The use of genre-based approach to 10th form students in Tuyen Quang gifted high school to write better personal recount

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN NGUYÊN NGHỊ THE USE OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO HELP 10TH FORM STUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO WRITE BETTER PERSONAL RECOUNT (Sử dụng đường hướng dựa vào thể loại để giúp học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Chuyên Tuyên Quang viết văn mô tả tốt hơn) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLODY Code: 601410 Hanoi-2012 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES PHAN NGUYÊN NGHỊ THE USE OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO HELP 10TH FORM STUDENTS IN TUYEN QUANG GIFTED HIGH SCHOOL TO WRITE BETTER PERSONAL RECOUNT (Sử dụng đường hướng dựa vào thể loại để giúp học sinh lớp 10 Trường THPT Chuyên Tuyên Quang viết văn mô tả tốt hơn) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLODY Code: 601410 Supervisor: ĐỖ BÁ QUÝ, M.Ed Hanoi-2012 TABLE OF CONTENTS CONTENTS PAGE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS i ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iii-iv vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale and theoretical backgrounds of the study 1-3 Aims of the study 3-4 The study questions 4 Scope of study Design of the study 4-5 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: Literature review Genre Recount 6-7 Types of recount Personal recount Genre-based approach 7-13 Benefits and Limitations of Genre based approach to teaching writing 13-15 Chapter 2:Methodology and research schedule 16 2.1 Independent and Dependent Variables 16-17 2.2 Research design 17 2.3 Data collection 17-18 2.3.1 Data collection procedures 18-20 2.3.2 Data collection Instruments 18 2.3.2.1 Pre-test and Post-test 18-19 2.3.2.2 Lesson plans 19-20 2.3.2.3 Student questionnaire 20 2.3.2.4 Teacher‘s diary and observation Chapter 3: Data analysis 3.1 Data analysis of Pre and Post-test 21 3.2 The two groups‘ writing performance before the experiment 21-23 3.3 The two groups‘ writing performance after the experiment 23-25 3.4 The experimental group‘s improvement in writing proficiency 25-27 3.5 Data Analysis of questionnaires 27-32 PART C: CONCLUSION Conclusions 32-33 Limitations 33 Suggestions for further research 33-34 APPENDIX Questionnaires I-IV I Lesson plans II-IV REFERENCES V-VI LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1: Pre-test descriptive statistics Table 2: Post-test descriptive statistics Table 3: Pre-post test descriptive statistics of experimental group Table 4: Students‘ interest in writing skill Table 5: Students‘ attitude in writing skill using Genre-approach Table 6: Students‘ need in writing skill using Genre-approach Figure 1: Pre-test results of both groups Figure 2: Post-test results of both groups Figure 3: Pre- post test results of experimental group PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study Tuyen Quang Gifted High School is located in Tuyen Quang City – Tuyen Quang province There are 21 classes with about 820 students selected from all secondary schools in the province through an entrance examination held annually on late June or early July under the supervision of the Department of Education and Training The classes are divided into three grades, so there are seven grade-10, seven grade-11 and seven grade-12 classes There are at most thirty six students in one class, majoring in one subject that they have chosen right from the step of sitting for the entrance tests There are seven major subjects: Mathematics, Informatics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature, and English The students in my school are required to get in-depth knowledge on their majors besides fulfilling all other subjects in the National Syllabus, which piles up the study pressure and contributes to the difficulty of teaching and learning English, especially for non-English major students In my school, there are ten English teachers All of us graduated from English Departments in Pedagogy Universities and three of us have got MA degrees However, only eight of us are actually in charge of teaching at school because there are always two teachers attending to MA courses either in other provinces or abroad Therefore, each of us is responsible for three classes on average, which is equal to about ten 45-minute periods a week Although most of the students have realized the increasing importance of English in their study and future jobs, they clearly show the lack of interest in some aspects in their learning English, especially in learning writing skills One of the reasons for this may come from the test structures which focus on reading comprehension and grammar points in the forms of multiple-choice questions Another reason may be the students‘ belief that only speaking skills are the 10 most important and useful ones for them in communication I myself also have found that one of the reasons for students‘ low interest in writing may come from the teachers In other words, the teachers‘ methods to teach this skill may not be motivating enough to get students involved in These reasons are the very incentives for me to carry out this action research on using genre-based approach to motivate students to write in class time Up to now, the application of genre-based approach to teaching writing a recount has been carried out in many countries since the 1990s And although genre-based approach has been a controversial topic, it was stated to be very effective in teaching and learning English in EFL classroom Teachers use models can help free students from the fears of writing (Kay & Dudley-Evans, 1998) Moreover, with the knowledge of recount genre, students are familiar with the linguistic skills and can produce the right text type to achieve their intended communicative purpose (Gwee, 1990) Genre-based approach has been widely used to teach writing in many schools as well as universities worldwide, and positive results have been attained The findings from the study of Chandrika (2001) was a typical example Genre-based approach is still new to Vietnamese teachers Particularly in my school, most of the teachers and students who use English as a foreign language find that writing is the most laborious of the four language skills The current curriculum requires my colleagues, who have been used to traditional teaching methods, to use numerous strategies to help the students develop those skills only in three classes a week Although our students have some background knowledge of general English in the last five years, their writing ability is at a very low level They are only able to write at sentence levels, while the syllabus demands them to produce essays When being asked to write a personal recount, most of them not know how to make ideas well 11 organized, and even produce texts with an inappropriate genre And most students in my non-English major classes may find writing the most difficult and heavy lessons to follow because either they lack vocabulary and ideas or they not know the text organizations They have the tendency to translate their thought organized in Vietnamese style into the English written forms, which often culminates in unnatural and incomprehensible writing products As a result, their scores are unsatisfactory even though they are hard-working Furthermore, the students are not highly motivated to learn English except for preparing for tests or examinations English is one of the compulsory subjects in their school-leaving exam whose questions are multiple choice As an English teacher for five years in a gifted high school, I understand the greater study pressure that my students have to experience in comparison with their peers at normal high schools Therefore, I am interested in improving my teaching in a way to help my students to study writing English, particularly writing an English recount I myself had heard about genre-based approach before but not until I was exposed to the specific steps in genre-based approach to teaching writing a recount Therefore, I felt confident enough to apply it to my classes With my personal knowledge, understanding and observations of this new approach, I am equipped with theoretical and practical stimuli to conduct this action research And to teach my students, who have been rarely exposed to authentic writing, to create better personal recounts Aims of the study The goal of this study is to investigate whether the teaching with genrebased approach will help students overcome the difficulties in writing personal recount Therefore, the researcher‘s first objectives are to find out the 12 difficulties his students are facing, and how much the new method helps improve their writing A number of lessons which are planned based on the steps of this approach will be applied in classroom for a period of time to answer that question Besides, through questionnaires the researcher will explore the students‘ feeling about the use of genre approach in teaching writing personal recount The study questions In short, the study is designed to investigate the following questions: a What difficulties grade 10 students in Tuyen Quang Gifted High School face in writing personal recount? b To what extent does teaching with genre-based approach help the students improve their personal recount writing? c What are benefits and limitations of a genre-based approach to teaching writing? Scope of the study The sample of this study was the 10th form students of Tuyen Quang Gifted High school, Viet nam The study lasted for weeks and the treatment was applied to all students in a classroom Design of the study This study is divided into three main parts: Introduction, Development and Conclusion The Introduction provides an overview of the study with rationale, aims of research, scope of study 13 In summary, although both control and experimental groups made certain progress in their writing proficiency at the end of the term, it is obviously that students in the later group in which was applied Genre-based approach improved much more considerably than those in the other group Once more, Writing Personal recount based on genre Approach was found to be effective in motivating students‘ capability in general and their learning writing in particular Data Analysis of Questionnaires The questionnaires were designed based on three categories for clearer presentation: i.e agree , uncertain and disagree were combined Percentage of agreement and disagreement were calculated for all questionnaire items in this part The results of the pre and post questionnaires filled out by students in the experimental group were compared and the increase (+) or decrease (-) in the percentage of students who agreed to the statements in the postquestionnaire in comparison with those in the pre-questionnaire is shown in the following tables Table 4: Students’ interest in writing skill Pre- Post- Comparison questionnaire questionnaire 3 14% 35% 51% 62,5% 28% 9,5% +48,5% Level of agreement Statements I like writing in English 36 - 7% - 41,5% I like the writing 17% 27% 56% 64% 25% 14% +47% - 2% - 42% 18% 42% 40% 58% 28% 14% + 40% - 24% - 26% lessons at school I think writing activities at school are interesting (3= agree; 2= uncertain; 1= disagree) As can be seen from the table, there was a great change regarding the students‘ interest in writing Personal recount in English before and after experiment At first, according to their psychological characteristics as well as their experience in learning English, more than half of different factors demonstrated later on Writing English was the favorite of only 14% students who found themselves beneficial from it However, the students‘ low motivation in learning writing reasonably improved due to the new learning and teaching method 48% was the percentage of those who made a change to love the skill, which led to a decrease of 41,5% the haters As regards their opinions about the writing lessons in school, most students claimed that they were not in positive point (56%) Almost two third of them were not in favor of the writing activities in school as these activities were not of their interest, not to mention the monotony Fortunately, such poor situation did not exist with the application of the experimental program Although it could not satisfy all the learners, a mass of them assumed the diversity and enjoyment if the implemental activities A comparison of the results in the pre- and post-questionnaires provided us with a visible 37 indication when there was an increase of 64%, 47%, 42% in the proportion of students who liked the activities, found them various and interesting respectively Correspondingly, fewer students felt uninspired in writing lessons, which created a great encouragement for the teacher-researcher All in all, Genre based approach learning in writing had made an undoubtedly good impact on the learners‘ views of writing A majority of the students became neutral or positive towards writing skill and writing lessons instead of maintaining their opinions in the opposite side Table 5: Students’ attitude to writing skill using Genre-approach The researcher designed the following questionnaires to explore the students‘ feelings about the use of genre-based approach in teaching writing personal recounts Basing on the result of questionnaires the researcher can discover whether there are changes in students‘ attitude or not Pre-questionnaire Post- Comparison questionnaire Level of agreement Statements 3 62,5% 21% 16,5% 14% 9,5% 76,5% -48,5% -10,5% +60% 69,5% 16,5% 14% 21% 22% 57% -47,5% +5,5% +43% 69,5% 14% 16,5% 25% 8,3% 66,7% -44,5% -5,7% Writing is very difficult I am not confident in writing It takes me a lot of time to write 38 +50,2 % (3= agree; 2= uncertain; 1= disagree) The table shows that there were still a lot of students (69,5%) not being confident in writing English in general and Personal recount in particular Before applying Genre- based approach, many students were not confident and afraid of writing, but the proportion changed (25%) after using Genre Beside, it was easy to find that most students saw writing English (personal recount) is difficult (62,5%) However, the rate fell a lots after this program (14%) comparison with the former one It means that learning the grammar terms (e.g nouns, verbs, adjectives, clauses, etc), learning to use synonyms and antonyms and the language features (e.g tenses, transition signals, etc) was important for their writing And one of the most important rate was time being taken to write was reduced so much after students writing based Genre (69,5%) compared with (25%) It means (66,7%) students found that applying Genre can save time for them a lots Therefore, I can say that the experiment helped students speed up and save time their writing as well as overcome their not confidence in writing Table 6: Students’ need of writing skill using Genre-approach This questionnaire was used to explore the students‘ need during writing so that the researcher can discover whether there are changes in writing using Genre approach or not Pre- Post- Comparison questionnaire questionnaire Level of agreement Statements 39 3 Before I start writing, I need to ask myself what my piece of 68% 21% 11% 14% 8% 78% - 54% -13% +64% 12% 15% 5% 80% +65% -3% -62% writing is expected to do? Before I start writing, I need to be sure that what are the structure 80% 8% and language features of the expected writing (3=agree; 2= uncertain; 1= disagree) The table shows that the students‘ need of the better writing lessons In the pre-questionnaire, most students thought that there were (68%) they didn‘t know what to and what to write in each piece of writing However, the fact changed so much after they were learned writing in using Genre approach The rate reduced (14%) and they knew exactly what to do, what to write in each steps Beside, most students felt so passive in writing that they were not sure that what are the structure and language features of the expected writing The results in the post-questionnaire indicated change There were 80% didn‘t know what language features and structures, the rate fell down 15% and after treatment they knew how to write better and easier In sum, Genre based approach was useful and interesting enough to make a change of students‘ attitude to writing recount As far as I am concerned, the experiment brought great satisfaction to both the students and me For me, this study gave me more chances to change the way to teach writing in general and Personal recount in particular Together 40 with Genre based approach help me motivate students to learn English better To the students, Genre not only motivated them to learn writing skill but also helped them have more and more confidence in writing and using English PART C: CONCLUSION The previous chapters have provided answers to three research questions In this part the researcher will give the conclusions of the important findings, discusses the limitations of the research Conclusions of the study The study aims at finding the way to help students write a better personal recount The study was carried out at Grade 10 Physics class From students‘ writing results and their responses to the questionnaires, the researcher has found out the answers to the three research questions First, most of the students had difficulties writing because of without vocabulary, structures, languages features as well as lack of ideas to write Second, students gained improvement in writing personal recount based on genre-based approach They felt more confident and spent less time on writing Finally, there are still limitations of the genre-based approach to teaching writing because students may be passive and not have enough knowledge to express what they intend to write I myself think that the genre approach is still quite unfamiliar to my colleagues and students Therefore, they may not support me or may refuse to apply it in teaching writing Besides, most of the tests not require students to write essays, so they might not be interested in the use of the new approach 41 However, with the detailed schedule and procedure above, the researcher hopes that the Research will result in positive changes in students‘ personal recount writing They can follow the correct structure, the language features as well as selectively use vocabulary and verb tenses The new method will probably make the students feel more confident and more interested in writing recounts That may help them better their ability to written tests Limitations The researcher has tried best to offer some insightful findings; however, there are some certain limitations in this research as follows; First of all, regarding of time, the research was carried with a short time which was not long enough to have an incentive overview of the real problem Moreover, this research is only carried out on a sample class of 32 students, budgets for the study is limited To conduct this study and apply the expected findings to the whole school population demands much greater time and efforts of both teachers and students Secondly, the selected subjects of this study are Vietnamese-Literature major students, who, to some extent, have language acquisition ability Besides, English is an obligatory subject in their entrance examination to the universities The classroom occurrences and situations could be different with students majoring in different subjects and with students in normal high schools Suggestions for further research From the research and its expected findings there emerge many ideas and problems for further research to address The first one may lie in the question of adapting the writing tasks in current textbooks to apply genre-based approach In addition, there can be studies on effective activities to use in 42 each stage of the curriculum circle when using genre-based approach Besides, the combination of process and genre-based approach should be examined to see whether it works better Another study may be on the combination of reading and writing using genre-based approach In this proposal, the researcher has identified the research problem, reviewed the literature, planned the data collection procedure and research schedule, and anticipated some positive results as well as challenges The researcher is going to implement the research plan when new school year coming It is hoped that the research‘s findings will help to improve the teaching and learning writing, especially writing personal recounts 43 APPENDICES Appendix 1: QUESTIONNAIRE Level of agreement Agree Statements I like writing in English I like the writing lessons at school I think writing activities at school are interesting Writing is very difficult I am not confident in writing It takes me a lot of time to write Before I start writing, I need to ask myself what my piece of writing is expected to do? 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