Teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school, Thanh Hóa province: Difficulties and solutions

j VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - LÊ LAN HƯƠNG TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NGUYỄN MỘNG TUÂN HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HÓA PROVINCE: DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS (Dạy viết luận cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Nguyễn Mộng Tuân, tỉnh Thanh Hóa: Những khó khăn giải pháp khắc phục) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Languge Teaching Methodolgy Code: 60.14.10 HANOI - 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -*** - LÊ LAN HƯƠNG TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NGUYỄN MỘNG TUÂN HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HÓA PROVINCE: DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS (Dạy viết luận cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Nguyễn Mộng Tuân, tỉnh Thanh Hóa: Những khó khăn giải pháp khắc phục) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Dr Nguyễn Huy Kỷ HANOI - 2013 TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF THE AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale of the study Objectives of the study Research questions Methods of the study Significance of the study Scope of the study Organization of the study PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Teaching essay writing 1.1.1 What is writing? 1.1.2 From paragraph to essay 1.1.3 What is an essay and its parts? 1.1.4 Types of essays 10 1.1.5 Stages of writing an essay 11 Approaches to teaching writing 13 1.3 Summary 15 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 16 2.1 The research context 16 iv 2.1.1 The teachers at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 16 2.1.2 The students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 16 2.1.3 Writing lessons in the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” 17 2.2 The research methodology 18 2.2.1 Participants 18 2.2.2 Data collection instruments 18 2.2.3 Procedures of data collection 19 2.3 Summary 20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 21 3.1 Data analysis 21 3.1.1 Data analysis of teachers‟ survey questionnaire 21 3.1.2 Data analysis of students‟ survey questionnaire 29 3.2 Data analysis of interviews 34 3.3 Data analysis of classroom observation 35 3.4 Findings and discussions 35 3.4.1 Difficulties in learning essay writing from the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 35 3.4.2 Difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 36 3.4.3 Suggested solutions to overcome the difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 37 3.5 Summary 43 PART III: CONCLUSION 44 Recapitulation of the study 44 Limitations of the study 45 Suggestion for further studies 45 REFERENCES 46 v APPENDICES APPENDIX I APPENDIX V APPENDIX VIII vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Teachers‟ opinion about the importance of writing Table 2: Reasons of teaching writing to the 10th form students Table 3: Students‟ attitude about writing lessons in teachers‟ viewpoint Table 4: Teachers‟ view of periods of teaching writing Table 5: Teachers‟ opinions of difficulties when teaching essay writing Table 6: Degree of difficulty of stages in teaching essay writing Table 7: Essay writing activities in the classroom Table 8: Teachers‟ opinions on the writing lessons Table 9: Teachers‟ frequency in assigning students more writing tasks Table 10: Teachers‟ expectation for better teaching and learning situation Table 11: Students‟ opinion about the importance of writing Table 12: Students‟ evaluation of their writing skill Table 13: Difficult writing stage in students‟ opinion Table 14: Students‟ opinions on causes of difficulties Table 15: Activities in pre-writing stage Table 16: Work arrangement while writing Table 17: Activities in writing lessons Table 18: Students‟ expectation for better teaching and learning situation vii PART I: INTRODUCTION Rationale of the study Nowadays, English plays an important role in many aspects of life It has been taught in Vietnamese schools as one of the most important subjects at all level of education The teaching and learning of English in our country has today changed from the linguistic competence to the communicative competence As a result, our new English textbook series were compiled under the impact of the communicative approach which focuses on four skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing Compared to the other three skills, writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master Therefore, teaching writing is not an easy job One of the teachers‟ challenges in high school education is to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for Vietnamese students to write English essays effectively In high school context, where exposure to English is typically limited to three periods each week, students receive little practice in writing in English, only one period (45 minutes) per unit Most teachers are not satisfied with reading and giving feedback on their students‟ essays because many essays are nonsense, lack of ideas or even the content of some essays is very similar to each other, especially when they write about the same topic Conversely, students are not interested in learning essay writing They tend to translate ideas from mother tongue into English, express ideas in long sentences, and are not aware of different kinds of writing, which leads them unable to write in real life Because of limited background knowledge, they often feel bored when doing written work, especially when lacking support and motivation from teachers I have been teaching writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school with the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” for two years, and I encountered many difficulties in the writing lessons Therefore, the situation encouraged me to carry out the study “Teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school, Thanh Hoa province: Difficulties and solutions” with the hope of improving the teaching and learning essay writing for my colleagues and my students Objectives of the study The primary purpose of this study is to explore teachers‟ perception of the importance of teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school The second aim is to investigate teachers‟ difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students with the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school Finally, I would like to offer some suggested solutions for improving further the teaching of essay writing for teachers of English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school This study is carried out with the hope that it will be theoretically and practically helpful to both teachers of English and the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school Research questions The study intends to find out the answers for the following questions: What are teachers‟ perceptions of the importance of teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? What are the difficulties experienced by the teachers who are teaching essay writing in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? What should be done to help overcome those difficulties for teachers of English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? Methods of the study With the aim of finding out the difficulties in teaching essay writing with the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school, this study adopts mainly quantitative and qualitative methods There are three main instruments of data collection are questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews Informal interviews with the teachers at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school are conducted The purpose of interview is to investigate difficulties teachers face when they teach essay writing to the 10th form students Survey questionnaires for the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school are to collect information about their views of writing difficulties and causes of them Classroom observation is used to record more information from teachers Significance of the study The significance of this study is to reveal that problems teachers of English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school encounter when they teach essay writing to the 10th form students The study is intended to find out how the teachers cope and manage their problems in order to help the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school to write better Also, this study is carried out with the hope that its findings can give some suggested solutions for English high school teachers so that they can have teaching practice better in writing lessons Scope of the study The study is conducted at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school in order to recognize difficulties in teaching and learning essay writing skills of both the teachers and the 10 th form students with the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” On the basis of findings, some suggested solutions were advanced to further improve teaching essay writing to students Within its scope, the study is limited only to the 10th form students at Nguyen Nguyễn Mộng Tuân teaching context Organization of the study This thesis has main parts: introduction, development and conclusion The introduction presents the rationale, objectives of the study, research questions, methods of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, organization of the study, which offers readers an overview of how the research idea is generated The development consists of chapters Chapter provides the theoretical background of essay writing It focuses on writing definitions, from paragraph to essay, essay definitions and its parts, types of essays, stages of writin an essay, approaches to teach writing Chapter discusses the methodology of the study, i.e describes the study context, participants and instruments Besides, the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” is then elaborated Chapter is about data analysis and discussion In this part, questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation are analyzed and presented In this chapter, I will give some feasible solutions for better teaching and learning English essay writing The conclusion summarizes the whole study issue and provides suggestions for further study Besides, the limitations of the thesis are also pointed out reflected in the study are the lack of words or structures and ideas to write Therefore, it is important for teachers to help students to become efficient writers First, teachers should help their students be fully aware of the importance of the writing skill Researchers have shown that writing has many benefits such as improving knowledge in general, critical and analytical thinking In order to write, the learner needs to have background knowledge of the subject matter, find out information, analyze and use data, which all leads to learning What‟s more, writing helps students to improve the knowledge of English as a foreign language Students need to apply the knowledge of English they have already achieved, as well as learn the language alongside writing For many students and teachers, writing is a way to determine how much of the language has been learned If students are fully aware of the importance of writing, it will be a crucial starting point for the teaching of writing Teachers can build useful and interesting writing tasks to help students to understand the practical roles of the writing skills From the results of this study, we can see that most of the students lack necessary vocabulary and grammatical structures related to a topic of each writing composition and their limited background knowledge can prevent them to write effectively Familiarizing the students with extensive writing is a way to help them to increase the vocabulary, consolidate grammatical structures, and strengthen their knowledge of language Therefore, it is important for the teachers to help their students to form a habit of using English The teachers should set a good example for the students, which means they have to use English almost during the lessons Having had a habit of writing in class, students will participate more often in classroom writing activities In addition, teachers can assign more practical writing tasks for their students at home to help students to improve their writing skills gradually To motivate the students to write regularly, teachers maybe provide their students more teaching materials Writing materials could be varied and derived from students‟ interest in a way that will engage students in what they learn These materials are easy to understand, with few unfamiliar items of vocabulary Besides, students could be given the opportunity to look for and read about their types of writing before starting to plan their 41 essays This could be achieved by browsing the Internet, reading newspaper articles or chapters from books If students become efficient writers, not only they will overcome difficulties in learning writing but also their teachers‟ heavy task in lecturing, and amount of time using Vietnamese will be reduced The teachers, at that time, play the role of instructors whereas students can play the central role in speaking classes 3.4.3.5 Employing pre-writing stage in writing lessons Facing a blank piece of paper can intimidate any writer To feel more confident before starting an essay, writers should spend time pre-writing Pre-writing strategies are beneficial because they help a writer think about his subject before he begins writing and helps him get inspired about his topic From the findings of the survey, teachers did not spend much time on some stages of writing an essay especially pre-writing because of limited time of a writing lesson (45 minutes a period) According to the result of the study, difficulties students face with are their low proficiency in English, lack of background knowledge, and teachers‟ guidance What the students expect is that teachers should teach them writing skill with various teaching methods Teaching method repeats in writing lessons will make students feel bored so it is important for teachers to teach pre-writing stage fully This activity encourages students to write and stimulate thoughts for getting started In fact, it moves students away from having to face a blank page towards generating ideas and gathering information for writing The following activities provide the learning experiences for students at this stage They include giving students some questions related to the topic to help students to brainstorm and graphically organize information; asking students to work in pairs or groups to define writing tasks in the new textbook; writing the topic down in the middle of the page and drawing a double circle around it; freely and quickly writing down single words or phrases about a topic without concerning with the fundamentals of writing, such as punctuation and spelling Pre-writing activities will help students to feel more confident and provide them to new vocabulary and grammatical structures for the topic 42 they are asked to write about They also activate students‟ motivation as well as background knowledge about the writing topic In order to help students to prepare pre-writing stage, teachers can ask themselves useful questions are “What knowledge might the learners have on the writing topic?”; “How many grammatical structures and vocabularies should be explained?‟; “How much time is possible for the pre-writing activities?” Answering these questions will help teachers of English to decide the ways of introducing the task, motivate the students to write and incorporate language preparation Moreover, they also help the teachers to carry out pre-writing activities successfully 3.5 Summary In summary, this chapter has focused on the main parts of the study It has concerned about the context of the study that has a great influence on the teaching and learning essay writing Methodology including information about the subject, the instruments, data collection and data analysis has been discussed in particular The chapter also pointed out major findings and discussion Moreover, it mentions recommendation and suggestions for teachers of English based on the results discussed before The researcher hopes that all the suggestions will be useful for those who concern about teachers‟ difficulties in teaching essay writing 43 PART III: CONCLUSION Recapitulation of the study The study aims at finding out teachers‟ difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school with the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” After the process of analyzing the data collected from three instruments and through the discussions of findings, the conclusions of the study can be drawn as follows Most of the teachers of English and the 10th form students consider writing especially essay writing to play an important role of English teaching and learning, but they often have several difficulties in writing lessons Through the study, the biggest difficulties when students deal with writing tasks are the lack of background knowledge, students‟ low proficiency in English and teachers‟ guidance and the main constraints confronted by the teachers are teacher‟ inexperience in teaching new textbook, teachers‟ inappropriate methodology in teaching essay writing, students‟ low proficiency in English, students‟ low background knowledge, students‟ lack of essay writing strategies, lack of time for further practice, large size classes To better the situation, the study has presented some suggested solutions to improve the teaching and learning essay writing Through this survey as teaching writing skill, the author realizes that only by having thorough grasp of writing strategies and practicing regularly can students improve their writing ability Therefore, teachers of English need to guide their students how to write an English essay step by step Besides, teachers should encourage their students to write more often and give comments as well as correct their mistakes carefully As a result, I believe that students‟ writing ability will be improved gradually and they will feel more self –confident when writing an essay in English Although the study was conducted on a limited number of teachers and students, it will hopefully raise 10th form students‟ ability of writing essays at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 44 Limitations of the study Although the researcher has made efforts during the process of conducting this study, limitations are unavoidable They include limitation of time, lack of resources, restriction in the number of participants and the researcher‟s ability Firstly, the study only carries out an investigation into the difficulties in teaching essay writing possessed by the 10th form students, so to some extent, the results may not be generalized for all students of the school Secondly, the researcher only used survey questionnaire as the main instrument for data collections Thus, the perceptions may not always be accurate and reliable In order to make obtained result more reliable, different instruments for data collection should be applied Thirdly, only some suggested solutions have been proposed to deal with those difficulties of the teachers Despite of the unavoidable limitations, the researcher believes that this study is beneficial to the teaching of writing skills especially essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school Suggestion for further studies On the basis of findings and limitations of the study, the following suggestions are made for further research - A similar study with a larger number of teachers and students in more high schools to investigate their difficulties and solutions would certainly have more valid and reliable data - A study on techniques and activities for students which help them to improve their essay writing skill - Designing essay writing tasks that suits students‟ different proficiency levels The researcher hopes that the further studies will be overcome all the existing limitations of this study and help to improve the quality of the teaching and learning English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school in particular and at other high schools in Thanh Hóa in general 45 REFERENCES Ahmed, Abdel Hamid (2011) The EFL Essay Writing Difficulties of Egyptian Student Teachers of English: Implications for Essay Writing Curriculum and Instruction University of Exeter Brandon, Lee (2005) Paragraphs and essays Boston: Houghton Mifflin Byrne, D (1991) Teaching writing skill Longman Publisher Candlin, C N., & Hyland, K (1999) Writing: Texts, processes and practices London: Pearson Fawcett, Susan and Sandberg, A.(1992) Evergreen – A Guide to Writing Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company Hyland, Ken (2003) Second Language Writing New York: Cambridge University Press Jack C Richards (2002) Methodology in Language Teaching: An Anthology of Current Practice New York: Cambridge University Press Langan, John (1999) College Writing Skills with Readings 2nd Canadian ed Toronto: McGraw Hill Oshima, A and Hogue, A (1991) Writing Academic English New York: Welsley Publishing Company 10 Phung, T K D (2004), A Study on Teacher’s Written Feedback on the Writings by the Second-year Students at the English Department, College of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi Retrieved January 20, 2013 from http://www.asianefl-journal.com/Thesis_Kim.pdf 11 Pornpan Boonpattanaporn (2007) Comparative study of English essay writing strategies and difficulties as perceived by English major students: A case study of students in the school of humanities, the university of the Thai Chamber of Commerce Retrieved March 3, 2013 from http://utcc2.utcc.ac.th/utccjournal/282/Pornpan%20Boonpattanaporn.pdf 12 Raimes, A (1983) Techniques in teaching writing New York House Publisher 46 13 Raimes, A (2005) Key for writers Boston: Houghton Mifflin 14 Smalley, L R and Ruetten , K M 1986 Refining Composition Skills New York: Macmillan Publishing Company 15 Tribble, C (1996) Writing Oxford University Press 16 Trimmer, Joseph F (2004) Writing with a purpose Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company 17 Trung, T.M (2007) Action research on students’ inactiveness in pre-writing group discussion of an essay-writing essay practice lesson at Hong Duc university, Thanh Hoa Retrieved March 5, 2013 from http://tainguyenso.vnu.edu.vn/xmlui/handle/123456789/3114 18 White, Ronald V and Arndt, Valerie (1991) Process writing Longman Publisher 19 Wyrick, Jean (2002) Steps to writing well Orlando: Harcourt College 20 Young, D.J (1991) Creating a low-anxiety classroom environment: What does language anxiety research suggest? The Modern Language Journal, 75 (iv) 47 APPENDICES APPENDIX 1: SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES FOR TEACHERS This survey questionnaire is designed for my study “Teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyen Mong Tuan high school, Thanh Hoa province: Difficulties and solutions” Your assistance in completing the survey is highly appreciated All the information you provide is reserved for the study purpose, and you can be confident that you will not be identified in any discussion of the data Thank you for your co-operation! Part 1: General information Your gender: Male Female Your age: ……………… How long have you been teaching English? : ………… year(s) How long have you been teaching writing in English? : ………… year(s) Part 2: Your opinions Do you think writing in the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” is ……… ? a Very important c Not very important b Important d Not important at all Why you teach writing to high school students ? a it helps students to express their thoughts in words b it helps students to communicate with many people c it helps students to learn new vocabulary and grammatical structures d it helps students to written tests How are your students in the writing lessons? a They are interested in writing tasks in each lesson b They are nervous due to difficult tasks c They are bored with repeating activities d Most of them don‟t know how to write I According to you, how many periods a week (45 minutes/ period) are appropriate for teaching writing to the 10th form students? a period a week c periods a week b periods a week d More than periods a week What are your current problems when teaching essay writing to the 10th form students? a Time limitation in class b Large size classes c Students‟ low motivation d Students‟ low background knowledge e Students‟ low proficiency in English f Students‟ lack of essay writing strategies f Teachers‟ inexperience in teaching new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” g Teachers‟ inappropriate methodology in teaching essay writing h.Others:……………………………………………………………………………… How difficult are the following stages of teaching essay writing? Very Difficult difficult Neither difficult nor easy Pre-writing Writing Revising Editing II Easy Very easy How often you use these activities in teaching essay writing? Always Often Sometimes Seldom Never Provide students new vocabulary and structures related to writing pieces Guide students to write an essay efficiently by using a model essay and analyzing it Lead students to write a paragraph then the whole essay Let students have time to brainstorm before writing Use visual aids to make suggestions in teaching essay writing Ask students to write an essay in a limited time Ask students to work in pairs or groups Give students key words to identify the task Give students precise comments on their writing What you think about the writing lessons in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10”? Agree Topics are close to students‟ life Tasks are difficult in comparison with students‟ ability Tasks develop from easy degree to difficult one There are various types of writing Others:……………………………………………… III Disagree How often you assign students more writing exercises to revise the written text they have learnt in class? a always d.seldom b often e never c sometimes 10 What suggestions could you give to improve your current teaching writing situation? Agree Textbook Modifying, adding, omitting tasks, content, activities Teachers Make proper use of facilities Provide students with more supporting materials to study at class and at home Offer students more instructions for their writing Manage lesson time properly Give more feedbacks to students‟ writing Organize group brainstorming Others:……………………………… Students Be active in writing lessons Self-study to enrich background knowledge and improve the ability of writing in English Others:…………… IV Disagree APPENDIX 2: CÂU HỎI ĐIỀU TRA ( DÀNH CHO HỌC SINH) Bảng câu hỏi điều tra thiết kế để phục vụ cho việc nghiên cứu đề tài “Dạy viết luận cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Nguyễn Mộng Tuân: Khó khăn giải pháp khắc phục” Câu trả lời em đóng góp lớn với nghiên cứu Các số liệu thông tin em đưa sử dụng cho mục đích nghiên cứu Cảm ơn hợp tác em! Phần 1: Thơng tin chung Giới tính: Nam Nữ Tuổi: ……………… Em học tiếng Anh …………… năm Em học kỹ viết …………… năm Phần 2: Ý kiến em Em nghĩ học kỹ viết theo sách giáo khoa “Tiếng Anh 10”……… a Rất quan trọng c Không quan trọng b Quan trọng d Hồn tồn khơng quan trọng Em đánh giá kỹ viết nào? a Rất d Tốt b Kém e Rất tốt c Trung bình Em gặp nhiều khó khăn bước viết luận? a Trước viết c Rà soát lại b Viết d Chỉnh sửa V Hãy đánh dấu (v) vào câu trả lời mà em lựa chọn Nhận định Đồng ý Không đồng ý Em không hứng thú với việc học viết Em thiếu kiến thức làm luận Trình độ tiếng Anh em nên thiếu từ cấu trúc để làm luận Em thiếu thời gian học viết lớp Những chủ đề viết không thú vị Em bị ảnh hưởng tiếng Việt viết luận tiếng Anh Phương pháp dạy viết giáo viên lặp lại dạy viết Hướng dẫn giáo viên học viết không đầy đủ Giáo viên không chữa viết kỹ lưỡng Giáo viên thường yêu cầu em làm trước viết? a Đọc hướng dẫn sách giáo khoa làm tập b Trả lời câu hỏi gợi ý giáo viên c Chú ý đến viết mẫu d Tìm ý lập dàn ý e Ý kiến khác:……………………………………………………………… Giáo viên thường yêu cầu em viết theo hình thức viết đầu tiên? a Cá nhân b Nhóm c Lúc viết cá nhân, lúc viết theo nhóm VI Giáo viên thường sử dụng hoạt động dạy em viết luận? Hoạt động Thường Thỉnh xuyên Không thoảng Cung cấp từ cấu trúc liên quan đến học Hướng dẫn em viết đoạn văn trước viết luận Để cho em thời gian để tìm ý trước viết Yêu cầu em viết luận khoảng thời gian xác định Sử dụng phương tiện dạy học (tranh ảnh, đồ, âm nhạc, trò chơi) học viết Chấm điểm viết em Đưa nhận xét viết em Giao thêm nhiệm vụ viết cho em nhà Theo em, nên có thay đổi để em học viết luận tốt hơn? Đồng ý Giáo viên Tham gia lớp bồi dưỡng giáo viên để học hỏi, trao đổi kinh nghiệm, phương pháp dạy viết Cung cấp cho học sinh nhiều tài liệu tham khảo bên cạnh sử dụng sách giáo khoa Đưa hướng dẫn dễ hiểu, ngắn gọn cho học sinh học viết luận Tổ chức cho học sinh làm việc theo nhóm lúc tìm ý cho viết luận Tổ chức chữa viết học sinh theo cặp Đưa nhận xét chữa cẩn thận Học sinh Tích cực, chủ động học viết luận VII Không đồng ý APPENDIX 3: INTERVIEW QUESTIONS FOR TEACHERS Which approaches have you been applying in teaching essay writing to the 10 th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? - The Controlled to Free Approach: - The Free-Writing Approach: - The Paragraph - Pattern Approach: - The Grammar-Syntax Organization Approach: - The Communicative Approach: - The Process Approach - Others: Which stage you think is the most difficult in your teaching essay writing? - Pre-writing - Writing - Revising - Editing What difficulties you think your students encounter in their writing? - Students‟ low proficiency in English - Students‟ low background knowledge - Teachers‟ instructions - Students‟ lack of essay writing strategies - Time limitation in class - Others: What problems are you facing in teaching essay writing with the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”? - preparing the writing lesson plans - teaching essay writing with pre-writing, writing, revising, editing stages - teachers‟ inexperience in teaching new textbook - the textbook activities don‟t attract students‟ attention - difference among students‟ levels of English proficiency - teachers‟ methodology in teaching essay writing - correcting students‟ mistakes in their writing What have you been doing to overcome these difficulties? VIII ... Difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 36 3.4.3 Suggested solutions to overcome the difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students. .. in the writing lessons Therefore, the situation encouraged me to carry out the study ? ?Teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school, Thanh Hoa province: Difficulties. .. of the importance of teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school The second aim is to investigate teachers‟ difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th