English has been considered “an international language” since it helps people all over the world get access to various kinds of information in different fields, especially in business and technology where information is updated every hour, even every minute. Therefore, English has taken a prior part in the curriculum of every education system in the world in general and in Vietnamese education in particular.
1 PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale English has been considered “an international language” since it helps people all over the world get access to various kinds of information in different fields, especially in business and technology where information is updated every hour, even every minute Therefore, English has taken a prior part in the curriculum of every education system in the world in general and in Vietnamese education in particular However, it is not easy for students to be good at English since it needs different strategies, techniques and different things from learners such as their aptitude, patience, and so on In addition to this, teachers are also of great importance to their learners’ success There is one fact that many students are very good at school with high results but they not know how to use their language knowledge that has been achieved at school in their real life One of the reasons is that at school, they only learn how to use the target language accurately for pedagogical purposes in the required curriculum and learn only for high results through tests When they are in the real life, the language used may be different and not as perfect as the language they have learnt in terms of form, grammar, etc Therefore, it is essential for students to get access to language in the real life through authentic tasks with authentic materials To this, the role of the teacher is crucial However, the teacher should know whether the tasks designed are suitable to the students or not so that modifications can be applied to help students get the best benefits in their learning In terms of English learning, writing skill is one of the two productive skills together with speaking skill which are of great significance in language teaching and learning Nevertheless, teaching and learning writing have posed a lot of problems to both teachers and students Writing is also a difficult skill since we have to write “for a reader” on our own without interaction and feedback from readers (Byrne, D., 1988, p4) However, writing is important in the real life since it helps to transfer the information and is used for many other purposes As mentioned above, students need to get acquainted with written products applicable in the real life Through authentic tasks with authentic materials, they can be well prepared in class There are various types of authentic materials, so for students of different levels, different tasks should be applied In this paper, the researcher tries to evaluate the authentic tasks designed by the teacher as an adaptation for teaching writing skill to English majored students at low intermediate level with a specific textbook of a specific curriculum Through the results, she can have modifications to better benefit students in the future Aims of the study In general, the research has three aims • First, the study is designed to investigate the effectiveness of the designed tasks based on the textbook with the topics required in an EFL language curriculum • Second, the researcher attempts to find students’ difficulties in doing these tasks • Finally, the study aims to explore students’ purposes and expectations of students in writing lessons Research questions The research aims to answer the following questions: • What are students’ attitudes towards authentic tasks? • What are students’ difficulties in doing the tasks • Do authentic tasks satisfy the needs and expectations of learners? Scope of the study Authentic tasks is a broad and interesting theme that has attracted a lot of researchers to study how to apply to language teaching so as to make language learning become more purposeful and meaningful Authentic tasks are also divided into different types; therefore, within the framework of this paper, the researcher does not have ambition to find how effective authentic tasks are in a large scale The researcher only attempts to have an evaluation on several authentic tasks that have already been designed by the teacher in one specific curriculum for one specific textbook for students of a specific level: Evaluating the designed authentic tasks to help students get interested in learning English writing at TDU Hopefully, with the findings on the designed tasks from the study and suggestions implied from the finding results, the study will be helpful in teaching writing skill based on this book as well as being adapted to other books Methodology The study is a qualitative research with different methods of collecting information as follows: • Through the researcher’s class observation, the researcher is able to understand students’ attitudes, interests in the designed tasks • Data is also collected by means of survey questionnaires given at the end of the term The questionnaires are of two kinds: scaling and multiple choices • Other sources of data include students’ diary writings after each lesson Through students’ diaries, the researcher can have specific information of each lesson and task It is hoped that the finding results will be reliable and useful for teaching majored first-year students at TDU in particular and applicable to teaching other students in general Organization of the thesis The thesis is composed of three parts: introduction, the study and conclusion PART A introduces some basic knowledge of rationale, aims of the study, research questions, scope of the study, methodology and the organization of the study PART B consists of four chapters: • Chapter one provides the literature review of writing as a language skill and authentic tasks • Chapter two presents the knowledge of methodology such as the setting of the study (the university, students, the program, etc) and the methodology including participants, instrumentation and data collection • Chapter three contains the analyses of the data collected through the three instruments, namely class observation, questionnaire and diary writing • Chapter four analyze the discussions, followed by implications PART C summarizes the study, main findings, implications, commenting on the limitations and suggesting several directions for future research PART B: THE STUDY CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW Writing 1.1 Definition of writing and writing skill The act of writing is so familiar with everyone that even a child can know how to write just when he is asked However, to give the definition of writing in general and writing as a skill in language learning and teaching is another issue which has attracted a lot of researchers with different points of view Writing is defined by Byrne, D (1988, p1), on one level, as the act of forming symbols: making marks on a flat surface of some kind However, he added, “writing is clearly much more than the production of graphic symbols, just as speech is more than the production of sounds The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences” According to this definition, any act that results in the forming of words or sentences can be defined as writing In addition to this, Lannon (2003, p9) views writing as “process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with a definite meaning – writing is a process of deliberate decision” In terms of writing skill, Huong, T.T.T et al (2006, p.185) cites a few researchers’ views on it such as Tribble, Gudschinsky Tribble (1996) views writing skill as “not just a graphic representation of speech, but the development and presentation of thoughts in a structured way” Writing skill is also defined to be specific abilities which help writers put their thoughts into words in a meaningful form and to mentally interact with the message (Gudschinsky, 1973) Besides, as cited in http://www.tameri.com/workshop/natureof writing.html “Writing is intellectual and emotional exhibitionism Regardless the form of a work, it reveals thoughts and values of its creator” In general, writing in real life is the production of graphic symbols or letters into words, sentences or a sequence of sentences to transfer messages or with deliberate purposes Writing skill is somewhat academic, which refers to the writer’s ability to put graphic symbols into a meaningful form in a structured way to express the writer’s thoughts or to interact with other people 1.2 Why we teach writing? Writing has been considered an integral part of FLT since it serves learners with a lot of purposes First, it helps learners communicate with other people in the target language when the other person is not right in front of them Linh (2007, p52) shows the result in her M.A thesis that 97 out of 98 participants agreed that “writing is to communicate” Byrne, D (1988, p1) adds that “we are writing for a reader” since we have to “encode” or interpret our thoughts into language for others to understand without any further help from us From the website http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/wic1.pdf , Lázaro, L A (p89) also affirms that writing was a channel through which students’ knowledge of grammar, vocabulary, idioms, structures and so on are consolidated to be orally presented to readers Besides, he emphasizes that writing should be seen as a goal of learning a foreign language since it is needed to develop students’ communication skills which will be useful for their future social, educational, personal, or professional lives Second, writing also helps to enhance students’ learning Raims (1983, p3) proves this by showing three benefits students can get from learning writing: reinforcing learners’ grammatical structures, idioms and vocabulary; providing learners with chances to be adventurous or take risks with the language and helping learners express ideas in the new language Hampton (1989, p1) adds that writing fosters learners’ comprehensibility when they can write so that it can be read and understood by themselves and others, their fluency when they are able to write smoothly and easily as well as understandably and their creativity when they can write their own ideas Third, writer’s critical thinking improves through writing practice Harmer, J (1998, p.79) indicates three major reasons for teaching writing: its benefits for comprehending new knowledge more easily, for language development and because of the fact that it is a basic productive language skill Risinger & Frederick (1987, p1-2) also says that writing requires knowledge for content like facts, generalizations and some other skills If learners have mastered these skills, they will be able to write not only for themselves but for other audiences as well Finally, through writing, students can form good characteristics Risinger & Frederick (1987, p1-2) claims that the ability to write “empowers students with a sense of efficacy and achievement”, therefore, they will become more responsible Hampton (1989, p1) adds that students will also be independent when they try to write without much assistance In short, writing is essential in language teaching and learning since it help learners to communicate, improve their critical thinking to express their thoughts, enhance their learning with chances to explore the new language and form good characteristics such as creativity, independence and so on 1.3 Some theoretical approaches to teaching writing How to teach writing effectively is difficult to answer and each teacher has a different point of view with various teaching styles even in the same level Therefore, each teacher and researcher has his or her own way to classify approaches to writing The following approaches are amongst the most popular ones 1.3.1 Product approach As cited by Huong, T T et al (2006, p186-187), the approach is viewed as a largely “prescriptive and product-centered” (Applebee, 1986) way of teaching writing Also in the book, the author cites several famous authors’ views on this approach such as Cheung, Pennington and Steele This approach pays much attention to the final outcome and focuses on “one-shot correct writing for the purpose of language practice” (Cheung, 1999) and a “one-shot effort by the teacher to evaluate the students’ attempts” (Pennington and Cheung 1995: 20) Steele (2002) provides four steps as a model for this approach • Step 1: students study a model text and mimic its special features • Step 2: students controlled practice often in isolation • Step 3: students organize ideas • Step 4: students choose a task, then using their knowledge and skill to produce the product to assess their English progress 1.3.2 Process approach Process approach places more emphasis on the stages of the writing process than on the final product (Huong et al, 2006, p.187) In the approach, attention is paid first to the content and meaning and then to the form The approach encourages students’ communication of feelings, ideas and experiences (Stanley, 2002 as cited by Huong et al, 2006, p.187) Writing is evaluated according to how well it fulfills the writer’s intentions (Reid, 1993 as cited by Huong et al, 2006, p.187) Roger, G., Phillips, D and Walters, S (1995, p115) point out a clear outline of activities for this approach • Introduction: students are warmed up with different activities Then, teacher and students will discuss a text in terms of the text type, definite readers, etc • Working with ideas: students brainstorm and arrange their ideas logically • Planning: students plan their writing based on the text provided • Drafting: students write the first draft freely with their ideas planned • Editing: students improve their first writing with teachers and peers’ comments • Rewriting: students write the final writing paper based on the corrected one In other words, in this approach, the concentration is not on specific topics or forms but on the way or common steps in different writings 1.3.3 Accuracy – oriented approach In the “accuracy-oriented” approach introduced by Byrne, D (1988, p21), mistakes are shown up in students’ written work but not regarded as a major problem and teachers can give some guidance with language and content with emphasis on step-by-step learning and formal correctness At first, students have to write under control At the later stage, they are given meaningful exercises with opportunities for self-expression This approach is called “controlled-to-free approach” 1.3.4 Fluency – oriented approach In the second approach suggested by Byrne, D (1988, p22 ), students are encouraged to write as much and quickly as possible to get students’ ideas written down on paper and students have the feeling of actual writing, not merely doing exercises 1.3.5 Text-based approach This is the third approach recommended by Byrne, D (1988, p22-23), which focuses on purposeful writing where paragraphs are considered as the basic unit of written expression, in which students are mainly taught how to construct and organize paragraphs with a variety of techniques Feist also says that “ what you say about the topic largely depends upon your purpose for writing” (1996, p.24 as cited by Linh, C T., 2007, p.19) As a result, writing is considered as a form of communication In brief, there are different approaches to teaching writing, in which teacher focuses on accuracy and the process to be good at writing; the fluency or purposes of the writer to have a good final outcome The choice of the approach depends on each teacher and students’ levels 1.4 Principles of teaching writing Teaching writing, like teaching any other subjects, has to follow several principles Nevertheless, the principles of teaching writing depend a lot on the approach followed by each teacher Therefore, there are different ways to set principles for teaching writing Byrne, D (1988, p23-29 ) puts forth three general principals for teaching writing • First, we need to take some approaches into consideration and have an “art” to combine and modify the approaches to suit students’ needs, teaching them how to write different kinds of texts • Second, teachers need to be aware of students’ difficulties in order to have the role of guidance, providing adequate and relevant experience, techniques and strategies of the written language in order to create a good learning atmosphere • Finally, teachers should also motivate their students, be supportive and sympathetic to enhance their confidence, make writing tasks more realistic and natural and get students to be aware of the written language functions as a system of communication 10 In ELT Methodology II course book by Huong, T T et al, three principles are given on teaching writing • Firstly, teachers should provide as many opportunities and varied types of writing as possible for students to write • Secondly, teachers should make their feedback helpful and meaningful in order to help them correct their mistakes • Thirdly, teachers should make the criteria to evaluate students’ writings clear (2006, p 190-191) To sum up, in order to teach writing skill well, the teacher should know how to combine different approaches to suit students’ needs and make writing lessons become natural, realistic and meaningful In class, teachers should also show their helpfulness and sympathy to motivate students as well as help them with kind guidance so that their students can get the best benefits from the lessons 1.5 Suggested activities and tasks to teach writing Many attempts by researchers have been made on how to teach writing well Thanks to these efforts, we now can apply their suggested activities beside our own methods to make writing lessons useful for our students and satisfying to teachers Byrne, D (1988, p31-142 ) suggests several activities and tasks in different stages • In the early stages, students’ writing is still under control, simple, communicative and orally learned (Byrne, D (1988, p7) Students can copy from the teacher to learn something new, link sentences with connectors or transition words write dialogues or reproduce a similar text with the help of cues Activities can be completing questionnaires, puzzles, dialogues, parallel writing, writing about pictures, programs, writing to ask for information and so on • In the next stage, they can write about posing problems, clues for crosswords, instructions for a game, role descriptions, jumbled stories, jigsaw writing, headlines and graffiti, etc After students have perfected their skill, they can be asked to some more difficult activities like note-taking and summarizing, writing words for cartoons, writing book reports and so on 26 This question is to find out what students often at home The results can help to know whether students’ self study was enhanced or not It is a good sign that many of them had positive attitudes towards learning at home 41.18% usually completed the homework and revised the tasks in class; 29.41% tried to fulfill the knowledge of the topic they have learnt and 5.88% tried to complete the homework only Through the results, it can be concluded that the students were responsible for their learning Only two (11.76%) did nothing at home For other activities, two students (11.76%) responded that they only tried to get more knowledge in the topics they felt interested, if they were not interested, they would not anything In short, most students had positive attitudes towards their learning Question 8: What source of information you use for your writing at home? 100% 90% 5.88% 11.76% 11.76% 23.53% 23.53% 35.29% 80% 47.06% 70% 60% 41.18% 52.94% 50% 64.71% 40% 5.88% 35.29% 41.18% 30% 20% 23.53% 52.94% 41.18% 35.30% 10% 11.76% 29.42% 11.76% 0% the Internet newspapers TV magazines Chart 8: Sources of information students used for writing at home books natural observation others 0: never 1: not frequently 2: not very frequently 3: frequently 4: very frequently This question is designed to explore what source of information students referred to when they did the tasks so that the researcher can have a conclusion about how necessary authentic materials are The information from the survey showed that most students had the habit of finding information from various sources around them To be specific, 41.18% used the Internet very frequently (at the highest level) and 41.18% used it frequently Only 27 11.76% did not use the Internet very frequently, 5.88% did not use the Internet frequently and no one never used the Internet for reference for their writing It can be concluded that the Internet is a really useful source of information for students In terms of newspapers, the majority of the students did not exploit these materials as a useful source for their tasks To be exact, 64.71% did not use the source very frequently, 23.53% did not use it frequently In addition, TV was also used frequently for reference by 29.41% However, it was not used as a frequent reference by more than 70% of the students Besides, books were also used frequently or very frequently by nearly 90% Magazines were also used for searching information by 11.76% However, nearly 90% of the students did not use them frequently Also, more than a half (52.94%) of the students usually did their writing tasks through their natural observation One student (5.88%) added that he/ she sometimes used the ideas from the surrounding people to the tasks It is noticeable that no one did the writing tasks without referring to any sources of information around them The materials mentioned in the question are authentic ones The results revealed that authentic materials were essential in language teaching and learning Therefore, the teacher should help students know how to exploit these materials Besides, students should be familiar with the forms used in these sources of materials so that they can create writings of these forms in the future Analysis of students’ diary writings Only ten wrote their diaries about the ten lessons and five of them only wrote about some lessons and five did not write diaries Nevertheless, through their diaries, the teacher could know about their feelings during the lessons and have more adaptations so that the tasks would be more suitable to their students • About the tasks: In general, students commented that the tasks applied were useful and practical Some tasks made the lessons more lively and attractive such as the task of interviewing working people, advertising and writing letters about the country life or city life, endangered animals, organic produces and so on They commented that they were so interested in the tasks that they had found even more practical knowledge useful for their lives 28 However, most of them claimed that several tasks were difficult to discuss and to find information as they did not have much social knowledge The difficult tasks include the topic of counterfeit money (the topic is boring and the sources are limited) Besides, the task of writing a poem (some claimed that they were not confident enough to write their own poems in English and give them to the others), the task of writing a brochure about depression (though all the students agreed that the knowledge on the topic was useful in the society today), and the task of endangered cultures (little information could be found on the Internet) were also difficult topics for all of them Three of them tried to use the Internet but they got some problems with terms on several fields such as counterfeit money or depression Students also gave several suggestions For instance, two suggested that the task of writing a poem should be free to any interested students to at home and a gift should be given to the student with the best poem One student suggested a video should be made instead of writing a brochure for the topic of depression One student suggested that in stead of writing about endangered cultures, students should be let to discuss one culture they are interested in and know well Three students also mentioned that the teacher should let them analyze some models before giving them the tasks of new forms such as an article, a brochure, a report to at home to refer so that they could be more confident to write theirs other than giving the model form • About their peers: Three students claimed that when they were in groups of good and creative students, the atmosphere was so exciting Everyone participated well in the task Nevertheless, when they had to be in groups with students of low level, they were the only ones doing the writings while others in the group just chatted or kept silent Therefore, they “did not like to write” and “group work is meaningless” Moreover, more people complained that some students did not pay attention and give any ideas to the group, especially with the tasks done at home in group (four people used strong words to comment their peers’ attitudes to and participation in group work such as “frustrated”, “angry”, “disappointed”, “got mad”, “furious” Five suggested that the teacher should divide students into different groups in different lessons so that they can work with 29 everyone in the class In contrast, three students suggested that they should be allowed to choose anyone they are interested in their group • About the teacher: It was encouraging when all students commented that the teacher was really helpful, friendly and enthusiastic in explaining and helping students the tasks However, some claimed that the teacher should give more information, model writings and instructions on difficult tasks such as counterfeit money or endangered animals It is noticeable that four of those were passive students in class It is possible that if they did not understand what to do, they dare not ask the teacher for more explanation In general, students wrote their right feelings in the diary which are important for the teacher to draw valuable lessons from them 30 CHAPTER FOUR: DISCUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS The chapter will summarize the main findings of the study, discuss on the results and give several implications to improve teaching Through the three instrumentations namely class observation, questionnaire and diary writing, the researcher could have conclusions about the suitability of the tasks, certain difficulties with doing the tasks and several suggestions to better adapt the textbook in teaching In general, the findings can be discussed in three categories The authentic tasks designed In general, students found the authentic tasks useful, practical and beneficial Most of the students were interested in giving ideas and found it easier in writing when they enjoyed the topics However, only about half of the students were interested in the tasks There were a lot of reasons leading to this problem Nevertheless, one of the biggest problems is the difficulties of several tasks The difficulties included their lack of knowledge, experience or finding information on the topic, especially the students who were not good at computer skill and Internet searching (the Internet is amongst the most frequently used source of information) Besides, some topics were not suitable to their age and needs The questionnaire results also showed that authentic tasks are essential to teaching writing Besides, some students wrote in their diaries that they preferred the tasks at home to the tasks in class because they had to write paragraphs every lesson However, most of them had difficulties when they had to new forms of writing such as a brochure, report and so on The results implicate that First of all, the teacher should choose suitable and interesting topics for their students to write For difficult and boring topics (the teacher can anticipate them), students should be given chances to give their ideas about what should be written in such topics In this way, students would have the feelings that they are centered and have freedom in their learning Besides, students would be more interested to explore the knowledge they like but not well equipped and creative to give ideas when they write what they prefer Second, the teacher should employ authentic tasks in teaching writing so that students can find it easier to comprehend different forms of writings in the real life However, the teacher should have different ways to apply the tasks to their students For major students 31 of elementary, pre intermediate or low intermediate levels, students should be given a good model to read through and analyze the topic of each part or paragraph in group In this way, students will understand the form and the way to write it better Moreover, the teacher can suggest some sources of information, websites on the Internet and available books in particular Finally, though in the study only one student said that writing lessons in class should be let to practice the form for the exam, it does not mean that others did not pay attention to their study results From my observation during the time I have taught, when students get high results they will be more interested and confident to continue their study In contrast, if they get bad results, they will be depressed to study Therefore, so as to apply authentic tasks in teaching and attract students’ interest, the tasks should take an important part in their results For instance, in the assessment of students, the most important requirement for the students of the level in the study was mastering paragraph writing so I accounted it for half of the mark and the other half was for collections of authentic tasks made by themselves and other things such as participation in class, group work and so on I explained these criteria very clearly at the beginning of the term so my students always tried their best to authentic tasks at home with satisfactory results Group work Through my observation and students’ diaries, students complained a lot about their peers in group work, especially for the tasks done at home The main problem is students of low level In other words, the difficulty is how to motivate or help them to speak their mind and cooperate with their peers in group work Therefore, the teacher should know how to help them how to work effectively in group Through my teaching experience, I recommend that First of all, in order to help students understanding the importance of group work to their study and life, the teacher should explain to their students the value of cooperative working, for example their social skill development, enhancing their success and effectiveness through interdependent working, presentation and teamwork skills (important for their future) and so on If students have understood these benefits, they will try their best to work in group not only for the knowledge of the tasks they have to but also for 32 other skills they need for their life in the future Moreover, the teacher sometimes should create nonacademic games to enhance students’ cooperation like jigsaw puzzle activity For example, in the textbook, one difficult topic is endangered culture Before teaching the lesson, the teacher can prepare one or two big pictures of an endangered culture they know (for instance, H’mong culture) and cut them into different pieces of different shapes Students have to discuss to assemble the pieces into the complete pictures and lead in to the topic of the lesson By doing this, students will feel easy to focus and the cooperation between members in class will be firmly formed little by little Second, the teacher should always have different ways to divide groups For the tasks students at home in group, students can choose the partners In class, the teacher should ask their students to sit at different positions with different people so that they can work with everyone in class Nevertheless, the teacher should let them choose their group sometimes so that they feel comfortable, relaxed and convenient to work Also, some students still had passive learning style so they did not participate well in group work as well as giving ideas in discussion Therefore, the teacher should always encourage students and show his/ her friendliness and helpfulness to facilitate them and help them have secure feelings when they work Moreover, the teacher should include exciting games involving students’ movement and active participation in order that students can get used to active learning style This helps students get rid of boring feelings (as in my teaching experience, most students and teachers find writing skill the most boring) when they study writing skill Last but not least, in some occasions, high-status students (family background, position in class, etc) dominate group activities while low-status students tend to withdraw from the activities because of their inferior feelings Therefore, the teacher should also balance student status by helping them understand that everyone has important skills to contribute to the class such as their social knowledge, relations regardless of language ability In this way, students will be more confident to have more equal access to group work 33 The teacher Some students in the study got problems with teacher’s instructions, especially the tasks of new forms Therefore, the teacher himself also has to pay attention to their instructions in giving the tasks to students Therefore, the teacher should always try to give brief, simple and clear instructions to explain to their students In addition, after explaining to their students, the teacher should also ask for their understanding of the requirements The students who claimed that they did not understand what to for the tasks were passive students so the teacher should always pay attention to these students with good considerateness In short, in order to apply authentic tasks to writing lessons in class, the teacher should choose suitable and interesting topics for their students to work on and give a model writing beside suggested sources for them to refer to find information Students sometimes can suggest what to write in the topic required and the teacher should also give clear instructions to students and observe the class carefully to see whether they have understood or not The teacher should also help students to learn the benefits of cooperative learning in group work and design academic or nonacademic games to improve the cooperation among them to work better in group 34 PART C: CONCLUSION In the final chapter, I would like to summarize what have been mentioned in the previous chapters Besides, some limitations of the study and suggestions for further research are also given Summary of the study The study was carried out with three aims: investigating the effectiveness of the designed tasks based on the textbook with the topics required in an EFL language curriculum, finding students’ difficulties in doing these tasks and exploring students’ purposes and expectations of students in writing lessons The study was also conducted to answer three questions: What are students’ attitudes towards authentic tasks? What are their difficulties in doing these tasks? Do authentic tasks satisfy the needs and expectations of learners? In general, the study could serve these purposes After presenting the literature review on relating points such as writing, authentic tasks, the study was conducted This was a case research, in which the researcher tried to investigate the effectiveness of the tasks designed as adaptations to the textbook and students’ difficulties in doing these tasks The study was done through three instruments, namely class observation (noted in teacher’s paper after each lesson), questionnaire (delivered at the end of the term) and students’ diary writings (written like the form given by teacher about each lesson All were handed at the end of the term) The subjects participated in the study were twenty first-year students from class DHTA K1, TDU in their second term Summary of the findings It has been revealed from the data analyses that authentic tasks are really essential in writing teaching and learning as all the students in the study found the tasks applied useful In their diaries, the students also said that the authentic tasks made writing skill more practical, lively and attractive Besides, they also got a lot of benefits from doing these tasks The benefits include helping them to share their ideas, promoting their presentation skill through discussion in class, exciting the classroom atmosphere in order to get students interested in learning, enhancing peer cooperation, increasing their motivation and so on Therefore, most of the students had positive feelings when doing the tasks and they always tried their best to the tasks both in class and at home Besides, through students’ 35 practice in class and at home, students’ language competence was enhanced This was proved through their ability to the tasks (they were better at writing and more independent of the teacher later than in the beginning) Regarding students’ needs and expectations, most students hoped to learn what they can apply in their life This illustrates how essential authentic tasks are in teaching and learning Although the tasks were useful and beneficial, students had different difficulties in doing the tasks At first, students had difficulty with a few topics and tasks designed Besides, learning styles, new forms of certain tasks and finding the information were also major difficulties In the classroom, the teacher’s instructions to the tasks sometimes made the tasks difficult to The finding results also uncovered what the students expected in writing lessons A few students also hoped to master the form and topics required in the textbook and in the schedule or write the topics they preferred A few hoped to practice for the exam or discuss in class and let writing for homework However, the most expected in learning writing is its applicability in the real life Summary of the implications Through the results of the study, several suggestions on task designing, group work and teacher’s behavior and instructions in class are given First of all, in order to apply authentic tasks to teaching writing, the teacher should be careful with choosing the topic If the topics are required in the schedule, the teacher should narrow and exploit only some interesting fields of the big topic or let students give their suggestions on what to write on the topic of each unit Moreover, students should be given suggested available sources, especially from the Internet and books To encourage students to the tasks with responsibility and interest, the tasks should be counted as an important part in the study results as well Hopefully, if the teacher can these things, students will be enthusiastic about writing authentic tasks and they will find it easier to get access to these materials in the real life Second, group work is essential in learning, especially in learning English To help students get the best benefits, the teacher should help them understand the benefits of cooperative learning and create exciting games like jigsaw puzzle to form cooperation 36 between them day by day before doing tasks Besides, the teacher should also divide groups in different ways depending on each occasion The teacher should also help them understand that everyone is equal and important to contribute their ideas to the others in their group These will help students feel more confident to work with their partners at ease Finally, the teacher is of great importance to motivate their students and to help students to be good at learning Therefore, the teacher should always show their friendliness, helpfulness and considerateness to their students so that they can feel secure to study as well as raise any questions if they not understand anything Besides, the teacher should always give brief and clear instructions in class and observe them to see whether they understand or not; sometimes short examples can be good for them to understand For difficult tasks, the teacher can let students analyze a model so that they have thorough understandings before doing their own writing All the findings were really essential to improve my teaching in the future However, the most important to me is how to help students work effectively in group work In order to it well, I should learn more from researches and experience and other colleagues beside my own teaching experience Limitations and suggestions for further research Though important findings have been given, the research can not avoid a few limitations First of all, the study was only conducted on a small scale (only one context of learning with a class of twenty students) Besides, only 85% of the students completed the survey and 75% wrote their diaries so the results are only limited To apply to other contexts, the teacher should take into more consideration things like course objectives, students’ needs and level In addition, the research based on the questionnaire results, diaries writing and class observation so the results may be subjective Therefore, the reliability of the research can not be completely guaranteed 37 In my research, I find there are also a few places that should be improved in future First, I need to encourage my students more and in a more considerate way so that everyone completes the questionnaires and writes their careful diaries Second, I should this research on different contexts, for example doing it in more than one class in different times with some improvements through the experience drawn from the previous class In that way, the study will be more reliable and useful Besides, I know that some passive and weak students did not dare to give their ideas and comments (in fact these students did not write diaries and complete the questionnaires) to the teacher so the difficulties students had were not adequate for all Nevertheless, this research was a fruitful experience for me on the whole In the future, I will continue to try my best to encourage my students and create various activities to make my teaching interesting and useful to my students This research was done on a small scale and in a limited time so the results are still limited For further development of the topic, the following suggestions should be taken into consideration for future research: Authentic tasks are essential in teaching writing; however, they are difficult for students to grasp and sometimes they turn into boring lessons because the teacher has to explain the form too much It generates another topic for further research: applying games to make classroom atmosphere more exciting in teaching authentic tasks For students of different levels, different authentic tasks and different ways can be applied For example, the students in the study were of low intermediate so they were only expected to get to know the form of these authentic tasks through paragraph writing (the most important one) For students of higher levels, the teacher can apply authentic tasks in class to help their students authentic tasks better Therefore, in the future, another research on “how to apply authentic tasks at different levels (elementary, pre intermediate, intermediate, advanced)” can be done Last but not least, another research can be done on “how to make use of authentic tasks to motivate students” This topic is also interesting and useful for teaching writing, which is often considered boring 38 Summary This study was carried out to help the teacher understand her students and draw a few lessons to make writing lessons the most useful at first In addition, this research is also expected to be a contribution to all teachers and students of English in teaching and learning writing so that writing lessons will be more purposeful and useful in the real life In the introduction part, aspects of the study such as the purposes, scopes of the study are put at first In the next part, theoretical background knowledge of writing skill, authentic tasks are given After that, the practical study is carefully analyzed with information about the setting of the study, participants, instrumentations, data analyses, findings and implications The last chapter of the part presents discussions and implications based on the findings from the data collected The last part summarizes all what have been done in the previous ones, comments on the limitations and gives recommendations to further research Hopefully, the study would be valuable to teachers and students in their teaching and learning process in general, in teaching and learning writing skill in particular 39 REFERENCES Byrne, D (1988) “Longman handbooks for language teachers” Teaching writing skills (new ed.), London and New York: Longman Group UK Ltd Cấn Thùy Linh (2007) An action research toward more communicative writing classes for second-year students at the department of English and American language and culture, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Minor Thesis Linguistics Hampton, R S 1989a "Community involvement in alphabet and material development." Notes on Literacy Interest level: lay specialist Harmer, J (1998) How to teach English Malaysia: Longman Press Lannon, J M (2003) The writing process (8th ed.) the USA: Longman Publisher Lázaro, L., A (nd) Teaching and assessing writing skills Acquisition and Assessment o( Communicative Skills Universidad de Alcalá Oura, G., K (nd) Authentic Task- Based Materials: Bringing the Real World Into the Classroom from website: http://www.jrc.sophia.ac.jp/kiyou/ki21/gaio.pdf Raims, A (1983) Techniques in teaching writing Oxford: OUP Risinger & Frederick (1987) Improving Writing Skills through Social Studies ERIC Digest No 40 ERIC Clearing house for Social Studies/Social Science Education Bloomington IN 10 Roger,G., Phillips, D., and Walters, S (1995) Teaching Practice Handbook China: Macmillan Heinesnann 11 Tô Thị Thu Hương et al (2006) ELT Methodology II course book Hanoi: VNU, CFL, Hanoi Publisher 40 Websites: http://www.jrc.sophia.ac.jp/kiyou/ki21/gaio.pdf http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/motivating_yourself.html http://p2pfoundation.net/Intrinsic_vs._Extrinsic_Motivation http://giftedkids.about.com/od/glossary/g/extrinsic.htm http://r-cube.ritsumei.ac.jp/bitstream/10367/562/1/08Polyglossia15_A%20Generic% 20 Awareness%20Study%20of%20L2%20Writing%20in%20College%20.pdf www teachingenglish.org.uk/thinking/writing/approach.html http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/toolbox/tasks.htm http://r-cube.ritsumei.ac.jp/bitstream/10367/562/1/08-Polyglossia15A%20Generic%20 Awareness%20Study%20of%20L2%20Writing%20in%20College%20.pdf http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/wic1.pdf http://www.tameri.com/workshop/natureofwriting.html [...]... students 1.2.1 The objectives of the program After the first term of the first year, students have to master basic knowledge and skills such as writing simple and complex sentences, making use of knowledge to construct different types of sentences, etc In the second term, students are of low/ basic intermediate level including mastering paragraph writing and getting to know forms of different writings such... instance, in the assessment of students, the most important requirement for the students of the level in the study was mastering paragraph writing so I accounted it for half of the mark and the other half was for collections of authentic tasks made by themselves and other things such as participation in class, group work and so on I explained these criteria very clearly at the beginning of the term so my students... giving ideas and found it easier in writing when they enjoyed the topics However, only about half of the students were interested in the tasks There were a lot of reasons leading to this problem Nevertheless, one of the biggest problems is the difficulties of several tasks The difficulties included their lack of knowledge, experience or finding information on the topic, especially the students who were... discouraged because of their little knowledge on the topics For the topics like depression, most of the students were uninterested The atmosphere was boring The last things noted in the papers of class observation were students’ difficulties In general, students had a lot of difficulties and the difficulties also depended on their levels For good students (about 35%), they only got difficulties of the information... first day of the term on March, the eleventh Students’ diaries and their general assessment were collected at the end of the course on the seventeenth of June, 2010 Only fifteen out of twenty students wrote their diaries However, only ten wrote their diaries about the ten lessons and five of them only wrote about some lessons and five did not write diaries 18 CHAPTER THREE: DATA ANALYSES All the data... topics like counterfeit money, endangered cultures, and organic produces However, in the topic of depression, most of the students did not seem to be interested so they appeared to be tired of learning that lesson Some students even spoke to the teacher that this topic was too boring to write From the notes of students’ readiness and willingness to the task, about 85% were ready to write immediately... as they had passed the entrance exam into university designed to test mainly students’ knowledge of grammar and vocabulary However, this is a private university and has been run for only seven years so it can only attract several good students Most of them are assumed at preintermediate level of English proficiency In addition, at high school, they were controlled by teachers on their study As a result,... Besides, they had problems with expressions in English They sometimes also had problems with the use of words, prepositions and so on For students of low level (about 20%) got a lot of problems The problems include the information, knowledge on the topics, expressions in English, sentence writing, use of words and so on They seemed not to be confident to show their products to the teacher and their classmates... skill 2 Analysis of survey questionnaires Question 1: What is your assessment of these tasks in general? 80.00% 70.59% 70.00% 60.00% 50.00% 40.00% 29.41% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 0.00% 0% very useful useful neutral 0% not very useful 0% 0% useless very useless Chart 1: The usefulness of the tasks The first question in the survey aimed to find out students’ opinions about the usefulness of the designed tasks... critical thinking was one of the benefits that 52.94% of the students could get from the tasks Nearly 80% said that the tasks helped them share their ideas Above all, more than 90% claimed that the tasks would be useful to their future With this result, the teacher could be confident that the authentic tasks she applied were suitable to one of the most important requirements of an authentic task which ... of the thesis The thesis is composed of three parts: introduction, the study and conclusion PART A introduces some basic knowledge of rationale, aims of the study, research questions, scope of. .. is also collected by means of survey questionnaires given at the end of the term The questionnaires are of two kinds: scaling and multiple choices • Other sources of data include students’ diary... organization of the study PART B consists of four chapters: • Chapter one provides the literature review of writing as a language skill and authentic tasks • Chapter two presents the knowledge of methodology