Investigating theeffects of teaching communicative writing skills on intermediate EFL learners writing performance at saigon vina language center a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

ABSTRACT This study is carried out in order to identify the effects of teaching communicative writing on students’ writing performance and investigate what students’ attitudes towards te

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

INVESTIGATING THE EFFECTS OF

TEACHING COMMUNICATIVE WRITING

SKILLS ON INTERMEDIATE EFL

LEARNERS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE AT

SAIGON VINA LANGUAGE CENTER

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts (TESOL)

Supervisor NGUYEN DINH THU Ph.D

STATEMENT OF AUTHORITY

I hereby certify that this thesis is based on my original work except for quotations and citations which have been duly acknowledged I also declare that it has not been previously or currently submitted for any degree at this university or others

Name: Nguyen Thi Thao Phuong

Signature:

Date:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First, I would like to express my deep and sincere thanks and gratitude

to my supervisor, Nguyen Dinh Thu Ph.D, for his continuous professional support and encouragement Without his guidance, follow-up, and endless patience, this thesis would not have been completed

Thanks also go to my colleagues who are always ready to support me,give me advice and insightful comments during my thesis writing

Gratitude is owed to all my students, who participated in the study groups for their patience and cooperation They have been working with me during the time I conducted the study, which is highly appreciated

I also wish to express my deep love and appreciation to my parents, brothers and sisters for their encouragement, inspiration and support me throughout my life I am very much thankful to them for their unswerving love, understanding and continual support to the end of the thesis writing

Finally, I would like to acknowledge the Manager and the staff of Saigon Vina language center, who have given me best conditions, support and assistance during my study

ABSTRACT

This study is carried out in order to identify the effects of teaching communicative writing on students’ writing performance and investigate what students’ attitudes towards teaching communicative writing skills are

The study involved 68 intermediate students from 6 classes at Saigon Vina language center In the study, the pre-test and post-test were used to explore how teaching writing skill in a communicative way affects students’ writing performance In addition, a set of questionnaire was distributed to students, then was collected and analyzed so as to find out whether or not students like the implementation of the communicative approach into teaching writing

The results of the study showed that implementing communicative approach to teach writing has positive effects on students’ writing performance The writing scores of experimental group indicated that there was a significant improvement in writing ability after the treatment The findings from the questionnaire also give an optimistic perspective of implementing of teaching writing communicatively as most of the respondents expressed their supportive attitude towards teaching communicative writing

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Statement of authority i

Acknowledgements ii

Abstract iii

Table of contents iv

List of tables viii

List of abbreviations x

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Statement of problems 3

1.3 Teaching material 4

1.4 Purposes of the study 4

1.5 Research Questions 5

1.6 Significance of the study 5

1.7 Organization of the study 5

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

2.1 Introduction 7

2.2 The notion of writing 7

2.2.1 Definition of writing 7

2.2.2 Writing approaches 10

2.2.2.1 Product-based approach 10

2.2.2.2 Process-based approach 13

2.2.2.3 Genre-based approach 16

2.3 Comparing the product-based, process-based, and genre-based

approaches 18

2.4 The approach in the study: Communicative writing 20

2.4.1 Definition of communicative writing 20

2.4.2 What is not communicative in the writing classes 21

2.4.3 The effectiveness of teaching communicative writing 23

2.5 The implication of teaching communicative writing 25

2.6 Empirical studies 26

2.7 Chapter summary 28

CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 29

3.1 Introduction 29

3.2 Research design 29

3.2.1 Research site 29

3.2.2 Participants 30

3.3 Research methods 30

3.4 Research questions 31

3.5 Data collection 32

3.5.1 Research instruments 32

3.5.1.1 Writing test: Pre-test and post-test 33

3.5.1.2 Questionnaire 33

3.5.1.3 Experimental teaching procedures 36

3.5.2 Data collection procedure 40

3.6 Data analysis approaches 40

3.6.1 Analysis from the questionnaire 40

3.6.2 Analysis from the pre-test and post-test 41

3.7 Validity and reliability of instruments 42

3.8 Chapter summary 43

CHAPTER 4 DATA ANALYSIS, FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 44

4.1 Introduction 44

4.2 Research question 1: Does teaching writing in communicative way affect students’ writing performance? 44

4.2.1 Before the treatment 44

4.2.2 After the treatment 46

4.2.3 Summary 51

4.3 Research question 2: What are the students’ attitudes towards teaching communicative writing? 52

4.4 Discussion of results 61

4.4.1 Students’ writing performance 62

4.4.2 Students’ attitudes towards teaching communicative writing 65

4.5 Chapter summary 68

CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 69

5.1 Introduction 69

5.2 Main conclusions 71

5.3 Limitations of the study 71

5.4 Recommendations 71

5.5 Suggestions for further studies 72

5.6 Chapter summary 72

REFERENCES 73 APPENDICES 80

LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Group Statistics on pre-test of control group and experimental group Table 4.2 Independent samples t-test of the two groups before the experiment Table 4.3 Group statistic of post-test results

Table 4.4 Independent Samples T-test of two groups after treatment

Table 4.5 Paired Samples T-test of the control group before and after the

teaching instruction

Table 4.6 Paired Samples Correlations of the control group before and after

the teaching instruction

Table 4.7 Paired Samples Test of the control group before and after the

teaching instruction

Table 4.8 Paired Samples T-test of the experimental group before and after

the treatment

Table 4.9 Paired Samples Correlations of the experimental group before and

after the treatment

Table 4.10 Paired Samples Test of the experimental group before and after

the treatment

Table 4.11 Reliability Statistics

Table 4.12 Students’ responses towards types of writing texts used

Table 4.13 Students’ responses towards communicative aspects of the writing Table 4.14 Students’ response towards the skills integrating with writing Table 4.15 Students’ response towards topics used in the treatment

Table 4.16 Students’ comments about tasks and instructions teacher given Table 4.17 Students’ responses towards the activities employed

Table 4.18 Students’ level of confidence on composing writing texts after

the treatment

Table 4.19 Students’ engagement and learning motivation after the treatment Table 4.20 Students’ response towards the effectiveness of the communicative

approach in teaching writing

Table 4.21 The effectiveness of implementing pair work and group work in

teaching communicative writing

Table 4.22 Students’ responses to the effectiveness of teaching experiment

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background of the study

Of the four basic skills, writing is considered to be extremely difficult for students in language learning According to Semistraitis (2003), structuralists and audiolinguists emphasised oral forms of communication and reading, but left writing at the last stage of learning The teaching of writing skills has not been paid much attention from teachers and investment from students A lot of students do not like writing because it takes a lot of time and requires them to pay much attention to In reality, in many high schools or colleges, writing classes are still language-based writing classes for exam-orientation, but not for compositions of real-life context As above mentioned, teachers seem not to pay due attention to teaching writing or integrating students to write communicatively, which makes students more and more difficult to write effectively Normally, when writing, students just attempt to concentrate on the grammar points and structures they are dealing with They have no purpose for what they are writing, but for being forced to write In other words, they will be difficult to perform on an English composition when being asked to write since under the psychological pressure, students easily find difficult in expressing their linguistic ability, their capacity of generating the ideas or organizing, putting ideas intelligibly Once there is no purpose and meaning for what they do, students’ motivation

in learning writing will decrease In this case, teachers just promote students with some writing skills to help them pass the exam rather than to help them improve writing with a specific purpose and meaning

As we know, in high school context, writing was utilized as supporting skills in order to help students achieving other language skills For instance, students could use writing skills to do grammar exercises, to give the answer

for reading comprehension tests or to write the dictation And vice versa, students learn writing skills by doing many grammar-based drills rather than

a compositional text It can be said that compositional writing was not what students work with when teachers conduct their writing lessons However, compositional writing skill is now regarded as important as any other skills and is taught in EFL classrooms as a separate skill accompanied by reading, listening, and speaking skills When writing a composition, besides having knowledge of vocabularies and grammar structures, students are dealing with writing on a topic, following that theme and aiming at improving other sub-skills such as reasoning skills, creative skills or problem-solving skills The compositions should be of real-life contexts, which help students to identify and understand who their real audience of what they are writing is

Nowadays, together with changes in English teaching methodology paradigms and the demands in written communication, writing has now been taught as an important skill to help students communicate effectively For language learning, students need to pay much attention to improve communicative ability and use language effectively Particularly, learning writing skills requires students to take into account the communicative purpose and the communicative technique It’s important to apply into writing lessons with communicative aspects so as to enhance students’ use of the language to write in a communicative way Therefore, facilitating students to write with a purpose and meaning is necessary to develop their writing performance

According to Lam (2013), the four language skills are of an equal importance in teaching language, teaching writing still encounters obstacles: adopted methods in teaching are mostly product-based, and another is from the current assessment system focusing on reading and grammar rather than writing Currently, in almost all language centers, the concentration is on developing oral communication skills for students or meeting the need of

certificate for the personal purposes, which also makes the obstacles for learning language effectively The length of courses has not been enough to train students every English skill Teachers have tendency to focus on improving students’ speaking or listening skills and help them get through the international certificate with practicing given tests There exists a shortage of attention to teaching and learning writing communicatively with a purpose and meaning Therefore, teachers should facilitate students with sufficient linguistic input and the attention in order to encourage them to write Moreover, the characteristics of writing required in different text types need to

be considered so that students can convey their ideas on the topic and meet the expectation of the readers In general, the research attempts to seek ways in order to help students enhance their writing skill and applying communicative approach in teaching writing is considered as an effective tool

1.2 Statement of Problems

Saigon Vina was established in 2010 to provide the English training for students of various ages Each class studies with one Vietnamese teacher who is in charge of teaching the four skills of English and with one foreign teacher focusing on speaking with two periods every two weeks Vietnamese teachers are required to teach all the units in the course book, the Smart Choice 2 (the second edition) by Ken Wilson, Oxford University Press (2007) In order to promote students’ pronunciation as well as speaking skills, foreign teachers are assigned to teach them pronunciation aspects together with the discussion of other real-life topics outside the textbook

Understanding the importance of teaching language skills, Saigon Vina Language Center has tried to facilitate students here with language knowledge in a most effective way to help them be confident to communicate with others in English Students can be active in learning English, and from that, they can communicate effectively They have had access to the communicative activities in each lesson However, like almost

all schools or language centers, Saigon Vina Language Center also faces difficulty in teaching writing skills for students In reality, writing is known

as the most difficult skill of the four basic language skills Therefore, the big concern of teachers here is how to improve students’ writing skill Students just know the grammar rules and structures, but cannot be able to put the language into their writing Sometimes students depend on what teachers give them to write In some cases, they have their writing based on the available models of writing, lacking of creativity in ideas and ways of organizing their writing As a result, an urgent need to change the way of teaching writing is essential Together with the application of communicative approach into teaching reading, speaking and listening language skills, teaching writing communicatively will be effective for students’ writing performance

1.3 Teaching material

The main course book to teach English for intermediate classes is Smart Choice 2 (the second edition) by Ken Wilson, Oxford University Press (2007) The whole course book makes up of 12 units, in which the four skills

of listening, speaking, reading, and writing are integrated The primary goal

of the course book is to teach students the communicative competence - the ability they use to communicate in English in proportion of the situations, purposes, and roles they act in specific real contexts Throughout the course, students have the opportunities to personalize the language they learn, to make use of their own world knowledge, and to express their opinions and ideas Though the focus of the course book is speaking skills, many other elements like grammar, functions, topics, vocabulary, listening, etc, are provided to enable students to support for their written communication

1.4 Purposes of the study

This research is conducted to investigate two objectives as follows:

(1) To identify the effects of teaching communicative writing on students’ writing performance

(2) To investigate students’ attitudes towards teaching communicative writing skills

Based on the main research question, there are two sub-questions:

1 Does teaching writing in communicative ways affect students’writing performance?

2 What are the students’ attitudes towards teaching communicative writing?

1.6 Significance of the study

This research is carried out with the hope to gain some insights into teaching writing in communicative way

It is hoped that the findings of the research will offer some useful suggestions for applying communicative approach into teaching students’ writing skills so that they can use the language to write communicatively and effectively

1.7 Organization of the study

This research consists of five chapters Chapter 1, the introduction, provides background information of the study, statement of the problems and the statement of the purposes This chapter also presents research questions, significance of the study and the overview of study Chapter 2 consists of the theoretical background information of the study and a review of related

literature for the research Chapter 3 describes the research methodology employed for the research, which presents the research methods, research site, sampling, research instruments, data collection and data analysis This chapter also goes through the validity and reliability of the study As for chapter 4, it includes the analyses of the data collected from the instruments, namely pre-test and post-test, and the questionnaire; then is followed with finding discussion Chapter 5 gives out some main conclusions of the research, points out some limitations, and offers some recommendations, and suggestions for further research

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Introduction

As one of the most challenging aspects of language learning in foreign language classrooms, writing requires students to have extensive effort and the teacher the specialized instruction Not only do ESL/EFL student writers have to learn the linguistic features of the English language but also its rhetorical aspects and conventions These features are usually different from those of their first language, so it is essential for students to make effort with writing in order to communicate effectively with presumed readers While linguistic features such as grammar, vocabulary, and spelling are nearly always stressed in ESL/EFL classrooms, communicative aspects are focused

on less, or are sometimes ignored Once communicative approach is adopted for language teaching and learning, the context of language use is treated as

an important factor in defining, teaching and measuring language ability, especially in writing

2.2 The notion of writing

To most of the languages, writing plays an important role in representing the language and emotion It is considered as a medium of human communication in which language and emotion are mainly expressed through the inscription or recording of signs and symbols It is a complement

to speech or spoken language, which makes the totality of the language

2.2.1 Definition of writing

Many educators have contributed to the sources of theory of teaching language many definitions and solutions for teaching issues related to four basic language skills including writing And the following are some of definitions of writing on the ground of the main writing approaches

Writing, firstly, is considered as a textual product (Nguyen-Dieu, 2013) As Byrne (1988) stated, writing is the act in which people form the graphic symbols and put them together so as to make meaningful words and sentences Like Byrne, Tribble (1996) showed his agreement of the idea that writing is spoken in graphic forms and helps to express human thoughts Similarly, Ager (1998) stated that writing is the method in which language is represented in the visual or tactile form It is made up of a set of symbols that

is utilized to represent the sound of speech, and also another for other different functions such as punctuation and numerals All these symbols help express the writer’s ideas directly In general, writing is a form of communication that allows students to put their feelings and ideas on paper,

to organize their knowledge and beliefs into convincing arguments, and to convey meaning through well-constructed texts

Secondly, regarding to the process approach, writing is a cognitive process (Flower & Hayes, 1981; Zamel, 1983) Accordingly, the writers paid attention to their ideas, thinking and experiences during the writing process

so that they can make a better text As children learn the steps of writing, and build new skills, writing evolves from the first simple sentences to elaborate stories and essays Spelling, vocabulary, grammar, and organization come together and grow together to help students demonstrate more advanced writing skills each year

Nguyen-Dieu (2013) mentioned that writing plays an important role in expressing the communicative functions of language It can be said to be the bridge which helps writers turn their thoughts into written forms in a meaningful way to serve the purpose of communication and mentally interact with the message (Fadmawati, 2012) Elbow (1973, 1981) and Zamel (1982, 1983) also considered writing as a means of conveying the writer’s voice and ideas irrespective of the context or the reader Writing skills are those needed

to compose meaningful text of sentence length or longer, communicating

ideas, messages and information in understandable words and language for a variety of audiences

In addition, according to Arapoff (1967), writing is “a purposeful selection and organization of experience” (p.34), which can be first taken through direct perceptions and/or next through reading In order for the readers to understand fully what writers express in their writing, it is necessary for writers to choose carefully what they should mention, what they want to write and how to make their ideas meet the readers’ requirement In addition to giving the definition of writing, Hampton (1989) also defined some relevant writing goals The first goal is that when writers

are able to write without much assistance, they are independent The second

one is for gaining comprehensibility when they can write so that it can be

read and understood by themselves and others Thirdly, when they are able

to write smoothly and easily as well as understandably, they become fluent

Last but not least, they obtain the creativity when they can express their own ideas, not copying what has already been written, so that their ideas can be read and understood

From different viewpoint, writing is viewed as “a creative act in which the process - the discovery of the true self - is as important as the product” (Berlin, 1988, p 484) Students have tendency of liking expressing themselves freely, and when they are encouraged to look for their own voices, they can develop their power on writing; somehow they can make a creative works upon their writing

In general, there might be a lot of definitions of writing because with different ideas, it might have different ways of understanding In this study, the perception that writing is considered as means of conveying communicative functions of language is taken into account It is important for students to express their thoughts into written forms in a meaningful way, which can help them to reach the purposes of communication Whatever

definition, writing always plays an important in the linguistic system that helps human being communicate and express their minds over the time

2.2 2 Writing approaches

As mentioned above, teaching writing is considered as one of challenges to many teachers since it is difficult for them to get access to students’ attention without any appropriate teaching approaches Applying one or combining many of teaching approaches depends on each point of view of the teachers And what is the best teaching writing approach or how

to teach writing effectively is still a question for many of us to take into consideration In order to make clear on which approach that is the most suitable to teaching writing, the literature review of some writing approaches are presented in the following part

2.2.2.1 Product-based approach

The first writing approach presented is product-based one According

to Tangpermpoon (2008), product-based approach is one of the earliest

approaches in which teachers guide students to begin with the input text during the pre-writing stage then move to compose their first own texts and lastly deal with the text correction based on their peer or teacher’s feedback

As Brown (1994) mentioned, teachers have tendency to focus on a final piece

of writing, do further revision and assign it as a sample text The students will be given a coherent, error-free text as a final product; after that, they will possibly initiate what details they need for their own writing, copy and then transform models provided by textbooks or by teachers (Nunan, 1999) According to Pincas (1982), in this approach, teachers follow four sequential writing stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing In familiarization, students are taught grammatical and vocabulary features, often through sample text Students practice the language features in controlled and guided way, and then with increasing

freedom until they get ready to write by themselves, using their own knowledge to construct the new text independently in free writing stage Hyland (2002, p.6) stated that the product-based approach considers texts as either “a contextually autonomous object”or discourse Accordingly, texts-as-autonomous objects have emphasized mainly the structures or grammar points of the writing, whereas the discourse has concentrated on cohesion of the texts and their capability of being processed or understood by the readers In addition, the view of texts-as-autonomous objects is considered to be mechanistic with the perspective that communication and interaction among human might be done through the ideas transferred from this mind to another with the support of language because of the belief that

“meanings can be encoded in texts and recovered by anyone with the right decoding skills” (Hyland, 2002, p.7) In this approach, the formal features of texts are paid attention to, and the instruction of writing lessons aims at helping students to master the propositional explicitness and accuracy (Yi, 2009)

According to Richards and Rodgers (1986, p.49), “the medium of language is oral”, then writing is the secondary medium in charge of building

up the oral habits Yi (2009) stated that regarding to the product-approach, learning is the process of forming the habits, in which students work with the model texts given by textbooks or teachers, then imitate, copy and transform them into their own

Saeidi and Sahebkheir (2011) mentioned in their study that this approach mainly focus on modeling, which is regarded as a beneficial source

to provide students with feedback It is also an effective teaching tool if appropriately integrated into the context of writing process This approach provides students with enough knowledge of grammar and vocabulary through the model texts so that they can carry out their language learning properly

Contrary to the advantages of this approach, Murray (1980) indicates some disadvantages of utilizing model texts as a supporting tool in teaching writing skills The first disadvantage is that model texts can prevent students from expressing their own ideas independently, limit their creativity In the product-based approach, what students deal with the model texts are reading the content of the texts, analyzing what structures or what grammar points are being using, then imitating and beginning with the same organization and writing They are “encouraged to use the same plan in different settings, apply the same forms, regardless of content”, which can inhibit writers rather than empower or liberate them (Eschholz, 1980, as cited in Haghi & Pasand,

2013, p.76)

Secondly, the writing processes are not considered important in the product-based approach Exactly, in teaching writing, the teachers seem to ignore what and how students are doing their writing activities in classrooms Students write without knowing how the writing text is formed, where/ how they can get the ideas, or what the way to organize and develop the ideas properly and meaningfully are Teachers focus on the teaching writing with the model texts, which could form students the habits of imitation, copying and transformation of the correct language in order for them to invent other similar products (Nunan, 2000)

Another shortcoming is that students may have no idea of the audience and purposes of composing their writing without content Students do their writing without motivation and target audience, which decrease students’ interest in writing As Zamel (1982, p.195) stated, “the whole notion why and for whom is not taken into account in the product-based approach.” The students have tendency of producing texts for teachers only, who will read and evaluate their writing, but no one else They do not keep in mind who is the real readers of their writing texts in current life In other words, they can not communicate with their real-life audiences effectively

Yi (2009) mentioned that the product-based approach, in the 1960s, can not cultivate and reinforce the students’ thoughts or expression and have an adequate description about the process in which students compose their texts Thus, another approach - a process/cognitive-based approach was emerged This approach focuses on what the students do during the process of their composition of the writing, being discussed in the following.

2.2.2.2 Process-based approach

Another approach of writing is process-based This approach has given students opportunities for extended writing and engage them in the writing process more than a production of a text Graham et al (2013) stated that with the process approach, students have paid more attention to writing for real audiences and got higher interaction and ownership with personalized individual feedback

According to Feng and Sun (2009), it is difficult to find a perfect text, but possible for us day by day continuously practice working, inventing, self-evaluating and revising any of which we are doing, then we eventually can come closer to perfection of the text In other words, with the process approach, it is necessary for the students to develop practical strategies for their writing performance concerning getting started, drafting, revising and editing (Silva & Matsuda, as cited in Khabiri & Rouhani-Tonekaboni, 2009) Similarly, Tompkins (2004) asserts that this approach concern is to make students aware of their task in different stages of writing including planning, drafting, revising, editing and an evaluation checklist should be provided for students afterwards

Sharing the same ideas, Reid (1993) stated that in process approach,

students were encouraged to explore a topic through writing, to share drafts with teachers and peers, and to use each draft as a beginning for the next This approach of writing emphasizes the composing processes including planning, drafting and revising As Zamel (1982) said, it involves not only in

the writing itself, but prewriting and rewriting Its concern is to find out what writers do when they write, by focusing on different stages that the writers will go through According to O’Brien (2004)’s definition, the concept of process approach is an activity in which students need to self-discover their ideas, the meaning of their compositions (as cited in Tangpermpoon, 2008) Besides, in the process approach, the composing act is also considered to be recursive, explanatory and generative (Schmitt, 2002) Thus, it can be said that the process-based approach helps to give opportunity for students to generate and deal with their own ideas, get feedback from teachers, and allow them to have time to reflect themselves Once they reflect on what they are coping with, they can get access to the language input and make their plans or their ideas become better (Myles, 2002)

As for Attelisi (2012), he stated that the process approach helps encourage ESL students to spend more their time on planning what they are going to write and revising their drafts in order to shape their ideas and organize them logically and appropriately Other techniques such as collaborative learning, and peer discussion and feedback will help to increase students’ awareness of audiences and their expectations This approach guilds students through the whole process of the writing tasks by giving them feedback and enough time for peer and teacher reviews It gives students writing techniques to help them write and polish their writing This process-approach less focuses on accuracy of grammar, but more on the fluency of the ideas that students described in the texts This can partly decrease students’ anxiety in composing a text However, as Myles (2002) believed, the process approach to writing is only appropriate when students have the opportunity to receive feedback on their written text Students often lack of experience in producing a piece of writing, if ideas were generated inappropriately, they may fail to meet the readers’ expectation

Besides, it is undeniable that this approach is learner-centered, and teachers play a role as a facilitator, but not a controller all of what students

do in teaching process It can be said that teachers should not be the kings rule all the activities of the students They should give students some space to ignite their spirits of creativity and innovation Students have to get themselves involved into an active participation of the discussions or teamwork activities By taking part in these activities, the process of learning will become more comprehensive

Together with the advantages of this process-based approach, there are some of its drawbacks found out during the procedures that teachers employed the teaching of writing skills Its first shortcoming is that students compose their writing text based on a set of same steps They go through the same process for all the writing texts they are working with, which makes them reluctant in adapting to the new way of writing

In addition, the process-based approach does not meet the need of linguistic input that is necessary to facilitate to students According to Badger

& White (2000), the input provided for students is often taken from academic texts in which some of linguistics conventions are chosen and analyzed in order to help students to master However, the linguistic input relating to real-life contexts, or regarding to topics, aiming at other features of language such as audiences or cultural differences should be taken into consideration

to equip students, rather than from academic contexts

Generally speaking, when applying this approach into teaching, teachers focus on helping students to improve their writing skills instead of creating a correct writing It is important to make the writing process of skilled writers explicit through research and replicable by unskilled writers Consequently, writing ability in this process-based approach is defined as the ability in which students initiate, evolve ideas and then use certain revising and editing practices to develop them to maturity in a given context In other words, this

approach provides students opportunities to write effectively and successfully with necessary writing techniques

2.2.2.3 Genre-based approach

One more approach in teaching writing skills is regarded as

genre-based approach Yi (2009, p.60) mentioned that the teaching of writing with

the genre-based approach has included the addition of elements of audience and social context Accordingly, writers coping with the writing activities can recognize the context and audience that the written product is targeted Writers are likely to realize that rhetorical knowledge such as format, style and content in connecting a text to a social purpose also plays an important role in forming an effective writing text Thus, it can not be denied that “the emphasis on the constraints of form and content is related to the notion of

‘genre’.” (Tribble, 1996, as cited in Yi, 2009, p.60) According to Swales’ (1990) proposition, a genre consists of a variety of communicative events The members of these events share some set of communicative purposes which are recognised by the expert members of the parent discourse community All constitute the rationale for the genre that “shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style” “In addition to purpose, exemplars of a genre exhibit various patterns of similarity in terms of structure, style, content and intended audience” (Swales, 1990, p.58) As Grabe & Kaplan (1996) defined, genre is

a communicative event corresponding to the purpose and structure, style, content and intended audience There many examples of genres in written discourse that consist of different fiction novels, grant applications, progress reports, course syllabuses, survey articles, etc According to Tribble (1996),

on the ground of this notion of genre, the genre-based approach is believed to develop in the writing curriculum, which expresses the needs of students who are required to write effective texts that meets the readers’ specific expectations of form, content and style

For Attelisi (2012), he mentioned in his study that genre is not representative for any other approaches to the teaching of writing However,

he indicated that genre is considered a social dimension that can help to enrich process approaches He said that the focus of process approach is on cognitive processes, but not on explanation why certain linguistic and rhetorical features are chosen Therefore, teachers need to give an explicit teaching about how different text types are required to be different in structures The writing instruction also needs to consider the purpose and context in which it occurs

This approach focuses on the interplay between language and social context It emphasizes “the purposeful, interactive and sequential character of different genres and the way language is systematically linked to context through patterns of lexico-grammatical and rhetorical feature” (Hyland,

2003, p.22) He describes this method as “a process of modeling-negotiating-constructing.” (2003, p.21) Students are exposed to a model of the genre they need to produce in order to be familiar with the appropriate language structure and rhetorical aspects of that genre and its purpose and audiences This can be achieved by reading and analyzing some authentic texts that represent the target genre, with a special focus on the linguistic and rhetorical features that characterize this sort of genre

contextualizing-With the teacher’s assistance, and by manipulating several writing activities and processes, students construct texts Gradually, the teacher’s scaffolding is withdrawn giving way to students’ involvement in constructing the text independently The genre-focused approach can be considered another forward step whose aim is to enrich the teaching and learning writing It is considered as a formula which contains positive aspects of the preceding approaches in addition to new features that have been added to give writing a social dimension

According to Halliday (1994), people write to achieve different purposes in different contexts, and this in turn involves variation in the ways they use language as opposed to universal rules As for those who write to accomplish the same purposes, their writings may have the similar structures, thereby “belong to the same genre” (Hyland, 2003) It can be said that a genre is a social process achieved by the interaction of members of a certain community in order to achieve specific purposes The structure of writing depends on the purposes, the social contexts and the readers in which it is intended

Like other writing approaches above, the genre-based one has come to have some of the disadvantages Genre-based approach has concentration on the rhetorical comprehension of the texts to which the teachers get much attention There is the thought of considering other writing-related skills not important to produce texts Undervaluing the skills that are needed for creating the text can prevent students from having fully understanding how and what a real text should be, which leading to writing ineffectively

In general, this approach regards writing as a social act whose ultimate aim is effective communication The process of communication between the writer and the reader cannot be successful if knowledge of language is not taken into consideration

2.3 Comparing the product, process, and genre approaches

As reviewed above, there are differences and similarities of the three approaches The product approach helps students free from worries over writing tasks by providing them with knowledge of grammar and vocabulary from a model text The writing development is regarded as mostly the result

of the imitation of texts provided and analyzed by the teachers The process approach emphasizes the composing processes which writers use in their writing It provides students with writing techniques such as drafting techniques, peer feedback, and teacher feedback, to help them write and

improve their writing However, there is not much focus on linguistic knowledge According to Lam (2013, p.23), genre-based approach considers writing being “concerned with knowledge language like product approach”, but “being tied closely to a social purpose” Additionally, Gee (1997) says that “the process approach generally represented a reaction against the product-based approach whereas the genre approach represented a reaction to the so-called progressivism curriculum” (as cited in Badger & White, 2000, p.156) As for Kamler (1995, p.9), he criticizes the genre approach because

of “its narrow focus on language and text and its lack of attention to the instructional and disciplinary contexts in which texts are constructed”

As mentioned in the previous parts, there are some of the weaknesses of the three approaches discussed To begin with, the weaknesses of product approaches are keeping students away from their creativity, ignoring the process of writing, overlooking the sense of purpose and audience in composing a text, and having no attention of the social context in which it occurs Lam (2013) also mentioned the disadvantages of process approach including assuming all writing as being produced by the same set of processes There is an insufficient attention to product As for of genre-based approach, this approach requires rhetorical understanding of texts, which can result in prescriptive teaching of texts It can also lead to over-attention to written products and undervalues skills needed to produce texts

“These approaches complement each other and are not contradictory in the ESL classroom” (Attelisi, 2012, p.10) Through the accumulation of various theories, teachers can have opportunities to select what suit their context However, to many teachers nowadays, writing is also considered as

a means of communication between writers and readers, it is necessary for them to help students realize that writing is learned in order to achieve social purposes and to communicate with certain audiences In other words, the

teaching writing in communicative way is effective in improving students’ writing with purpose and meaning

2.4 The approach in the study: Communicative writing

In order to facilitate students the best way of writing, many approaches have been applied into teaching All above mentioned approaches have their advantages and disadvantages during the process of implementation In this part, another approach, communicative approach, has been taken into account so as to see whether it has effects on students' writing The definition of this approach is firstly presented in the following

2.4.1 Definition of communicative writing

According to Altaf (2011), “Communicative writing is writing with a purpose and meaning It has purpose, logic, unity of grammar and unity of thought” McKay (1979, p.73) also stated that it “focuses on both the grammatical and communicative aspect of writing”

From the above definitions, purpose and meaning are two of the main communicative aspects of writing Before starting to write, the first question any writer should consider is “Why am I writing?” or “What is my goal or

my purpose for writing?” The purpose can be to complete the assignment, to pass the exams, but the long-range purpose of writing is to communicate to a particular audience (Reid & Kowalski, 2012) They said that writing purpose

is the reason why you are writing For instance, you can write a letter to invite your friends to your birthday party, or you can also write to express your thankfulness to people who help you a lot, etc The focus on the purpose

of writing before starting to write can help you have an overall planning on what to be focused, how to choose the form and organize your writing All

in all, understanding your purpose for writing will make you a better writer

so that you can communicate successfully to your audience

Besides putting more emphasis on the purpose of writing, writing teaching also pays attention to syntactic and morphological patterns to meaning (Attelisi, 2012) He supposes that, as language learners, students not only need to know the grammatical structures of the target language and but also which forms of these structures should be used to convey their ideas

2.4.2 What is not communicative in the writing classes?

As we know, writing is not an easy task and teaching writing is one of the challenges to the teachers The fact is that in the writing classes, the teachers have had tendency of assigning students with doing writing, providing grades on them, then watching students’ pages in red ink of correction without them reading their work again According to Hoang (2007), the teachers will usually give students the writing task and provide them about twenty or thirty minutes to think and write about it What students need to do is to read the task, think it over and write; the teachers then collect their papers and mark them It can be said that students easily feel frustrated when being asked to write more and assessed mainly on their writing, but not for any rewards for their efforts to write

As Altaf (2011) and McKay (2009) mentioned above, writing communicatively is writing with purpose and meaning in regarding to appropriateness of using the grammar and well-organized ideas or thought In other words, producing a text that serves for communication purposes require students to understand the context where the situation happened, the reason

to write, the audience aimed at, the content needed to be mentioned, and the use of appropriate conventions for that context, audience and context However, these communicative aspects have not been taken into consideration appropriately in writing teaching and learning

In the writing classes, students do not clearly establish their focus on the topic or the subjects of the writing tasks If only students can establish a clear focus, they can help the readers understand the point of their piece of

writing (Bowen & Cali, 2003) If not, they can lack interest in the topics, and

do not engage themselves in the writing activities, which are leading to an unclear focus of the subjects In other words, they do not clarify the context that the situations occurred specifically from the topic, which is easily to dim the concentration on the subjects of the writing Once there is not a focus in writing, the readers might feel confused and uninterested in the text and make it an ineffective writing Furthermore, naturally, writing is often individual activity in which students often do their writing in silence As Tran (2007) stated, writing has been conducted in the classroom in which the teacher is considered as the sole audience, and the students require to write without any awareness of the writing process or any specific skills they should make use of The writing activity involves in students’ physical efforts and takes them a lot of time to work on In a language class, this activity, thus, is not often caught the attraction of the students and even the teachers Besides, there are many problems relating to linguistic, psychology and cognition that makes teaching and learning writing become more challenge As a result, they lack of the inspiration in each writing class and lose their focus on it

In addition, it is easily seen that students often do not see who their real audience for their writing is, and why they have to write Actually, all of these writing tasks need to have a target audience and a communicative purpose In the English language class, however, writing often lacks these things As said before, they are often asked to write, which is possible that they think they are writing for their teachers to read, to evaluate Their work can be just for their teachers, but not for anyone else Actually, they need to write in order to meet the need of the readers and the readers for their writing can be their friends, their family members or for their business purposes in the future The students seem not to realize this rather than their readers are their teachers who want them to write

Another thing relates to the content and the use of appropriate conventions expressed in students’ writing As Olsen (1999) stated, in writing class, some students can not compose an effective writing text because of the inadequacy of syntactic and lexical competence Similarly, according to Weigh (2002), due to the constraints of limited language knowledge, writing may be hampered because the need to focus on language rather than content is more considerate In addition, there is a tendency that almost students are guided to write with the model texts or with the ideas given by their teachers, and then corrected grammatically in term of sentence formation, usage and mechanics As a result, students might have the similar ideas or the same organization of opinions in their writing, which makes no distinction from others It is not helpful for students to think critically and work actively Moreover, the content and the conventions are parts of revision for what students have done and the teachers’ concerns are mainly the sub-skills in writing Beside the grammar competence, the spelling and punctuation are dictated rather than that of communicative competence,

which reduces the possibility to be communicative

Though many approaches have been applied to teaching writing, but

in order to make an effectiveness of teaching writing, we need to put communicative aspects into consideration

2.4.3 The effectiveness of teaching communicative writing

Teaching communicative writing enables students to do creative work

so that they can deal with the real life situations As Wegerif & Dawes (2004) mentioned, the creativity is considered as an essential skill that allows

us to have a high quality work In learning and teaching writing, students’ creativity can be nurtured by teachers and learning environments By encouraging students to question, to open to new ideas, and learn from mistakes and failures, students’ creativity can be developed, like other skills Once students themselves realize they can possibly produce a good written

work, they can get more feeling and motivation to write In addition, students are ready to learn more and more without feeling of boring Moreover, it prepares students for practical life

Using communicative teaching method enables us a lot of possibilities for choosing a variety of activities observe and find out the appropriate activities Communication can be achieved through interaction between students or between students and teachers with classroom activities in which pair work, group work or project-work have a great help According to Trilling and Fadel (2009), when working in pairs or groups, students are assumed to share the responsibility for collaborative work, and benefit from the individual contributions of the members in group Thus, they can learn more through this interaction and collaboration with members In addition, when giving students writing assignments, teacher can use different instructions like the topic, the reasons why they should write, main ideas about what to write or how to organize their writing All of these help students easily to come up with their ideas and plan their draft Teachers give feedback and analysis how their students’ writing is accomplished Together with developing writing, students can develop their critical thinking leading

to creative writing and to communicative writing since they can corporate all four skills in their learning Writing what they like can develop their creativity; make them feel free to use vocabulary and grammar structures to express their opinions without worrying about others’ judgments

Teachers can ask students to write about the most interesting things, the hobbies or anything else, and if they are free to choose their topic in connection to everyday life, they can do it better Project works are also good way to help students be creative and communicative In addition, compositions and essays enhance communicative writing for students to express themselves in a free way by developing ideas and opinions

In general, by letting students free to write for whatever they want, teachers can help them acquire better the language, provide the possibilities and develop creativity in writing

2.5 Implications for communicative teaching

Teaching writing in communicative way has emphasized the purpose of writing In order to learn how to write, students not only need to know the grammatical structures of the target language but they also need to know which forms of these structures should be used to convey their ideas Besides the syntactic and morphological patterns to meaning, there is certain language structures used to communicate particular functions Students have

to learn the functions relevant to their needs This approach introduces features of the process approach together with emphasizing on the purpose and the audience of students’ writing

According to Nunan (1991), communicative approach emphasizes on learning to communicate through interaction among students in the target language Through communicative activities conducted, students are required

to work hard, but to be offered the opportunities to express their ability more

In other words, the activities such as pair and group work, role play, the exchange of information, problem-solving, and self-expression are all encouraged Employing such activities probably encourages students to be involved in actual interaction in the classroom, thus developing the four language skills as in their real life

According to Lopez (1984) and Nunan (1989), teachers are required to

be flexible and creative in conducting different teaching methods and techniques so as to produce effective teaching performance since each of the students has their own needs and interests Moreover, Richards and Lockhart (1994) mentioned that teachers can play varied roles from facilitator, planner, motivator to group organizer to support their students’ learning The teachers’ role is to help students to develop and achieve communication or

meaning As facilitators, teachers organize the resources and the activities for students in order to ease the communication process As for planners, teachers prepare the course with specific activities in order to obtain the lesson objectives Playing the roles of motivators or group organizers, teachers deal with encouraging and arranging students into pairs or groups, which can increase their collaboration and interaction Whatever roles teachers play, they need to take into account of the roles of students, the

center of the classroom

2.6 Empirical studies

Reviewing the literature on different approaches of teaching writing, in his article, Hirano (2010) indicated the importance of learning and teaching communicative writing for Japanese students He withdrew the conclusion that it is essential for students to be facilitated with the skill of communicative writing skills since it is now becoming an important English ability to learn In addition, there is an urgent need of setting up an encouraging environment for students in order for them to be easy in conveying their written communication

Fairley and Fathelbab (2011) carried out a study on the challenges that the teachers are faced with in implementing communicative approach in their reading and writing classrooms The study presented six of the most common challenges including the lack of enthusiasm, slow finishers, unengaged audience, and lack of materials, unequal student participation, and lack of student investment In the study, the research also highlighted many of the principles of communicative language teaching so as for the teachers to address some other problems that they may encounter in applying communicative approach into their teaching This study is aimed at empowering teachers to make a trial with this approach and get success Cheng and Ho (2008) conducted a study on applying the variation

theory to Chinese communicative writing The study aimed at exploring the

students’ capability of getting experiences from learning writing in different ways, which showed significant difference in their writing approaches There were 38 students participating in the study In order to give a hand in discerning students into communicative aspects of communicative writing like the communicative purpose, communicative targets and communicative messages, three learning tasks were formed and employed into specific lessons within the experimental teaching The researcher also made a comparison between students’ writings before and after the study The results showed that there was qualitative difference in their writings and it was stated that students expressed purpose of communication more clearly in the post-study In general, the results of the study indicated that students have tendency of writing in monotonously and lack of concentration on what they should write afterwards Also, the study figured out the possible solution for reducing these problems of students’ writing

Nguyen-Dieu (2013) conducted the study which aimed at investigating students’ and teachers’ beliefs and attitudes towards the application of process genre approach into teaching English Business Writing The study also explored the challenges teachers and students face in implementing the Vietnamese context and give some suggestions dealing with those constrains The participants involved in the study comprised 52 second-year students from two classes 14D1 and 14D2 and 14 English teachers from English department at Ba Ria Vung Tau Teacher Training College The results of the study indicated the positive effects of applying process genre approach in teaching on students’ writing performance and figured out some of difficulties that teachers and students met within the process of implementation of process genre approach

Dealing with the same issue, Lam’s study (2013) aimed at investigating the effects of using the process genre approach on 11th graders’ writing performance and their attitudes towards teaching writing with process genre

instructions The participants are 87 students in grade 11 at Doc Binh Kieu High School in Tien Giang Province, of which 43 students from class 11A8 are chosen for the experimental group, 44 from class 11A9 for controlled group His study targeted on high school students, specifically on 11thgraders, but not on university students like Nguyen-Dieu (2013)’s In this study, the researcher found out that the experimental group obtained the significant improvement in the post-test results with the help of the treatment

of process genre approach In other words, the study stated the effectiveness

of applying process genre approach into teaching writing for students in general

2.7 Chapter summary

This chapter first provides a review on the definitions of writing and three main approaches of teaching English writing In this chapter, the researcher also tries to make comparison of writing approaches and propose

to apply the hybric approach – communicative approach – in teaching writing

to intermediate students In addition, a review on communicative writing and the implication for teaching communicative writing are followed Furthermore, the researcher reviews some of the previous empirical studies

on writing approaches in order to show the research gap that this present study can fill in In the next chapter, more details about the methodology for conducting this study will be introduced

CHAPTER 3 METHODOLOGY 3.1 Introduction

This chapter first introduces the research design including the research site and participants of the study The next part details the research methods, the research questions that consist of two sub-questions involved The data collection and data analysis approaches are presented respectively Then the validity and reliability of the study are discussed

3.2 Research design

3.2.1 Research site

The study is going to be carried out with 6 classes at Saigon Vina Language Center in Ho Chi Minh City The center was established in 2010 to provide the language training for students of various ages Its head office is

at 374 Xo Viet Nghe Tinh, Ward 25, Binh Thanh District, Ho Chi Minh City

At the present, it has expanded with many other campuses in Binh Duong, Dong Nai, Ba Ria – Vung Tau and Buon Ma Thuoc – Dak Lak province The mission of center is to provide students with the best language training at the cheapest fee They are trying to improve their quality of teaching foreign languages and modernize the facilities more and more so that students can learn in the best conditions

As for the study, the researcher chooses her three current teaching classes at this center for the experimental group Another three classes instructed by another teacher will be chosen as the control group The subjects are 70 students from six classes who have the same intermediate level of English Both groups will use their usual materials and receive the instruction The experimental group will be exposed to communicative writing instruction while control group will still be instructed in the usual lecturing style For the control group, the instructor will mainly give