Efective ways of corecting mistakes in writing skill

A Preamble I Reason for choosing the research It cannot be denied that English is not only the most popular language in the world but also an important language Seeing the importance of this language in international communication and integration, the Vietnamese Education and Training has chosen Vietnamese the core subject English is needed in certain fields such as tourism, trade, foreign company, computer user and so on English is also a compulsory subject in the GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) so every student need to have a certain level of English to be ready for the exams and after graduation, students at least can communicate, read and write in English To help students master the English skills (reading, writing, listening and writing), we- the teachers of English need to constantly renovate the teaching methods and curriculum When studying English, writing skill is considered one of the most important skills that learners must master if the really want to be successfully in communication Learning English is not an exception, especially in the period of economic integration when most of the information is in English, the writing skilled is more demanding Writing is a skill that people, whatever jobs they do, need to use every day In reality, students have met a lot of different kinds of writing to better their learning process However, according to Nunan” In term of skills, producing a coherent, fluent and extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is to in language” II The aim of the study During the process of learning language, makings mistakes is an unenviable part and it plays an important part When practicing writing, students have to face a lot of difficulties in order to have a coherent and fluent passage For grade 10 and 11 students, it is essential to show them basic mistakes and guide them to correct the mistakes because it can help students better next time and improve their writing skill For teachers of English who has the main responsibility to help students improve this skill, they need to have not only good method of teaching writing skill but also knowledge and language skill There are many factors that affect learners Correcting mistakes is one of the important factors Ii can’t be denied that making mistake is unenviable The more students concentrate on their studying, the more they want to create and develop in their own ways This is one of the reasons why students make more and more mistakes but making mistakes is considered a positive way to make progress Basing on the mistakes the students make, they can be aware of the level at which they are Moreover basing on the mistakes the students make also helps teachers to know about the students’ level at certain time and help them to be better In the process of correcting the students’ mistakes teachers also receive students’ response which means that the disagreement appears not only in teachers themselves but also in students about the mistakes they make, the ways to correct the mistakes, and the most effective and reasonable ways to correct mistakes III Research subjects To solve the problem facing in the process of teaching writing, I created an experience initiative in the school year 2018- 2019 “ Some effective methods in correcting mistakes for grade 11 students” With the summarization and analysis the mistakes students often make and the application of the mistake correction I hope to help students understand the difficulty in learning how to write, at the same time give students and teachers effective ways to get the desirable results IV Method of study - Research in the teaching of English at Dong Son Upper-Secondary School - Academic writing – Oxford Press - Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (7th edition) - http://www.teachingenglish.edu.vn - http://www.violet.vn B Problem solution I Theoretical basis of experience initiative The concept “ writing” in the language theory For second language learners, language writing as one of the form of communication is particularly touch In order to help learners to write correctly and fluently, teachers could guide learners to integrate genre and content reasonably to meet the communicative needs, to motivate their interest and to improve their writing skills The paper provides diverse teaching techniques and strategies for teachers to help learners from elementary level, the intermediate level or the advanced level to be fully exposed in communicative activities in class And teachers are expected to give feedback to ideas, felling or perception that student have to try to communicate through their writing in a sensible way Teaching writing is a process of aiding learners to discover themselves and implicit communication with readers with purposes To learners, if vocabulary is the building blocks of language study, then sentences are the layers of the building, and only after the learners finish the whole building successfully, could they achieve the final point of writing, which is commonly regarded as the most difficult language skill in language learning Byrne( 1988 P4) provides three reasons to explain why writing is difficult First writing itself is a solitary activity without interaction or feedback but depends solely on the writer himself Second, during the process of producing, writer himself need to make the efforts to bridge the gap and to realize the possibility in communication However all these difficulties are particularly touch for the second language (L2) learners Like Trible ( 1996.14) says when someone learned how to write, “they are getting involve in an activity in which questions of social role, power, and the appropriate use of language cannot be avoided” To the teacher, the more advanced the language teaching is, the tougher the teaching of writing would be Many teaching –English –as-a-foreign language (TEFL) teachers admit that their knowledge of writting practice was limited as this create a gap between their ideas and their actually teaching situation ( Pennington, 1997 P132) What’s the dilemma of teachers in teaching writing? How to improve students’ writing skill? What the teachers need to in their teaching? When talking about these questions, the TEFL teachers should think about the basic elements related with L2 writing , the L2 writer, the reader, the L2 text and the writing text TEFL teachers’ dilemma No one has doubt about the function of using a language , that is, to communicate Nevertheless, the ways of exchanging information by language are limited, in which the main style are gestures, meaningful pictures, speaking and listening, and what’s more, writing is the most meaningful and permanent way to pass the knowledge on one generation after another “ Writers and readers obviously not interact in the sense that they take turns as speakers and listeners.” ( Nystrance, 1986 P40) Therefore a successful communication between writers and readers counts a lot on what and how the writers provide information for their various kind of audience Ur ( 1996.P163) provides the standards of language in writing: careful construction, precise, and varied vocabulary, correct expression in general, and the slow and reflective nature of the process of writing These idea standard are not only expected by the writers but by the teachers as well, nevertheless, in the EFL writing classroom there are always some divergences between the ideal expectation and reality , the writer the reader, the writer and the written works, etc Differences exist between first language ( L1) writing classrooms and second language (L2) one , which are the obvious fact that TEFL teachers should be concerned with in planning and executing The common goal of both younger and elder students in sitting in the EFL classroom is to study the language but many adult learners seem to expect more since they desire to accomplish more practical goals, such as to conduct business in English , which is defined as instrumental motivation by Gradner and Lambert ( Leki, 192, P43) Thus genre and content will be greatly colored by their impetus for study a foreign language and their life experiences drawn from outside the school Caudery ( 1996, P17) summarizes the points of difference between the L1 teaching situation and the L2 one , i.e delayed development in writing skill and culture- based differences Therefore, two problems are related in the teaching of written: One is to form grammatical sentences and the other is to fulfill a give rhetorical aim ( Byrne, 1980,p.172) The imitating of others mechanically but the proper controlled and guided writing is still the main task in teaching In order to help L2 learners write correctly and fluently, teacher should understand the aim and the process of their learning Geist (1996,P.51) summarizes three dimensions of learning , which are the acquisition of techniques skills through observation of the knowledge of rules, a vocabulary and a systematic understanding via verbal explanation or instruction Thus, what teachers need to is to help learners find the real purposes to write, to show them on how to it, to give learners the internal impetus to reflect on their own Some factors need to be considered according to Raines (1983) SYNTAX CONTENT Structure Appropriation, clearness… GRAMMAR PROCESS tenses ideas, draft, check articles, pronouns FORM OBJECT- reader writing, pronunciation,clear, effective ideas punctuation STRUCTURE AIM passages reasons to write topics coherence CHOICE Vocabulary, idiom, ways of expression Procedures of teaching writing According to Tribble (1996), there are four steps: - Step1 Before writing: This is the step that learners before draft writing This includes the topic selection, thinking, taking notes, discussion, idea arranging, making outline, information collecting (For example, interviewing, searching information in library, processing information) - Step Writing draft: This is the process by which the writers brainstorm the ideas to write sentences, the passages, focus on explanation, clarify and link the ideas - Step Correction: This is an important step to have a completing passage Writers will think about what learners expect, readers are the people who the passage focuses on For example: polishing the structure, linking the ideas or adding the linking words - Step Edition: Writers check the form of the passage such as dictation, grammar, marks As we see from the above point of view, writing is a one-sized process and there is no connection with readers Reid(1993) also has the same point of view but he adds three more steps in writing process: feedback, evaluation and after writing, which makes the writing process more reasonable In short, steps of writing process according Reid (1993) can be illustrated with the following outline BEFORE WRITING DRAFT RESPONSE CORRECTION EDITION ASSERTMENT AFTER WRITING II.The concept of “ mistakes” and “correcting mistakes” 1.The definition of mistakes 1.1.Definition There are many definitions given by famous researchers such as : Abbort ( 1981), Edge ( 1989) , Mc Kay( 1989) , Goldstein ( 1990), Hubbard ( 1991), Klassen ( 1993)., Crosling ( 1996) etc Although they give their ideals in different ways but they have common ideas about the nature and function of mistakes Klassen ( 1993) has a simpler definition about the mistakes According to him, mistakes is “ a form of structure that the native speakers cannot accept because of the unsuitable using” Meanwhile, Crosling (1996) gives his own ideals in which he attach much importance in criterion “ Any misleading in method comparing with ordinary thing is considered mistake” On referring to mistake, some researchers have the same point of view: not only learners but native speakers as well make mistakes Native speakers often make mistakes at two levels: form mistake and expression mistake and the latter is the kind of mistake that we often make So, mistakes should be considered extra ordinary and unsuitable We can see that making mistakes happens in all level of languages from form mistake to expression mistake 1.2 Mistake category Lippman, J ( 2003) divides mistake into two types: general mistakes and specific mistake General mistake : incorrect sentence for example: incorrect word order, conjunction unsuccessful communicative result Specific mistake: incorrect sentence elements: tense, article, auxiliary incomprehensible communicative result General mistake include: Theoretical point Structure Basis Compatibility and consistence The suitability to the subject and purpose Specific mistake include: Dictation Syntax Grammar Punctuation According to Lippman ( 2003) An overview about correcting mistake 2.1 Correcting mistakes When asserting an article we have the term “feedback” in which there are two things that needs to be distinguished: assessment and correction In assessment, it is simple that learners are aware whether they write well or badly In correction, learners have detail information in their article such as explanation and provide better way of writing In principle, correction should and must make remark on whether the writers write correctly or incorrectly, but in general, both learners and teachers consider this a process of correcting mistakes 2.2 Major methods in correcting mistakes In teaching process, teachers often have to deal with some problem such as “ what mistakes need to be corrected” and “ how to correct effectively” Gower and Walter (1983) give four problems for teachers to solve when correcting students’ mistakes, they are “ what to correct, when to correct, how to correct and how many mistakes need to correct” Meanwhile, Raines (1983) also suggests seven main rules to correct mistakes With students’ articles, there is no need to mark the mistakes but teachers still can identify the mistakes that need correcting Identify mistakes carefully and find the causes Find the part that students well Take note the part that has mistakes Have the signals that show the mistakes Give reasons, correct or delete mistakes carefully Finally: correcting mistakes carefully and help students to have that habit To clarify on how many mistakes should be corrected Gover and Walter give some suggestions: - Draw students’ attention to the correction process - Spend little time on correcting each student’s mistakes, concentrate on common mistakes - Show students the mistakes they have just made - Show students the kinds of mistake they made - Give students chances to correct themselves - If students cannot correct mistakes themselves, ask others to help - If the above steps are unsuccessful, teacher will help students to correct the mistakes by the following ways: Edge ( 1998) also gives three basic steps to correct mistakes - Self- correction Teachers show students their mistakes because they need to know what mistakes they have made before correcting them - Peer correction Learners work in pair or group to find out their mistakes This will attract all student s to correct mistakes, make them more active and less dependent on teachers - Teacher correction Teachers find out the meaning that students want to convey in the incorrect sentences and guide them to express in other way The relationship between mistakes, correcting mistakes with the process of teaching and learning writing skill Making mistakes is unavoidable in learning, through this learners create important and necessary traits for learning a foreign language Making mistakes is the way learners check what they have learned, through that they will master the language For teachers, basing on the mistakes students make help them assert students’ level, decide what to teach students to help them perfect Correcting mistakes also have good effect on the process of teaching and learning the language By self correcting, peer correcting and listening to what teachers comment students can make progress Especially, writing skill need high accuracy in words and expressing meaning C Current status of the problem before applying innovative experience I Introducing an overview of units Dong Son II high school is a young school Moreover, students here have few chances to study English intensively because they are not aware of the importance of learning English They only know little about English Base on the fact of teaching and correcting students’ mistakes, we can see the problems of this matter as following: + Both teachers and students have positive manner towards correcting mistakes and consider correcting mistakes a necessary process, an important factor in improving students’ writing + Although correcting mistakes plays an important role in writing process and both teachers and students try hard, students’ writing does not improve much The reason is that many mistakes are not pointed out and corrected after teachers give general comments about students’ writing, so students cannot know what mistakes are though they read their articles again + There are many kinds of mistakes that are difficult for both students and learners to recognize such as mistakes related to logic, expression or word choice For example: Is there any electrical equipment in this room?(correct) Is there any electric equipment in this room?( incorrect) Teachers and students usually pay attention on dictation, grammar or structure mistakes In general, there are still many problems in correcting students mistakes especially grade 10 when they first meet some types of writing such as writing a letter, writing an invitation, writing a report and so on Therefore, to improve the quality of teaching and learning in general as well as to have better result in correcting mistakes, we should apply effective methods in correcting mistakes II Solutions to the problem 10 Teacher: 1.1 Steps in marking students’ articles: - Identify what mistakes need to correct It is not necessary to correct all the mistakes in students’ writing Teacher should choose what is important to correct, this depend on the aim of the lesson - Decide how many mistakes need to be corrected Teachers can decide to correct basic and serious mistakes in order not to make students feel disappointed because they may makes so many mistakes However, it also depends on the students for teacher to decide on the quantity of mistakes that need to be corrected because some students feel shy when they makes so many mistakes while others not feel satisfied if teachers give them vague comments - Form the method of correcting Teachers should use signals when correcting mistakes This is convenient because teachers not have to write the full form of words and phrases, especially when there are many articles needed correcting - Signals and their meanings: GR: grammar !: careless error Voc: vocabulary  Good, well done Sp: spelling error ? I don’t understand P: punctuation error Pre: preposition V: verb tense error  Good point W.O: wrong word order Cap: capitalizing this word W.W: wrong word use ( ) unnecessary word Agr: agreement  Omitting this word Y upside down: word missing 11 - Give feedback carefully Giving feedback play an important role in encouraging students to revise the lesson and study harder Besides, teacher also needs to give positive comments on what students have tried to - Use different colored pen Teachers usually use red pen when correcting students’ mistakes so that students can easily recognize their mistakes But if teacher use red pen to correct every mistakes, it will make students fell shocked and as a result they feel shy and don’t want to write any more Correcting mistakes is not simply a way to show students what is correct or incorrect but it is a way to encourage students write and correct mistakes themselves Teacher should use pen in different color or pencil This will help student understand that teacher is giving them suggestions - Mark on the side of the paper Teacher applies this when students are used to the signals of correcting mistakes Students can themselves find mistakes in the lines that have signals 1.2 Steps after giving feedback to students’ writing - Giving feedback in front of the class Students will learn more if teacher have time to correct mistakes in front of the class Students can avoid making mistakes when they listen to teachers’ comments on their friends’ mistakes There are some kinds of mistakes related to expression that teacher cannot write on students’ papers so in the process of correcting mistakes, students will have more chances to know and understand 10 - Provide students the basic writing rules and exercises related to the mistakes that students often make Teacher can provide students short memo For example, the structure of an invitation letter) or exercises on correcting mistakes 11 12 Students 13 2.1 Change students’ attitude toward mistake correcting 14 In the past, many teachers think that making mistakes is not good For them, students making mistakes are stupid, lazy or it is because sometimes students not pay attention to what teachers say or they not carefully Teachers just say “sit down” as if that student has just something wrong 15 However, with the new approaching method, it is considered that making mistakes means finding new way of expression, students associate theory with practice Writing is a process We cannot expect students to write correctly right from the beginning Teacher should make students understand that correcting mistakes is the way that help them to perfect their writing skill and an important part in studying This will help students be more confident before writing 16 2.2 Emphasize the importance of reading the passage again and correcting mistakes Correcting mistakes is necessary, it is not a problem Students need to know that it is a necessity in learning writing skill Teachers should make correcting mistakes an activity in class Teachers should also encourage other students if they find out their friends’ mistakes Teacher should raise students’ awareness in reading their passages again and correcting mistakes will help them be more aware of correcting their own passages as well as their friends’ 17 18 2.3 Guide students the way to find out and correcting mistakes 19 Using the system of signals is really effective And this will help to encourage students to correct their own mistakes as well as their friends’ mistakes Teachers need to give the system of signals clearly right after the beginning of teaching writing 20 For example: Find the mistakes in the biography writing of Jack Friedhamm and the paragraph about collection 21 22 23 Key: 24 Jack Friedhamm was born in New York on October 25, 1965 He began school at the age of six and continued until he was 18 years old He then went to New York University to learn Medicine He decided on Medicine because he liked biology when he was at school While he was at University, he met his wife Cindy Cindy was a beautiful woman with long black hair They went out for years before they decided to get married Jack began to work as a doctor as soon as he had graduated from Medical School They have had two children named Jackie and Peter, and have lived in Queens for the past two years Jack is very interested in painting and likes to paint portraits of his son Peter 25 26 2.4 Get students write draft many times 27 Writing draft again and again is considered an effective way to correct mistakes This method helps students take part in the process of correcting mistakes To this, we need to follow the steps: 28 2.5 Show students the mistakes needed to find out in each draft In this activity, students need to write three times so that the last draft can be perfect Each time, students need to pay attention to kinds of mistakes as the following table: 29 30 34 31 Mist akes need ed to pay atten tion 35 The 1st time Check the structure and logic of the passage 32 36 The 2nd time Focus on the using of vocabulary, grammar, form 33 37 3rd version Find out mistakes 38 39 2.6 Give students higher marks if they can find and point out mistakes 40 This will encourage students to take part in mistake correcting activities 41 2.7 Evaluate students’ improvements after drafting Teacher can see students’ improvement after drafting And teacher can give students higher marks if they make progress 42 43 III The effect of the experience initiative 44 This initiative is made to point out and analyze the grade 10 and 11 students as well as provide teachers with useful methods in teaching writing skill 45 In school year 2018-2019, I applied this method in teaching class 11A7 and I recognized that students get much better 46 Checking writing skill by a writing test after studying unit mistake 48 grammar 49 vocabulary 51 0-5 52 students 53 10 students 55 6-9 56 11 students 57 12 students 58 13 students 10-15 60 13 students 61 12 students 62 16 students Over 15 64 14 students 47 59 63 65 students 50 54 66 dictation students students 67 68 Basing on the mistakes, we can see that at the beginning of the school year, students’ writing is not good and equal with the percentage of over fifty percent of students make more than 10 mistakes all Checking the mistake-finding -skill by requiring students to find and correct 10 sentences in fifteen minutes with students of different levels we have the following result 69 70 Student 71 Find out 1-4 mistakes 72 Find out 5-8 mistakes Weak 75 5/5 students 76 0/5 students 77 0/5 students Medium 79 3/5 students 80 2/5 students 81 0/5 students Good 83 2/5 students 84 3/5 students 85 0/5 students 74 78 82 73 Find out 9-10 mistakes 86 87 Through checking we can see that finding and correcting mistakes not completely depend on grammatical basis but they depend on the students’ ability to apply it into reality 88 In writing lesson for grade 11, when applying the method mentioned in part 3, I see that the ability to find and correct mistakes has become better Among 42 students tested, more than seventy percent of students can find out more than fifty percent of mistakes in the passage 89 Through group discussion, I can see that over fifty percent of students in the group can correct mistakes in the group passage while discussing 90 The result after writing of five students or five groups is as following: 91 Mistake 95 0-4 99 5-8 103 107 Grammar 93 Vocabulary 15 passages 97 15 passages 92 96 15 passages 100 101 17 passages 94 98 102 Dictation 17 passages 12 passages 9-12 104 passages 105 passages 106 passages over 12 108 passages 109 passages 110 passages 111 Although the result is not perfect, we can see that if we teachers change the content as well as the methods, of teaching, we will surely have good result and we will meet the object of studying language, that is using language in everyday life 112 113 114 D CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS I Conclusions Writing is an important skill for language learners To be good at this skill, we need a lot of time and effort The problem here is that teachers need to find out methods of teaching writing effectively On the other hand, we can see that making mistakes is inevitable and it plays an important part in learning language Mistakes are considered positive, and they makes students have more experience, awareness and better result in learning 115 In teaching, I find that this experience initiative is extremely helpful for both myself and other teachers It helps us more positive in teaching because teaching writing for high school students is not easy, and it requires a great deal of effort and patience We cannot have result overnight because it takes a long time to achieve 116 We can apply this experience initiative for all students in high school because there are writing lesson in every unit of the textbook 117 118 II Recommendations To be successful in helping students to correct mistakes in passage to make progress in writing, teachers need to enthusiasm, love for children and good knowledge Besides, leaders of school need to support, encourage and guide teachers 119 In the next school year, I would like to apply my experience initiative in extra writing skill so that students have more chances to practice 120 This experience initiative is what I have through teaching However, it needs to be modified in order to be perfect 121 I really hope to have your ideals about my experience initiative to make it better 122 123.CONFIRMATION OF THE PRINCIPLE 128 129 124.Thanh Hoa, the twentieth of May, 2019 125.I am sure that this is my own work I not copy from any other writers 126 127  ... of writing such as writing a letter, writing an invitation, writing a report and so on Therefore, to improve the quality of teaching and learning in general as well as to have better result in. .. convey in the incorrect sentences and guide them to express in other way The relationship between mistakes, correcting mistakes with the process of teaching and learning writing skill Making mistakes. .. notes, discussion, idea arranging, making outline, information collecting (For example, interviewing, searching information in library, processing information) - Step Writing draft: This is the process