The effect of teachers’ self reflection on learners’ writing achievement at an english language center in hanoi

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES &INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ THỊ NHÀN THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ SELF-REFLECTION ON LEARNERS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER IN HANOI (VAI TRÒ CỦA CHIẾN LƯỢC TỰ PHẢN HỒI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI KẾT QUẢ THI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 140 111 Hanoi – 2014 VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ THỊ NHÀN THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ SELF-REFLECTION ON LEARNERS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER IN HANOI (VAI TRÒ CỦA CHIẾN LƯỢC TỰ PHẢN HỒI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI KẾT QUẢ THI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI ) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 140 111 Supervisor: Tô Thị Thu Hương, PhD Hanoi - 2014 DECLARATION I, Lê Thị Nhàn, declare that the thesis entitled “The effect of teachers’ selfreflection on learners’ writing achievement at an English language center in Hanoi” reports the result of the study conducted by myself The minor thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Post-graduate studies, ULIS, Hanoi for the Degree of Master in TESOL It has not been published anywhere Hanoi, September 15th, 2014 Lê Thị Nhàn i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place, I would like to send my sincere thankfulness to my supervisor – Ms To Thi Thu Huong for all her valuable guidance, helpful advices, recommendation, and encouragement during the time I tried to complete this minor thesis Without her, I would not have followed the right direction for the accomplishment of this research Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis I want to thank Wider World Language Center for giving me permission to work with their students and to the necessary research work in their office I have furthermore to thank all the students of Wider World Language Center for their stimulating participations and valuable hints Thirdly, I would like to thank all the teachers of Post-Graduate Faculty for their valuable lectures which lay the foundation for my minor thesis Last but not least, I would like to express my biggest love and thankfulness to my family for their unconditional contributions during my thesis production It was my parents who gave me the will to continue this challenging work ii ABSTRACT The concept of teachers’ self-reflection refers to the extent to which teachers contemplate and reflect on their teaching experience in the classroom in order to improve their teaching skills This study seeks to explore the effect of teacher’s selfreflection on the learners’ writing achievement at a language center The main objectives were to (1) examine whether teacher’s self-reflection have any effect on the students’ writing achievement and (2) to what extent this innovative teaching strategy have had an impact on students’ writing skills In order to reach these objectives, the action research was conducted on 15 EFL learners at Wider World language Center The effectiveness of the program was investigated through the comparison of students’ pre-test and post-test scores, and analysis of teacher’s diary The results of the study indicated that teacher’s self-reflection have facilitating effect on students’ writing achievement The findings also revealed that the attitudes of students towards learning English writing were more positive On this basis, the study recommended some implications for teaching and directions for further research with reference to the context of teaching English writing at language centers in Vietnam iii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .ii ABSTRACT .iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv ABBREVIATIONS vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES………………………………………… viii PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale for the study Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Significance of the research Method of the study Design of the research PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of teaching writing 1.1.1 Role of writing and teaching writing 1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing 1.2 An overview of reflection 1.2.1 Definition of reflection 1.2.2 Importance of reflection 1.2.3 Models/frameworks of reflection 10 1.3 Related studies 12 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2.1 Rationale for action research design 15 2.2 Background of the study 16 iv 2.2.1 Setting……………………… …… 16 2.2.2 Participants……………………… 16 2.2.3 The English program and the writing component………………… 17 2.3 Data collection instruments 18 2.3.1 Writing tests……………………… 18 2.3.2 Teacher’s diary 19 2.3.3 Students’ journal 19 2.3.4 Students’ writing products and portfolios 19 2.4 Implementation of the action research 20 2.5 Data analysis procedure 23 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1 Findings 24 3.1.1 The results of students’ pre-tests and post-tests……………… 24 3.1.2 The results of teacher’s diary……………………… 27 3.2 Discussion 33 3.2.1 Research question 1……………………… 33 3.2.2 Research question 2……………………… 34 3.3 Pedagogical implications 36 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary of the study 38 Limitations of the study 39 Recommendations for further studies 40 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Checklist of writing tasks in Energy I Appendix 2: Pre-test .II Appendix 3: Post-test III Appendix 4: Teacher’s diary IV Appendix5: Students’ journal .VI v Appendix 6: Checklist of grading rubric for writing test……………………….VIII Appendix 7: Students’ writing pre-test scores .X Appendix8: Students’ writing post-test scores .XI Appendix9: Students’ writing sample (before the intervention) .,.XII Appendix10: Students’ writing sample (after the intervention) XIV Appendix11: Teacher’s diary sample XVI Appendix12: Students’ journal sample .XXII vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a foreign language TEFL Teaching English as a foreign language TESL Teaching English as a second language WWLC Wider World language center vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table Comparison on central tendency in students’ pre-test and post-test 25 Table Comparison on variance in students’ pre-test and post-test 26 Table Comparison on standard deviation in students’ pre-test and post-test 26 Table Students’ writing performance in the pre-test 28 Table Students’ writing performance in the post-test 30 Figure Comparison on distribution of students’ pre-test and post-test scores 24 viii XIX XX XXI XXII XXIII XXIV XXV XXVI XXVII XXVIII XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII XXXIII ... effect of teachers’ selfreflection on learners’ writing achievement at an English language center in Hanoi? ?? reports the result of the study conducted by myself The minor thesis is submitted to the. .. in a long-term research on teaching and learning of reflection at the center Besides, this research only focuses on the use of teacher’s selfreflection in the teaching and learning of writing So,... students at the age of 10 and 11, they are the beginners at writing; therefore, they need the assistance of the teacher to guide them how to write a good piece of writing In addition, the reflection