech or spoken language Writing is not a language but a form of technology Within a language system, writing relies on many of the same structures as speech, such as vocabulary, grammar and semantics, with the added dependency of system of signs or symbols, usually in the form of a formal alphabet” (retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Writing)

Sharing the same view, many linguists agree that writing is a complex process (Flower and Hayes (1981), Ham – Lyons (1987), cited in Nunan (1991)), but we still write for some reasons, to get information to someone who are not present in front of us, to solve the problem of volume, of having to store more than the human brain can remember, and to filter and shape our experience

In short, from all these opinions above, it is obvious that no definition can possibly capture all the ideas and features of what writing is Each linguist’s definition reflects what writing means as seen from his own point of view However, they all have some features in common, they share the same ideas that writing as a complex skill is one of the four basic skills in learning and teaching

of English It is not only a means of communication where students can share their views and thought, it is actually a pre requisite to master other language skills

2.1.2 The importance of learning and teaching writing

In the process of teaching and learning a second or foreign language, the teaching and learning of writing are always received much attention, since it is regarded as one of the most important major skills as “for many students, writing

is by far the most important of the four macro skills, particularly in English as a second or foreign language” As it is mentioned above, writing is a productive skill that plays an importance in learning and teaching the English language Writing enhances language acquisition as learners experiment with words, sentences, and other elements of writing to communicate their idea effectively, and to reinforce the grammar and vocabulary they are learning in class

Discussing over the matter of writing’s importance in the learning of English, Mark, J.K states in one of his article named “Writing in English” that writing is “an aim in learning English but as well as a tool for learning English”

By that, it is considered as a device to grasp of English, reinforcing student’s knowledge of grammar, syntax and vocabulary Hence, by chance, writing is a

skill that requires mastering basic sub other language skills (speaking, listening and reading), and processes such as; handwriting, spelling, mastery of the conventions of punctuation, capitalization; planning, evaluating, and revising text

Penny Ur (2003:17) suggests that the teaching of writing is especially significant, not only for its practical value in helping students to compose all types

of writing that are necessary in our daily life and academic work but also for its pedagogical value in helping them to have a good command of all English skills

It can be noticed that the purpose of teaching writing as one of the four language skills is to facilitate student’s learning, career, and their daily communication Writing is a psychological need in the sense that it provides learners with evidence that they are making progress Writing also makes language learning more effective and authentic through creating a variety of activities inside class

As a matter of fact, the process of putting sequences of separate words into a piece of writing which is logical and coherent as well as makes sense is

the act of making input become intake When learning writing, students firstly

seek for background knowledge and target language to create ideas They, then, make use of acquired knowledge through other language skills to put ideas into active use

Almost all methodologists have recently agreed with the importance of learning and teaching writing to master English Nevertheless, not all of them share the same view on what approaches and methods best appropriate with the teaching of this complicated skill to learners of English, especially secondary students

2.1.3 Approaches to teaching writing skills

Writing is an important skill to develop in language learning and teaching but the question is how writing competence can be developed In reality, the number of answers to the question of how to teach writing English in foreign

learning styles As it is concerned by Ann Raimes (1983), there have been six approaches to teach writing These have inferred from the development of several different approaches to teach language in general, which have in turn contributed to the changing importance of writing within English syllabuses and the English class in particular Figure 2.1is Raimes’s diagram of aspects which shows what writers deal with while writing

2.1.3.1 The Product Approach or Controlled-to- Free Approach

According to Tribble (1996:118), students were purely “writing to learn”

as opposed to “learning to write” This point of view was paraphrased and praised by the Product Approach or Controlled-to- Free Approach that originated from the Audio- Linguistic approach to second- language learning popular in 1950s and early 1960s when primary purpose of learning and teaching English was put on spoken language and writing mainly involved the mastery of grammatical and syntactic forms Following this approach, students would likely have good grammatical skills In general, students mainly work with given material The distinguishing feature of this approach is that students can write a great deal of little mistakes This approach emphasizes on three features in the figure 2.1: grammar, syntax, and mechanics, and on accuracy rather than fluency

Figure 2.1 Producing a piece of writing by Ann Raimes (1983)

This approach as “focus on language structures” provides a four - stage process of writing In the first stage, students learn certain grammar and vocabulary, and in the second stage, students, then, practice fixed patterns Next, students copy model texts, and finally, students write essays using the patterns they have learnt In short, this approach emphasizes accuracy of writing over fluency, and classroom activities are designed to develop the students’ ability to produce certain structures

In brief, syntax, grammar and mechanics are mostly emphasized instead

of content, process, audience, and purpose of writing The Controlled-to-Free

Approach expects writers to have error-free sentences, and this characteristic makes the Controlled-to-Free Approach different from the other writing approaches

2.1.3.2 The Free- Writing Approach

Different from the Controlled -to- Free Approach, this approach stresses writing quantity rather than quality It means that the emphasis in this approach

is on audience, content and fluency It is partly illustrated by the fact that

students are often given the topics and self-manage to write with only minimal teachers’ correction Teachers may start their classes by asking students to write freely about a particular topic without concern about grammar and spelling within a short while In free-writing approach, it is important that teachers allow students to express what they want to say and focus on the students’ own creativity and self- discovery In addition, one more important feature of this approach is that little is done with errors because according to Raimes, teachers

do not correct students’ free-writing but only comment on the content Some students volunteer to read their writing to the class, which provides a real audience for students Nevertheless, the concern for accuracy, syntax, and mechanics are seen as of little importance in this approach In this regard, the free-writing approach has limitations in preparing EFL students for academic

writing In conclusion, the free-writing approach considers content as the most important instead of accurate forms of languages

2.1.3.3 The Paragraph –Pattern Approach

Instead of emphasis on accuracy and fluency, Raimes (1983) has called the Paragraph-Pattern Approach, which emphasized the importance of

organization at the above-sentence level As a matter of fact, students often

copy, analyze paragraphs and imitate model passages They identify to write topic sentences or insert or delete sentences In reality, this approach is based on the principle that the ways people organize communication with each other vary from cultures to cultures By far, the largest single concern in second language writing research has “contrastive rhetoric” The focus of this work has been on characterizing how first language “cultural thought patterns” are reflected in second language writers’ texts, how some cultures put the responsibility for successful written communication on the writer and others on the reader, and how differences between “collectivist” and “individualist” tendencies express themselves in second language writing

(http://writingskill.mihanblog.com/post/tag/the+paragraph+pattern+approach)

“The genre approach” is similar to the Paragraph-Pattern Approach The goal of the genre approach is to let students have control of the rhetorical structure of specific text types to achieve a certain purpose In this approach, teachers are mainly concerned about how language patterns are used to achieve coherence in writing, and students develop their writing skills through analyzing expert texts and reproducing them In short, the Paragraph-Pattern Approach stresses the organization of a target language, and the organization is different among cultures; thus, the writing classroom should deal with the differences for students to reproduce a particular type of writing for a specific purpose

2.1.3.4 The Grammar –Syntax-Organization Approach

In the Grammar –Syntax-Organization Approach, simultaneous work is the most significant concern This approach requires students to focus on several features of writing at once “The writing tasks are designed to make students to pay attention to grammar and syntax while also giving the words such as first,

then and finally to organize their text.” This approach originates from the idea that writing should not ever be taught separated from other skills which are learnt sequentially Thus, students are trained to pay much their attention to organize, they should also work on the necessary grammar and syntax This approach helps students see the connection between the purpose of their piece of writing and the forms of language that are needed to convey messages Through this approach, teachers may emphasize their students’ grammatical and discourse competence

2.1.3.5 The Communicative Approach

An unknown author states that “the teaching of writing has moved away from a concentration on written product” (the finished text) “to an emphasis on the process of writing” (ways in which text can be developed) In this approach, students are encouraged to ask some crucial questions about the purpose and audience as if they wrote in real life:

 What I am writing?

 Why am I writing this?

 Who will read it?

 How do I write this?

 What have I written?

 What grade is it worth?

 How can it be improved?

The Communicative Approach makes use of real-life situations that necessitate communication Teachers set up a situation that students are likely to encounter in real life Unlike other method of language teaching, the Communicative Approach can leave students in suspense as to the outcome of a class exercise, which vary according to their reactions and responses The real-life simulations change from day to day Moreover, in writing classes adopting this approach, students are trained to generate ideas for writing, think of the purpose and audience and write multiple drafts in order to present written

products that communicate their own ideas Teachers and scholars represent the relationship between the three factors – writer, audience and context with a rhetorical triangle:

Figure 2.2 Spark’s (1984) diagram of rhetorical triangle in writing

Such a triangle links these three elements while emphasizing that all three equal and dependent on each other A writer who has adopted an appropriate rhetorical stance can not only change our minds, but also “engages us in the process of thinking, and feeling” Hence, to find appropriate stance, the writer must be aware of their own persona, strengths, weaknesses and communication style, as well as their audience’s character and needs Similarly, the audience influences the way the context is delivered In other words, the contexts change

as the audience change Finally, the three sections of this rhetorical triangle play

an important role in writing and suggest questions writers may ask of themselves when beginning on the writing process

2.1.3.6 The Process Approach

It is easily seen that what are presented in the parts from 2.1.3.1 to 2.1.3.5 that all these approaches, in one way or another, focus on product Undeniably, the final product is crucial All of teachers as well as students would like to produce fluent and correct product Moreover, teachers who use the Process Approach give students time to generate ideas and give feedback on the content

of what they write in their drafts As a matter of fact, when being assigned a

writing task, students make a decision of how to start and how to organize Reality has shown that in this approach, students do not expect to get perfect writing for the first time, but through revising and editing lots of draft Therefore, learning to write as professional authors do, choosing their own topics and genres, and writing from their own experiences or observations The Process Approach, according to White and Arndt (1991), can be illustrated by figure 2.3

Figure 2.3 White and Arndt’ s (1991) diagram of process approach

The process approach empowers its students, thereby enabling them to make clearer decisions about the direction of their writing “by means of discussion, tasks, drafting, feedback and informed choices that encourage students to be responsible for making improvements themselves” In addition, the Process Approach focuses primarily on what writers do as they write rather than on textual features, but depending on the writer’s instant task, these approaches may also consider text features As Figure 2.4 shows, the Process Approach includes different stages, which can be combined with other aspects

of teaching writing, for example, the study of textual features Not all writers move through the stages included in process approaches; some stages may be helpful and other superfluous to any given writing task As it can be described in Figure 2.4, stages of the writing process can happenin various orders at different points Teachers can help clarify students’ misconceptions about writing

Figure 2.4 Curry’ s (1996) diagram of the writing process approach

During the Process Approach, students engage in pre- writing, planning, drafting and post-writing activities As the writing process is shown in figure 2.4, they do not necessarily engage in these activities in that order Nonetheless, the stage to start in the students’ writing is supposed to be the pre-writing stage Pre-writing stage is the first stage in the writing process, which begins long before students puts through into writing In fact, based on their own experiences, observation, students would like to decide what they will write and how they will write it Hence, within classroom, pre-writing activities can be integrated into the process as scaffolds by teachers to help students generate ideas for their writing and to practice the thinking skills inherent in the activity

In conclusion, all approaches to teaching writing as creative (the Controlled-to-Free Approach, the Free Approach, the Process Approach…) mentioned above are not perfect ones for any particular class Each approach has its own good advantages and bad disadvantages That is why Raimes (1983) recommends the use of an eclectic approach (the approach of combining different approaches to make full use of their advantages and deal their weaknesses) Therefore, what teachers need to do is to adopt an eclectic approach to teach writing In reality, we will seldom find a writing classroom where teachers apply only one approach as to exclude the others However, teachers should take into consideration when and where to use a particular

approach in order to achieve greatest success According to Oluwadiya (1990), a

“marriage” of the techniques of the product-oriented approach with the techniques of the process-oriented approach; we should aim at using an enriched process approach that borrows freely strategies and techniques that belongs to the product-oriented approach As in his ways of discussing, he put a great emphasis on the combination with activities of process approach such as prewriting and planning He considered it to be the essential stage of the

students’ writing process

2.1.4 Principles of writing proficiency

It can be noticed that when teaching writing to students, teachers are supposed to have particular measurements to access their students’ achievements and give feedbacks for later improvement Therefore, Robin C Scracella and Rebecca L Oxford (1990: 120-5) claims that in order to be a competent writer, writers should be taken four sub-writing components (grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence), which are given in figure 2 5

Figure 2.5.Scarcella and Oxford's (1992) diagram of abilities underlying

Grammatical competence

including rules for subject and verb

agreement, reference, etc

Vocabulary: handwriting, spelling,

Strategic competence

ideas, getting started Writing drafts, revising

Sociolinguistic competence

Rules and principles that enable writers to

vary their writing according to such factors

as the purpose, topic, and audience; includes

control of various genres, knowledge of

different discourse communities

Discourse competence Looking for markets of coherence and cohesion in the written text for

comprehension

Writing proficiency

As can be seen from the diagram, four writing competences should be taken as four criteria which teachers often base on judging their students’ writing skills The first competence called grammatical competence, which is considered as an imperative element of writing proficiency Scarcella and Oxford (1992: 118) claim that this competence becomes competent in using “the patterns of language including grammar, vocabulary, and mechanics of the language” Almost of linguists, next, also considered sociolinguistic competence

as the second competence, which is the ability to interpret the social meaning of the choice of linguistic varieties and to use language with the appropriate social meaning for the communication situation Writers can use varieties of the language with respect to a range of factors, including the topic, the genre, the audience, and the purpose Moreover, writers have to be able to “write for diverse target population, whose appreciation of texts varies widely” (Scarcella

and Oxford (1992: 118)

The more important element is strategic competence that enables writers

to give strategies to extend their competence to effectively write Strategic competence, along with grammatical competence and sociolinguistic competence constitute a framework for determining a language learners’ proficiency in communication As well, a fourth competence, discourse competence, was later added in 1983 This last competence enables writers to organize their texts cohesively As Haliday and Hasan (1976) says that reference, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion are linguistic devices contributing in cohesively composing the piece of writing

In short, these four competences (grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, strategic competence and discourse competence) constitute sound rather similar to four “knowledge” that Tribble (1996: 68-9) argues that a successful writer should have: content knowledge (knowledge of concepts involved in the subject area), context knowledge (of social context and co-texts in which the text will be read), language system knowledge, and writing

process knowledge (knowledge of the most appropriate way of preparing for a writing task).

2.1.5 Factors in learning and teaching writing

There are many factors involving in the learning and teaching writing, which are students’ personality, preferences, and anxiety, aptitude, method/ learning strategies, and motivation In the writing lessons, students will present more preference in learning and show a much more positive attitude if they are interested in their teachers’ method In term of aptitude, one person with an innate talent for English finds the learning easier than those who have not Wright (1987) states that if the students’ learning styles do not coincide with the teaching styles, a negative learning experience will occur Motivation and anxiety, next, are essential elements that can predict the amount of time a writer spend on a task of writing

In addition, many linguists state that teacher is also a very important element in the writing classes As it is alluded by Harmer (1983: 261), in normal writing classes, the teacher plays so many roles, who is considered as the motivator, resource and feedback provider The teacher will promote students’ enthusiasm in generating ideas and participating effectively in the class activities Working as a resource, teacher is supposed to “get ready to supply information and language if necessary” and “respond to work-in-progress” of students The last but not least, teacher is also advised to give his/her encouraging comments on their writing’s content and grammar, and in a way that their feedback could be a motivator for the students to go on perfecting their writing

Obviously, students themselves play an important role in improving their own writing skills Regarded as the centre of the classroom, students are supposed to participate actively in all the activities and “make as much effort as possible for maximize the benefit” (Harmer, 1983:361) Moreover, the students can also be the interaction initiator in their pair work, group work and through

putting questions to the teacher Finally, students can be also organized as the assessor of their peers’ writing, thereby can “get to know each other and learn from each other”

In short, all mentioned above are some important factors affecting learning and teaching writing For this purpose, a teacher should give much practice to improve student’s ability in English He/she should be a model of English and should be able to choose the materials and methodology in presenting the materials to reach the objective of teaching and learning process Teacher should correctly apply to the teaching and writing skill in order to help students organize activities, especially activities in the pre-writing stage, interestingly Pre-writing stage and pre-writing activities, in this case, can be claimed to prepare students with the right mood for writing Below, we will look

at what pre-writing activities are, and what their roles are in learning writing 2.2 Pre – writing activities

2.2.1 Definition of pre – writing activities

As concerned above, pre-writing is the most important part of the writing process as it lays a foundation for the writing that is to come Thus, what pre-writing activities are will be presented below

General speaking, the phase “pre-writing” has been used in some studies

to indicate the period of time between receiving an assignment and beginning to write a piece of writing Olywadiya (1992: 3) defines pre-writing as “any structural experiences that influence active student participation in thinking, talking, writing and working on the topic under the focus on a writing lesson, stimulating higher-level thinking as well as writing skills.” According to him, this stage includes such as activities, oral-written, brainstorming, debating, and interviewing, which are not to get started, but recursive that is, they can be used over and over again during the composing process In other words, Robin, C Scarcella (1992:125) states that pre-writing stage is the “information-gathering phrase in the process of writing”

In addition, Liz Ham-Lyons (1987:139) claimed that, pre-writing as “it generally involves the writers in choosing a topic, in thinking about the topic and deciding on the way to respond to it, and selecting the appropriate ideas and information to use in a response.” Pre- writing is an awareness of the writer towards his subject, allowing him to draw on his experience to select and organize these ideas Moreover, it can be seen that activities or experiences described in the pre-writing stage, “which can be group work or individual effort”, may be “oral, written, or experiential in nature” (Adewumi, 1992:127) Most of activities, then, including brainstorming, free-writing, diagramming, etc., can be over and over again in writing lessons

To sum up, from these theories above, it can be understood that writing is a blanket for a wide range of techniques to start thinking about your paper before you begin the formal process of writing a draft Your writing process begins, in effect, the moment you read a writing assignment

pre-2.2.2 The importance of pre – writing activities in learning writing

Although many writing specialists have agreed that writers go through several stages while writing, they have not reached an agreement on labeling the stages For the purpose of this paper, I will adopt one of Tompkins’ five stage writing process: pre-writing, drafting, revising, editing and sharing The pre-writing is considered as the most important stage As D’Aoust (1986:7) emphasized this stage helps writers “facilitate the planning for both the product and process” The pre-writing stage focuses on stimulating students’ creativity and letting them think about what to write and how to approach the chosen topic To implement this stage effectively, Tricia, H (1996) suggests that teachers remind students of two important questions: the purpose of their writing and its audiences That is, students should keep in mind the intended readers and content of the text when they make a global outline for their writing

According to Spack (1984:656), at this stage, students are trained to write down, without worrying about errors and forms, whatever ideas coming to their

mind quickly, which gradually fasters their speed of writing Besides, writing activities help students prepare raw materials for the composing stage, and organize them in the best way, then, it develops students’ fluency (Byrne, 1999; Oluwadiya, 1992)

pre-In addition, according to an unknown author, pre-writing helps students

“get kettle boiling” During this stage, students have an opportunity to take part

in good activities which help them to work out a general plan for their writing,

to think and to write about a particular topic quickly, the actual composing will

be much easier Moreover, pre-writing can help students with their writing process by starting them off on the right foot both intellectually and psychologically Pre-writing strategies help writers generate ideas and figure out

a paper’ provisional structure; doing both of these things before they start writing a draft, which can help writers save significant time and energy Definitely, students will find it more comfortable and relaxing to write a piece of writing Additionally, the pre-writing stage is an excellent way to avoid and overcome writers’ block and reduce the stress of getting started with a new writing project

In conclusion, the pre-writing stage plays an essential role in the writing process, which is supposed to be guidance for organizing and generating ideas in the completing writing tasks For that reason, there is no doubt that pre-writing activities should be used as a therapy to help inexperienced or incompetent students who tend to slow down their pace of writing by insisting on a perfect essay from onset

All in all, this study, which is supposed to introduce some effective writing activities to the 11th- grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school The study is presented with further information in the following sections

pre-Chapter two RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This chapter will discuss the research methods employed in the present study, which is divided into three primary parts The first part focuses on the methodology which includes method orientation, the characteristics of the study, the participants, and the instrument of the study The second part is an analysis

on the data collected from the survey questionnaires and the class observation Finally, there is a summary is presented

2.1 Methodology

2.1.1 Method orientation

Being an English learner for some years, I have decided to carry out a study

on pre-writing activities conducted by the 11th form students at the Nguyen Duc Thuan high school in order to find out whether the assumption above is true or not Finally, I would suggest some effective activities which will be highly applied to teach writing in the pre-writing stage in English writing lessons

In this study, I applied two major methods of data collection, namely survey questionnaire and class observation

2.1.2 The characteristics of the study

This study was done as a combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology, namely survey questionnaires and class observation used to collect the data Accordingly, the first method related to survey questionnaire carried out among 100 11th form students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school in Nam Dinh was used to figure out the real situation of teaching and learning writing especially pre-writing stage among teachers and students of 11th form students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school On the other hand, the other method

In addition, the study procedure can be divided into several steps First, a survey questionnaire for students was designed, and then analyzed Along with these step, I would like to attend in two writing lessons of two different classes

of two different teachers of English from Nguyen Duc Thuan high school to find out what teacher often do in the pre-writing stage, time duration of pre-writing activities and to what extent their activities are effective

Questionnaires were conducted to 100 11th form students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school with questions about their opinions over the matter of learning writing skill The questionnaires contain asking about the students’ attitudes towards learning writing and pre-writing activities Along with these, some questionnaires is also given to investigate the application of pre-writing activities of teachers in actual English writing class, student’s difficulties in learning writing and their suggestions for the application of pre-writing activities Moreover, the students have chance to choose one more option in student’s difficulties in learning writing, especially pre-writing stage and their suggestions for the multiple-choice questions and clarify their viewpoint in certain questions I decided to do with 100 students because if a larger number

of participants had been invited, it would have been of great difficulty dealing with the huge amount of data

2.1.4 The instrument of the study

In this study, two major instruments namely survey questionnaires and class observation had been used Both techniques were used as results from one form data will help inform and refine the other data that could serve perfectly the study’s purpose

2.1.4.1 Survey questionnaire

The students’ questionnaires help the researcher to collect the data needed

in quantitative form Besides, the researcher finds it quite easy to summarize, analyze, and report the collected data because all informants answer the same questions Moreover, the informants are provided with an opportunity to express their attitudes towards teaching and learning writing skills openly This students’ questionnaires were designed mainly to investigate the students’ attitudes towards learning writing and pre-writing activities They include 11multiple-choice questions (7 are closed and 4 are semi-closed) that was designed to investigate students’ attitudes towards learning writing skills and pre-writing activities (question 1 and 2), what difficulties students often meet in English writing lessons (question 5), what they and their teachers often do in pre-writing stage (question 6 and 8), how they assess their teachers’ pre-writing activities (question 10), and what they expect their teacher in pre-writing stage (question 11)

2.1.4.2 Class observation

Although by survey questionnaire, both quantitative and qualitative data

were achieved, observation- an additional research instrument- was used This was due to the fact that certain sophisticated aspects that could not be acquired through survey questionnaire Moreover, this method also helps confirm the information collected from the questionnaire For observations, this study choose to randomly two English writing lessons performed by two teachers at two different classes (11A & 11C) so that the types of pre-writing activities they used and the extent to which those activities had been effectively Two observations were conducted by two people, a student – the monitor of class

11A and I Each lesson lasts 45 minutes Two writing lessons are chosen to be observed belong to Part D (Unit10, & 11) The task of writing in Unit 10 is to write a description of Cat Ba National Park, using the fact and figures that has presented in the textbook 11 And the other writing in Unit 11 has several small tasks There is a chart about energy consumption in Highland in 2000 These tasks in this part include filling in the gaps with the given information, describing the trends in energy consumption in the year 2005 in Highland and describing the chart based on the information from previous tasks The purpose

of choosing these units is that the researcher would like to observe how the teacher deal with writing tasks and what activities the teachers used at the pre-writing stage in writing lessons Thus, an observation checklist for observation

of writing lessons of 11th grade students was beforehand prepared (see appendices)

Observation checklist consists of some following criteria which are used

to assess a writing lesson such as kind of pre-activities applied in class, the duration, and the effectiveness of these activities The observation sheet was designed in note forms, focusing on teaching procedure: whether pre-writing are carried out in writing classes, how long are these activities, how these activities are organized, how students are participated in the pre-writing activities as well

as interest in the pre-writing stage

2.2 Data analysis

This part of the study presents of all data collected from the survey questionnaire conducted on 10011th- grade students at the Nguyen Duc Thuan high school as well as from two observers in two classes The analysis of the data is presented in 2 parts in the first component of this chapter The first one is the results based on the questionnaires for the students The second is the results

of the class observation

2.2.1 Data analysis of students’ questionnaire

Total: 100 over 100 questionnaires issued

Subjects: 100 11th – grade students in Nguyen Duc Thuan high school

In the questionnaire carried out among students, question 1 which the students put (√) in the appropriate box, for questions 2, 3, 4, 10 that the students may choose more than one option For questions 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 in which only one answer is accepted

(For specific questions, refer to the appendices)

2.2.1.1 Students’ attitudes towards writing skill and pre-writing activities to the

11th – grade students at Nguyen Duc Thuan high school

 Students’ attitudes towards writing skill

It can be seen from the chart that reading is the most important skill by 44% Meanwhile around 37% students said writing skill should be given the most important role in learning English Those who offer this priority to listening only accounted for 12% of the target population About 7% stands for those judging speaking as the most vital skill of the four important skills in learning English These figures indicate that as for the students, the importance

of writing skill ranks the second among the four English skills, it has not been widely recognized by the 11th – grade students

 Students’ attitudes towards pre-writing activities

From the chart above, it can be realized that the majority of the students (60%) agreed that the role of activities before writing is very important A quarter of the students noted that pre-writing activities are essential Only 15%

of them considered them to be not very important There is absolutely no response for the choice that pre-writing activities are by no means necessary 2.1.1.2 Students’ preferences for pre - writing activities

According to the survey, students also seem to know the purpose of writing activities that are help them to generate ideas (68%) and to help them narrow down the topics (32%)

As the students are aware of the importance and the purpose of writing activities, some activities before writing also have done in writing class

pre-A look at data from the table below, it can be seen that students have used some pre-writing techniques in learning writing such as discussing the ideas with their classmates, writing main ideas and thinking of ideas while writing, etc

Techniques Percentages of students

Writing main ideas (needed words

and structures)

46%

Thinking of some ideas in mind, then

write on the answer sheet

18%

Thinking of ideas and perform writing

task at the same time

54%

Table 2.3 Students’ preferences for pre - writing activities

From the table above, it can be realized that students often use variety of activities before their actual writing 54% of the students said they often think of ideas and perform writing task at the same time Maybe, thinking while writing

is not always the best techniques to use in the pre-writing stage when this activity often makes students be embarrassing in generating the ideas and organizing them in the suitable order Besides, writing main ideas also the preferred activity, which nearly a half of the total population often carries out in writing lessons This activity helps students generate ideas with necessary vocabularies and structures orderly Discussing with classmates and outlining are also the activities which are used by 36% and 21% of the students respectively Last, it is no deniable that other activities such as brainstorming, clustering, etc also plays an important role in students’ carrying out at the writing stage