Experimental research on the effect of self monitoring technique on improving writing skill among english major freshmen at a university in hanoi

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - - MẠC THỊ HUYỀN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ON THE EFFECT OF SELF-MONITORING TECHNIQUE ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILL AMONG ENGLISH-MAJOR FRESHMEN AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI Nghiên cứu thực nghiệm hiệu kỹ thuật tự giám sát việc cải thiện kỹ viết cho sinh viên năm chuyên Anh trường đại học Hà Nội M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 HANOI 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES - - MẠC THỊ HUYỀN EXPERIMENTAL RESEARCH ON THE EFFECT OF SELF-MONITORING TECHNIQUE ON IMPROVING WRITING SKILL AMONG ENGLISH-MAJOR FRESHMEN AT A UNIVERSITY IN HANOI Nghiên cứu thực nghiệm hiệu kỹ thuật tự giám sát việc cải thiện kỹ viết cho sinh viên năm chuyên Anh trường đại học Hà Nội M.A MINOR PROGRAM THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: Dr TRẦN THỊ THU HIỀN HANOI 2016 DECLARATION I hereby state that I, Mac Thi Huyen, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TEFL) accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master Thesis deposited in the library In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper Signature i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is my pleasure to thank those who made this thesis possible Firstly, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Tran Thi Thu Hien, whose encouragement, guidance and support from the initial to the final level enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject Secondly, I would like to thank Ms Pham Thu Duong and Ms Le Thi Thu Thuy, two teachers of English at the research site (English Department, a Hanoibased university) for their invaluable assistance together with professional advice during the research time Thirdly, this thesis would not have been possible without the enthusiastic participation of 58 English-major freshmen at English Department of the university where the research was carried out Lastly, I offer my regards and blessings to all of those who supported me in any respect during the completion of the study Mac Thi Huyen ii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT .v LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLE vi PART I: INTRODUCTION .1 Rationale Aims and objectives .2 Scope of the study Research questions Method of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1 Writing .5 1.1 Definition of writing 1.1.2 The roles of writing in a second language 1.1.3 Approaches to the teaching of writing in ESL classes .7 1.1.4 The reasons that make writing difficult to master 12 Self-monitoring 14 1.2.1 Definition of self-monitoring .14 1.2.2 Self-monitoring technique: annotation .15 1.2.3 Drawbacks of self-monitoring technique 16 1.3 Review of the previous studies 17 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 20 2.1 Rationale for using experimental method 20 2.2 Setting of the study 21 2.2.1 The university .21 2.2.2 The participants 21 2.2.3 The intervention 22 iii 2.3.1 The pretest and posttest 24 2.3.2 The four writing tasks 25 2.3.3 The semi-structured interview 26 2.4 Data collection procedures 26 2.5 Data analysis methods 27 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 29 3.1 Evaluation of the annotations made by the experimental group students in the four writing tasks 29 3.2 Comparison of the experimental and control groups’ writing performance 32 3.2.1 Comparison of the experimental and control groups’ writing performance in the pretest 32 3.2.2 Comparison of the experimental and control groups’ writing performance in the posttest 33 3.3 The semi-structured interview 35 PART III: CONCLUSIONS 42 Major findings .42 Pedagogical implications 44 Limitations of the study 45 Suggestions for further studies 45 REFERENCES I APPENDICES IV APPENDIX 1: THE SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW QUESTIONS IV APPENDIX 2: THE PRETEST V APPENDIX 3: THE POSTTEST VI APPENDIX 4: SOME TYPICAL SAMPLES OF STUDENTS’S ANNOTATIONS MADE IN THE FOUR WRITING TASKS .VII APPENDIX 5: A SAMPLE ANNOTATED TEXT VIII iv ABSTRACT This experimental research was conducted at a university in Hanoi within months The participants consisted of 58 English-major freshmen The research aims at investigating the efficiency of self-monitoring technique to student writing performance and explore the students‟ attitudes toward this technique Self-monitoring in writing was understood as a new learning method in which students annotate their texts with any doubts they have during the writing process and the teacher can give feedback not only on the finished draft but also reply to the students‟ questions Pretest, posttest, four writing tasks and semistructured interview are all instruments employed by the researcher The findings reveal that the students can be trained to use self-monitoring effectively The annotations they made in their compositions grew both in quantity and quality in terms of content, organization and language form Selfmonitoring was successful in improving student writing proficiency Their writing scores significantly increased from pretest to posttest The majority of the students took a positive attitude toward self-monitoring They believed in the efficacy of self-monitoring in spite of some difficulties at the beginning and recommended the continuation of self-monitoring for the next school year with more training time as well as more self-monitoring models Pedagogical implications and suggestions for future studies are drawn out based on the research findings v LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLE Page Chart 1.1: Producing a Piece of Writing (Raimes, 1983: 6) Chart 1.2: Stages of Writing in “The Process Approach” 11 Chart 3.1: Annotations made by the students during the four writing tasks 29 Table 3.2: Descriptive statistics for the pretest score of the two groups 31 Table 3.3: Independent samples t-test of the pretest score between the two groups 31 Table 3.4: Descriptive statistics for the posttest score of the two groups 32 Table 3.5: Independent samples t-test of the posttest score between the two groups 33 vi PART I: INTRODUCTION This part is dedicated to introducing the rationale of the study, the problem to be addressed in the study, the aims and objectives of the study, and the research questions to be answered It will also present the scope of the study, an overview of the employed methods and the design of the study Rationale Writing is considered a complicated and multifaceted task Good writing involves thinking that may lead the writer to express himself/herself in a more effective way For learners of English, writing is a vital skill, one of the main criteria to measure a learner‟s second language proficiency Unfortunately, writing is a difficult skill which is not easy to be improved Therefore, various approaches to teaching writing have been recommended to help cope with this problem Of all, self-monitoring is a technique the effectiveness of which is a controversial issue among many researchers As a matter of fact, there exists some research on self-monitoring in teaching However, little attention has been paid to self-monitoring in writing teaching In Vietnam, self-monitoring remains a totally new concept which has not been researched in academic papers Hopefully, this thesis will help shed light on the effect of self-monitoring in writing class in the specific context of a university in Vietnam The context chosen by the researcher to conduct this research is English Department of a Hanoi-based university The participants all are first-year majors Of the four language skills taught here, writing is regarded as not only challenging but also boring by the mainstream first-year major students The students encounter numerous difficulties when being asked to produce in-class texts It is actually hard for them to produce a high quality text due to such reasons as language incompetence, lack of motivation and a traditionally passive way of learning They tend to ignore writing and pay more attention to the three other language skills As a result, the students have fewer opportunities of success at academic writing when they move to higher levels in the later years despite adequate oral communication skills This long term consequence is serious and worth being taken into consideration How to teach the first year English-major students to write well is a question posed in the many past years drawing a lot of attention from the teachers With the desire for enhancing the quality of writings produced by major freshmen as well as developing learners‟ autonomy, the researcher decides to carry out the thesis “Experimental Research on the Effect of Self-Monitoring Technique on Improving Writing Skill among English-Major Freshmen at a University in Hanoi” by applying the self-monitoring technique in practice in two writing classes This study is hoped to be successful and bring about feasible applications towards upgrading the learning and teaching writing for English-major freshmen at this university as well as at other universities Aims and objectives The research aims at investigating the effect of self-monitoring technique on improving writing skill among English-major freshmen at a university in Hanoi This fundamental aim can be achieved when the two following objectives are met The first objective of the study is to find out the effects of self-monitoring technique on the students‟ writing improvement Next, the researcher wishes to explore the students‟ attitudes towards self-monitoring technique Scope of the study The scope of the research has been made quite clear from the title: “Experimental research on the effect of self-monitoring technique on improving writing skill among English-major freshmen at a university in Hanoi.” Firstly, the research focuses on “self-monitoring technique in writing.” To be more specific, it refers to the process in which students write notes or annotations on their writings before handing it to the teacher This will help students place themselves in the position of readers, not only writers As for teachers, self-monitoring technique gives them an opportunity to offer feedback feedback did not come up with the students‟ expectation By good fortune, this mismatch only occurred on occasion Category 5: The students’ recommendations for further enhancing the teaching of self-monitoring Question 6: Should self-monitoring be maintained for the students of next year in writing course, in your opinion? If yes, you have any specific recommendations to enhance the quality of the course? If no, could you explain the reasons for your disapproval? All of the students reported that self-monitoring was an effective technique in writing class It permitted the students to look critically and analytically at their writings and raise questions about any unclear part of their text As for the teacher, he/she could give feedback not only on the finished draft but also on the queries which emerged during the writing process Thanks to this process, two-way interaction was established and maintained throughout the course The students became more motivated, active, independent and responsible for their learning Additionally, the teacher was able to see through the students, and then made appropriate adjustment to the course The above reasons drive the students to strongly approve of the maintenance of self-monitoring in writing class in the following school years With respect to specific suggestions, 15 students, making up 60%, recommended more training time before getting started They thought two 90-minute training sessions were not really adequate because anyway this was an entirely new teaching method The rest of the students proposed that the teacher should provide a few high quality self-monitoring models at the training session to make it easy for the students to follow and imitate 40 In conclusion, in this chapter each research question has been answered respectively through an in-depth analysis and discussion of the collected data Major findings will be summarized and some recommendations will be reported as recommendations by the students and the researcher in the next part of the study 41 PART III: CONCLUSIONS This section closes the research by summarizing the major findings and offering pedagogical implications, discussing the limitations and making suggestions for further studies Major findings The students in this sample could be trained to use self-monitoring effectively In their annotations made in the four writing tasks, they asked questions concerning not only the language of their compositions but also content and organization The statistic result shows that the number of annotations concerning content accounted for 49.1% while the number of annotations regarding organization and language form made up 10.4% and 49.1% in total The number of annotations collected gradually grew not only in quantity but also in quality In the first writing task, the students did not get accustomed to self-monitoring immediately They found it hard to practice despite having been trained beforehand As a result, the produced annotations heavily focused on language form such as spelling or grammar mistakes even though all of the students learned that they had better devote attention to content and organization when making annotations Remarkable progress was observed from the second writing task though The student annotations were made with the aim of improving content and organization, especially content Their intentions were presented clearly enough for the teacher to understand Also, the student annotations themselves demonstrate the student progress in writing skill The evidence is that the students were able to write down more complex sentences with academic words for their annotations All of the above advancements help affirm the enormous contribution of the training course Self-monitoring was seen as an effective tool in improving the students‟ writing performance In pretest, both groups were at the same level of proficiency (t = -0, 107; p = 0.915), yet the posttest witnessed the clear distinction between two groups 42 (t = -3.576; p = 0.001) in which the prominence belonged to the experimental group when mean difference was equal to -4.862 The rationale explanation for this discrepancy may be the application of self-monitoring technique throughout the semester When asked to show attitudes towards self-monitoring, most of the students adopted positive attitudes The students believed that they enjoyed merits self-monitoring brought about They were conscious of the vitality of content and organization to the success of their works Self-monitoring technique allowed them to place themselves in position of readers They had chance to review their texts, find out language problems and express uncertainty about any parts of the text and pose important questions They grew more independent and responsible for anything that was written The teacher gave comments not only on the draft but also on the questions raised by the students Therefore, the teacher feedback became more detailed and intensional, reflecting thorough understanding of the students‟ problems Two-way interaction was maintained through the writings and strengthened throughout the semester The students were certain to receive intensive care from their teacher In the end, the students were capable of improving their proficiency to a certain degree In spite of enormous benefits, difficulties are inevitable in every experimental process The students admitted this was a challenging technique at the beginning of the course They performed unwell at the first draft with very little annotations on content and organization although they had already learned that content and organization were of critical importance Gradually, they got used to it, felt excited about it and tried to apply it as professionally as possible Although there existed difficulties in the first time, benefits outnumbered them A large number of students approve of the continuation of self-monitoring for Englishmajor freshmen of the next year To alleviate difficulties in practicing self- 43 monitoring technique, they recommended that more time should be spent on training and the teacher should prepare more self-monitoring models to facilitate the training Pedagogical implications Based on the research findings and the students‟ responses in the semi-structured interview, some pedagogical implications may be drawn out as follows:  The study results indicate that self-monitoring is effective in improving the student writing proficiency The teacher should consider applying this new technique in the writing class so as to motivate students, develop learner autonomy and ameliorate student writing skill  Due to the strangeness of self-monitoring, training must be incorporated in the course at the initial stage to make sure the students acquire enough comprehensive knowledge of the technique The time needed for training should be flexible, largely depending on the acquisition of the students Typical samples of self-monitoring may serve as straightforward examples for what and how to  Teachers of writing ought to raise students‟ awareness of the vitality of content and organization to the success of the writing Adequate attention needs devoting to content and organization to annotate the writings fully 44 Limitations of the study The limitations are present in any research and this one is not an exemption This is the first time self -monitoring has been introduced Some limitations might have affected the result One limitation of the study is the small sample size (58 English-major students at a Hanoi-based university) which affects the external validity, “the extent to which the results can be generalized from samples to populations” (Nunan, 1992, p 15) The results might not stay the same if the research is conducted at another setting with other subjects Another limitation is that the scoring of the pretest and posttest might be somehow subjective in spite of measures taken Meantime, the markers are non-native EFL teachers and they share the same first language with the students To some extent, these limitations reduce the objectivity of the scoring Suggestions for further studies Anyway, self-monitoring is a new concept Research on the use of this technique is still insufficient As mentioned above, the limitations of the study lie in the limited number of participants and limited time Consequently, the writer strongly recommends a similar study which employs a larger number of participants as well as invests more time to increase the validity of data and conclusion to confirm the findings in this research In this study, the researcher applies self-monitoring technique to English-major freshmen in two writing classes at a university in Hanoi Further studies may investigate the effect of self-monitoring technique on student writing improvement with different participants such as non-English major students to contrast the result when the subjects vary 45 The primary purpose of self-monitoring application in this paper is to enhance student writing performance – a subcomponent of language proficiency Therefore, the last but not least suggestion is that future researchers should carry out experimental research on the effect of self-monitoring technique in reading or listening class with the ultimate aim of developing student language proficiency 46 REFERENCES (1) Arndt V (1987), “Six Writers in Search of Texts: A Protocol-based Study of L1 and L2 Writing”, ELT 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Category 2: Students’ difficulties with English writing Question 2: What are your difficulties when writing English? Category 3: The efficacy of self- monitoring Question 3: Do you think that self-monitoring in this semester is helpful to you in writing English paragraphs? If yes, in what way you think self-monitoring helps you make progress? If no, why you think self-monitoring is not necessary for paragraph writing? Question 4: To what extent you benefit from teacher feedback after using selfmonitoring? Category 4: The students’ difficulties when administering self-monitoring Question 5: Do you have any difficulties when applying self-monitoring? If yes, what are your troubles? Category 5: The students’ recommendations for further enhancing the teaching of self-monitoring Question 6: Should self-monitoring be maintained for the students of next year in writing course, in your opinion? If yes, you have any specific recommendations to enhance the quality of the course? If no, could you explain the reasons for your disapproval? IV APPENDIX 2: THE PRETEST Choose one of the following topics and write a paragraph (150 – 180 words) What are the qualities of a good teacher? What you think people should to stay healthy? What are the benefits of living in the city? V APPENDIX 3: THE POSTTEST Choose one of the following topics and write a paragraph (150 – 180 words) Contrast men’s and women’s attitudes toward shopping Discuss some causes of school violence “Happiness directly relates to economic success.” To what extent you agree or disagree with this statement? VI APPENDIX 4: SOME TYPICAL SAMPLES OF ANNOTATIONS MADE IN THE FOUR WRITING TASKS VII STUDENTS’S APPENDIX 5: A SAMPLE ANNOTATED TEXT VIII ... objectives The research aims at investigating the effect of self-monitoring technique on improving writing skill among English-major freshmen at a university in Hanoi This fundamental aim can be achieved... efficacy of self-monitoring and drawbacks of self-monitoring technique 1 Writing 1.1 Definition of writing Writing is a significant and essential in the development in a native language and in a. .. suggests that in giving learners control over the initiation of feedback, student self-monitoring is a valuable way of increasing the elements of autonomy in the learning of writing The technique s