A study on teacher’s difficulties in teaching writing skill to the 11th grade at a school in bac giang

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATES STUDIES *********** LÊ THỊ THÁI A STUDY ON TEACHER’S DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING WRITING SKILL TO THE 11 TH GRADE AT A SCHOOL IN BAC GIANG NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG VIỆC DẠY KĨ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT Ở BẮC GIANG M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Hanoi - 2013 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY - HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATES STUDIES *********** LÊ THỊ THÁI A STUDY ON TEACHER’S DIFFICULTIES IN TEACHING WRITING SKILL TO THE 11 TH GRADE AT A SCHOOL IN BAC GIANG NGHIÊN CỨU NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TRONG VIỆC DẠY KĨ NĂNG VIẾT CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 TẠI MỘT TRƯỜNG THPT Ở BẮC GIANG M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.14.10 Supervisor: Dr HÀ CẨM TÂM Hanoi - 2013 DECLARATION I, Le Thi Thai, hereby declare that this minor thesis is the result of my own research and I have not been submitted anywhere for any award All sources of information in this study which is not my own work has been identified and acknowledged I also state that the thesis has not, wholly or in part, been submitted for any degree to any other universities or substitutions Le Thi Thai September, 2013 i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this work, first of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility and encouragement without which my research would be far from finished I would like to acknowledge with great gratitude the precious advice, enlightening guidance and especially invaluable critical feedback which I have received from my supervisor, Dr Hà Cẩm Tâm I would also like to send my sincere thanks to the principal, the teachers of English groups at Ly Thuong Kiet high school , who have helped me in providing the teaching materials, giving me chance to attend their lessons, willing to take part in the interviews and making constructive and insightful comments for this study My special thanks also go to Mrs Lê Thu Hà, the librarian at the Resource center, who introduced and lent me a numerous of interesting books and valuable materials for my thesis Last but not least, I would like to express my heart-felt thanks to my beloved people, my parents, my husband whose support and continual encouragement have been indispensable for the fulfillment of this challenging work Hanoi, September, 2013 Lê Thị Thái ii ABSTRACT In an attempt to investigate teachers’ problems in teaching writing skills to 11graders at a high school in Bac Giang, the study was aimed at finding out: (1) the problems the teachers might encounter in the teaching process of the skills; (2) factors causing their difficulties The study has been conducted in the form of a survey research, with the subjects were English teachers The classroom observation was the main instruments employed for the data collection These teachers were also invited to join interviews The research reveals that teachers’ time management and teaching methods should really be taken into consideration Besides, the data from the study confirm the fact that the students’ laziness and negative attitudes towards writing lessons all made it difficult for the teachers in teaching process In addition, large size classes with multi-level students are also made the situation worse For those reasons, the study finally recommends some implications to help improve the quality of teaching and learning writing iii TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENT iv PART ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale 1.2 Aims of the study 1.3 Scope of the study 1.4 Methods of the study 1.5 Organization of the study PART TWO DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An Overview on Writing 1.1.1 Roles of writing in teaching and learning foreign language 1.1.2 Approaches to teaching writing 1.1.2.1 The controlled to free approach 1.1.2.2 Free writing approach 1.1.2.3 The paragraph-pattern approach 1.1.2.4 The grammar syntax organization approach 1.1.2.5 The communicative approach 1.1.2.6 The process approach ………………………………………………… 1.1.3 Writing teaching procedures 1.1.3.1 Activities in teaching writing………………………………………… 1.1.3.2 Stages in teaching writing…………………………………………… 1.1.3.2.1 Pre- writing 10 Brainstorming 10 iv Planning 10 Debating 10 Interviewing 11 1.1.3.2.2 While- writing 11 1.1.3.2.3 Post- writing 11 1.1.4 Principles for teaching writing 11 1.1.5 Review of previous studies on teaching writing 14 CHAPTER THE STUDY 18 2.1 Research question 18 2.2 Research design 18 2.2.1 Participants 18 2.2.2 Data collection instruments 19 2.2.3 Data collection procedures 22 2.3 Data analysis and discussion 22 2.3.1 Classroom observation 22 2.3.2 Interviews 29 th 2.3.3 Teachers’ difficulties in teaching writing to the 11 grade students 34 PART C.CONCLUSION 37 Major findings 37 Implications 37 Suggestions for further study 39 REFERENCE 40 APPENDIX I APPENDIX1 I APPENDIX2 X v PART ONE: INTRODUCTION Rationale Writing has always been regarded as an important skill in the teaching and learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) On the one hand, it stimulates thinking, compels students to concentrate and organize their ideas, and cultivates their ability to summarize, analyze, and criticize On the other hand, it reinforces learning in, thinking in, and reflecting on the English language However, writing is considered a difficult skill as students find composing in English not easy, many students complain that they lack ideas and cannot think of anything interesting or significant enough to write While most English teachers are often perplexed by these problems in their writing classes, they have to face many challenges and cannot find an efficient way to teach effectively English is a compulsory subject and it is one of six subjects in the national examination that students have to take to get General Certificate of Secondary Education (G.C.S.E) at secondary school Since the New English Textbook Tieng Anh 10, 11 and 12 were in use, besides teaching grammar and vocabulary, four skills such as reading, speaking, listening and writing have been focused Among these, writing seems to be a rather difficult and boring skill as students not find the lessons given by teachers interesting and attractive enough to take part in and therefore, students not work with high motivation, they are in class but their mind are absent Being an English teacher at a high school for over ten years, I have been deeply aware of challenges in dealing with the interest but demanding subject of English, especially with writing skill, it has urged me to seek for a suitable teaching writing method to help my students overcome the problem of lacking “inspiration” in learning writing and create something for them to write Besides, not many researchers have been studied the difficulties of teachers in teaching writing at high schools Hence, it is an urgent need for me to take a serious look at such issue and find a place for writing skills in teaching and learning among teachers and students For all the above-mentioned reasons, I would like to devote my time researching the topic th in my thesis: “ A study on teacher’s difficulties in teaching writing skill to the 11 grade at a school in Bac Giang” I hope that my work can help teachers of English have a better look on teaching writing skills and consult some recommendations in order to improve the quality of teaching and learning writing skills at my school and elsewhere Aims of the study This research is designed to have an insight into the English writing lessons for the 11 th form students at a high school in Bac Giang province for continual improvement Within this purpose, the specific objectives of the study are:  To identify the teachers’ major difficulties in teaching writing skills  To examine the causes of their difficulties Scope of the study The study is mainly focus on the difficulties that teachers confronted in teaching writing skills to 11 grade students in the classroom setting at a high school The study of difficulties of other skills thus would be beyond of the scope The study involves the participants of teachers of English and 270 students in 11 th forms The findings and suggested implications most appropriately applied to English teachers at a high school, the teachers will be able to find ways to improve their process of teaching English Methods of the study The study was designed to use a combination of a variety of methods to achieve its objectives Firstly, classroom observation with 270 students from classes was carried out to investigate the reality of the teachers’ difficulties confronting in their teaching writing skills In addition to classroom observation, informal interviews with the informants of English teachers were also employed The purpose of the survey is to collect data about the teachers’ difficulties in teaching writing to the 11 th grade at a high school Besides, reviewing the related documents is also a method in order to establish the theoretical background for the study Organization of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part one includes the rationales, aims, scope, and methods of the study Part two includes chapters Chapter deals with the roles of writing in language programme, approaches to teaching writing, writing teaching procedures, principles for teaching writing and review of Previous Studies on Teaching Writing Chapter discusses the method of the study, the research questions, the research design, the data analysis and discussion Part three concludes the major findings of the thesis, offers some implications for better teaching writing skill and suggestions for further study are also pointed out 3 Suggestions for further study What found in this study is just the surface of the deep river of English language teaching at a high school located in a mountainous area in Vietnam It is necessary to conduct a more in-depth research to gain better insights into the reality of teaching and learning English in the schools The following directions should be taken into consideration in the further study: Firstly, more studies on techniques for improving students’ motivation to the writing lessons should be carried out to get deeper insights into this issue Secondly, a further study focusing on designing English tests which include writing skill is necessary Moreover, within the scope of the study, there has no chance to deal with other factors affecting students’ motivation on learning writing skill Therefore, the study on factors affecting students’ motivation should also be carried out Lastly, as the study has just done to find out the teachers’ difficulties in teaching writing skills, the students’ difficulties in learning writing skills should be investigated, too 39 REFERENCES Vietnamese Bộ giáo dục đào tạo (2006), Tài liệu bồi dưỡng giáo viên, thực chương trình, sách giáo khoa lớp 11 THPT, Nxb Giáo dục, Hà Nội Đỗ Tuấn Minh (2008), Tài liệu bồi dưỡng giáo viên THPT “ Đổi phương pháp dạy học theo chương trình sách giáo khoa lớp 11 mới”, Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội, Hà Nội English Brookes, A & Grundy, P (1990), Writing for Study Purposes, A teacher’s guide to developing individual writing skills, Cambridge University Press Byrne, D (1979), Teaching Writing Skills, Longman Handbooks for Language Teachers, Longman London Byrne, D (1988) Teaching Writing Skills London: Longman Brown, H.D (1994), Teaching by Principles An Interactive Approach to Language Pedagogy, Prentice Hall Regents, New Jersey Coffin, C et al, (2003) Teaching Academic Writing : A toolkit for higher education, London : Routledge Harmer, J (2003), The Practice of English Language Teaching, Third Edition completely Revised and Updated, Longman, London Hedge, T (1988) Writing Oxford: Oxford University Press : OUP Hedge, T (2000), Teaching and Learning in the Language Classroom, Oxford University Press Kroll, B (1990), Second Language Writing, Research insights for the classroom, Cambridge University Press 10 Nunan, D (2001) Research Methods in Language Teaching Cambridge: CUP 11 Nunan, D (2003), Practical Language Teaching, First Edition, International Edition 12 Raimes, A (1983) Techniques in Teaching Writing, Oxford University Press 40 13 Ronald, V.W (1995), New Ways in Teaching Writing, New Ways in TESOL Series, Innovative Classroom Techniques, Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc, Pantagraph Printing, Bloomington, Illinois USA 14 Tribble, C (1996) Writing Oxford University Press 15 White, R & Arndt, V (1991) Process Writing Longman Articles Rao, Z : Training in Brainstorming and Developing Writing Skills, ELT Journal Volume 61/2 April 2007: doi:10.1093/elt/ccm002, Published by Oxford University Press Taylor, M.E : Using Collateral Material to Improve Writing Performance, ELT Journal Volume 57/2 April 2003, Oxford University Press Walker, R & Perez Riu, C : Coherence in the Assessment of Writing Skills, ELT Journal Volume 62/1 January 2008: doi:10.1093/elt/ccm074, Published by Oxford University Press Xiang, W : Encouraging Self-Monitoring in Writing by Chinese Students, ELT Journal Volume 58/3 July 2004, Oxford University Press Thesis Đoàn Thị Thuý (2006), Difficulties in Teaching Writing Skills with the new English Textbook Tieng Anh 10 to the 10-Form Students at Lac Long Quan High School, Hoa Binh Province Nguyễn Thị Thuý (2006), Difficulties in Teaching and Learning Writing Perceived by Teachers and Students in using the New English Textbooks (Basic Stream) for Grade 10 at Kinh Mon Upper Secondary School in Hai Duong Phạm Thuý Trinh (2006), The Reality of Teaching and Learning Writing Skill at Tran Nguyen Han High School in Hai Phong and Recommendations 41 APPENDIX APPENDIX : OBSERVATION FORMS Observation th Date: August 28 , 2013 Class attended : 11A2 Length of period : 45 minutes Topic : Unit : WRITE ABOUT A FRIEND Objectives of the lesson: by the end of the lesson, students are able to write a paragraph of about 100 words to describe one of their friends Procedures of the lesson Warmingup Do you have a best 1.Yes, I friend or close friend? help What does she/he to problems? She usually … (student Pre-writing stage II partners -Teacher asks them to in minutes -Teacher checks and give more by showing on the screen *Teacher structures Eg: She/he is tall/short She/he round face S + be + adj S + got + a/an + N -Teacher show all on the screen *Teacher gives a model sentence to show what they like about their friend: “I like her/him because she/he is studious, eager to learn and always helps me out of difficulties” III Whilewriting stage -Teacher asks students to write individually in 15 minutes -Teacher goes around to help students when they ask for words they not know *Teaching aids: projector is used to show words and structures Postwriting stage Observation th Date: Friday, September, 2013 Class attended : 11A6 Length of period : 45 minutes Topic : Unit – Writing a personal letter about a past experience Objectives of the lesson: by the end of the lesson, students are able to write a letter to describe their past experience V Procedures of the lesson Warmingup Pre-writing stage VI -When I was a grade student *Place: - at home/party/classroom/school/hotel *Things happened: write details what happened -Students receive the information passively *People involved: - friends/ parents/ brothers/ sisters… *The experience affected you: - make me ashamed - taught me how to behave well *Teacher gives useful structures: - The past tenses - Structures: Make somebody + V/adj Teach somebody + N/ to-V Change your attitude/behavior Teacher gives suggestions using poster -Students read the suggestions in minutes VII Whilewriting stage VIII Postwriting stage The class ends at 10:30 a.m IX APPENDIX : QUESTIONS FOR INTERVIEW The questions are designed to find out what teacher’s difficulties are after giving a writing lesson and the reasons for those List of the questions Question 1: Do you think eliciting is a good technique to revise necessary words for the writing topic? And you conduct the techniques properly Question 2: Do you think you provided enough vocabulary and structures for students to write? Question 3: Do you know the reason why many students were not engaged in the lesson? Question 4: Do you think time was well-divided among stages in your lesson? Question 5: Do you find your students having difficulties in writing? And what are the causes? Question 6: Why wasn’t peer-correction used in your lesson? Question 7: Why didn’t you give chance for your students to rewrite their drafts which must be done in a writing lesson? Question 8: Are your students in the same or different level? How difficult is it when you teach multi-level students in a class ? Question : Why were there only pre-writing and while-writing stages in your lesson? Question 10: Do you think you achieved the aims of your lesson? Are you satisfied with your lesson? Why? / Why not? X ... the teaching of writing as the latter may contribute towards activating students’ thinking and creating ideas for a writing task and organize raw materials in a logical order The findings of the. .. students’ participation in thinking, talking and working on the topic under the focus in a writing lesson In other words, it is the “information-gathering phase in the process of writing? ?? ( Scarcella... necessary skills in writing 1.1.3.2 Stages in teaching writing According to Brown (1994), there are two main stages in writing teaching: Pre -writing and While -writing These stages are a combination