Challenges faced by teachers and 10th graders in teaching and learning english writing skills at a high school in hanoi

VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** QUÁCH THỊ HẢI HẠNH CHALLENGES FACED BY TEACHERS AND 10TH GRADE STUDENTS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI (Những thách thức giáo viên học sinh lớp 10 việc dạy học kỹ viết tiếng Anh trường THPT Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English teaching methodology Code: 8140231.01 Hanoi – 2020 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES QUÁCH THỊ HẢI HẠNH CHALLENGES FACED BY TEACHERS AND 10TH GRADE STUDENTS IN TEACHING AND LEARNING ENGLISH WRITING SKILLS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI (Những thách thức giáo viên học sinh lớp 10 việc dạy học kỹ viết tiếng Anh trường THPT Hà Nội) M.A MINOR THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 8140231.01 Supervisor : Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa PhD Hanoi – 2020 DECLARATION I hereby declare that the thesis entitled “Challenges faced by teachers and 10th graders in teaching and learning writing skills at a high school in Hanoi” is my entirely own work and effort in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master’s degree at the Faculty of Post - Graduate Studies, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi The material in this research has not been submitted to any other universities or institutions wholly and partially Quach Thi Hai Hanh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Mrs Hoàng Thị Xuân Hoa, PhD for her insightful comments, criticism, wholehearted guidance and kind support that she gave me while I was carrying out this research Undoubtedly, this thesis would hardly be accomplished without her assistance I also specially thank many teachers and staff of the Faculty of Postgraduate studies, University of Languages and International Studies, for their valuable knowledge and guidance and assistance during my time of study at the Faculty I am also grateful to my colleagues as well as my students at a high school in Hanoi, who have helped me a lot in my data collection to fulfill this paper Last but not least, my heartfelt thank was sent to my family for their support and strong encouragement to me throughout the study ii ABSTRACT English writing skill can be seen as the most challenging among four language skills When teaching and learning writing skills, most teachers and students are confronted with a wide range of obstacles The presented study aims at identifying teachers’ and students’ difficulties in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi Data of the research was gathered by means of two major research tools a questionnaire for teacher and interviews for both teachers and students The collected information revealed that the 10th graders had low motivation in learning writing, poor writing ideas, lack of frequent practice and the teachers' teaching methods were seen as the most prevalent problematic factors having huge impact on and learning writings of the students Especially, time distribution and ignorance about writing skills by both teachers and students were also reported as predominant elements by the respondents Based on the major findings, a couple of suggestions and recommendations are proposed to improve the quality of teaching and learning English writing skills at the high school iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT : Communicative language teaching EFL : English as foreign language FL : Foreign language GTM : Grammar -Translation method L1 : First language L2 : Second language SL : Second language iv LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Pie chart 4.1: Interest in learning writing skills 25 Bar chart 4.2.: Benefits of learning English writing skills 26 Table 4.1: Challenges when learning English writing skills .28 Table 4.2: Expectations and suggestions 30 v TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv LIST OF TABLES v CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of the study 1.2 Objectives of the study 1.3 Research questions .3 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Significance of the study 1.6 Methods of the study 1.7 Organization of the study .4 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Writing skills 2.1.1 Definition 2.1.2 The importance of writing .6 2.1.3 Approaches to second language writing instruction 2.2 Challenges in teaching and learning writing skills 2.2.1 Problems faced by students in learning writing skills 2.2.2 Problems faced by teachers in teaching writing skills 10 2.3 Strategies for improving the writing skills 12 2.4 Previous studies 13 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16 3.1 Context of the study 16 3.1.1 The high school in Hanoi 16 3.1.2 English language training in the high school 17 vi 3.2 Subjects of the study 18 3.3 Survey research design .19 3.3.1 Research methods 19 3.3.2 Data collection instruments .19 3.3.3 Procedure of the study 21 3.4 The data analysis 22 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 24 4.1 Findings 24 4.1.1 Findings from the students’ questionnaire survey and interview 24 4.1.2 Findings from the teachers’ interview 34 4.2 Discussion 37 4.2.1 Discussion of the students’ questionnaire survey and interview results 37 4.2.2 Discussion of the teachers’ interview results 40 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 42 5.1 Recapitulation 42 5.2 Implications 43 5.3 Limitations of the study .44 5.4 Suggestions for further study .45 REFERENCES 46 APPENDICES I Appendix 1: Bảng câu hỏi khảo sát dành cho học sinh lớp 10 I Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire for 10th graders IV Appendix 3: Results for the survey questionnaire for 10th graders VII Appendix 4: Câu hỏi vấn dành cho học sinh X Appendix 5: Interview questions for the students and their answers X Appendix 6: Câu hỏi vấn dành cho giáo viên XIII Appendix 7: Interview questions for the teachers and their answers XIII vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the background of the study and the statement of the problem, the objectives of the study, the research questions, the scope of the study, the significance of the study, the method of the study and the structure of the study 1.1 Rationale of the study Among four language skills (speaking, listening, reading and writing), writing is the one that a language learner expects to master Hyland (2003) argues that writing is an activity that must be learned so that students can effectively communicate their ideas in writing It is therefore imperative that teachers help students develop writing skill that allow them to express themselves properly and effectively in L2 writing Sokolik (2003) states that writing is a mixture of process and product This process provides a collection of ideas or a stage of people who talk when they make up a piece of writing, while the final product is considered a piece of writing Writing also brings learners the chance to find solutions to deliver their ideas in foreign language (Setiawan et al, 2014) Foreign language training requires sharing out four fundamental skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing, which is a complicated process When teaching these skills, teachers frequently circulate a certain teaching sequence: beginning with listening, speaking, reading, and then writing (Hedge, 2000) Also, Hedge (2000) reports that learners dedicate 45% of their energies to listening, 30% to speaking, 16% to reading, and 9% to writing There is no doubt that writing skill is put at the end of the chain because it seems to be highly complex and difficult to master even for native people As stated by Grabe and Kaplan (1996, p.87), “probably half of the world’s population does not know how to write adequately and effectively" It was agreed that "it is easier to learn to speak than to write no matter if it is a first or second language”(Nunan, 1989, p.12) Tangpermpoon (2008) assumes that compared to other language skills such as listening , speaking and reading, writing is the most difficult skill to acquire as it needs writers to have a lot liệu đọc Những 12 Tơi có kiến thức yếu thách thức 13 Vốn từ vựng có hạn học kĩ 14 Tơi có kiến thức ngữ pháp hạn chế viết 15 Tôi không luyện viết thường xuyên tiếng Anh 16 Tôi cảm thấy căng thẳng học kỹ viết 17 Tôi sợ mắc lỗi viết (VD: lỗi ngữ pháp, lựa chọn từ ngữ, mạch lạc / liên kết, dấu câu, cấu trúc…) 18 Tôi thường không nghĩ từ ý tưởng để viết 19 Khả ngôn ngữ cong hạn chế 20 Tôi thường nghĩ ý tưởng tiếng Việt dịch sang tiếng Anh 21 Trung bình giáo viên tơi dành thời gian cho việc dạy kỹ viết 22 Phương pháp giảng dạy giáo viên lúc phù hợp 23 Phản hồi giáo viên viết học sinh khơng thường xun 24 Tiêu chí đánh giá giáo viên viết học sinh không rõ ràng 25 Các chủ đề sách giáo khoa khơng thú vị 26 Tơi khơng có nhiều tài liệu sách tham khảo 27 Khác:… Kỳ vọng đề xuất 28 Giáo viên dành nhiều thời gian để dạy kỹ viết II 29 Giáo viên sửa lỗi đưa phản hồi viết học sinh 30 Học sinh tiến hành nhiều hoạt động viết lớp nhà 31 Kỹ viết nên dạy bình đẳng với kiến thức ngôn ngữ kỹ ngôn ngữ khác 32 Giáo viên trang bị thêm tài liệu tài liệu tham khảo kỹ viết để tham khảo ý kiến 33 Khác: III Appendix 2: Survey questionnaire for 10th graders SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE FOR 10TH GRADERS AT A HIGH SCHOOL IN HANOI -*** -This questionnaire is designed to collect data for my Master graduation paper “Challenges faced by teachers and 10th graders in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi” All of your responses are extremely precious for this thesis; therefore, I highly expect that you will read the given statements carefully, and then put a tick (√) into the option which is the most suitable to you Thank you for your cooperation! Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Clusters Unsure Items I like writing skill most among four language Interest in skills learning I am excited to participate in writing lessons English Topics and contents of writing are often writing interesting and real-life like skills I am much satisfied with my writing competence Writing skill gives me a deeper understanding of the Benefits of learning English writing skills English language Writing skill helps me use language knowledge more accurately and effectively Good writing skill facilitates me to learn other language skills better IV It is hard to better writing skill I lack motivation and interest in learning writing 10 My class is overloaded 11 I lack exposure to books and reading materials 12 I have poor academic backgrounds 13 My vocabulary is limited 14 I have poor grammar knowledge 15.I lack regular writing practice 16 I feel stressed when learning writing skill 17 I am afraid of making writing mistakes (grammar, Challenges when learning English writing skills word choice, coherence/cohesion, punctuation, structures…) 18 I often feel at a loss of words or ideas for writing 19 My language proficiency is poor 20 I often think of the ideas in Vietnamese and then translate them into English 21 My teachers average less time on teaching writing skill 22 Teacher’s teaching methods are not always appropriate 23 Teacher’s feedback on students’ writing is not very frequent 24 Teacher’s criteria for evaluating students’ writing are not very clear 25 Topics in the textbook are not very interesting 26 I don't have many materials and references for consultation V 27 Others: … 28 My teachers should spend more time teaching writing skill 29 My teachers correct mistakes and give feedback on my writings more often 30 More writing activities should be conducted in the class and at home Expectations and suggestions 31 Writing skill should be taught equally with language knowledge and other language skills 32 More materials and references about writing skills should be equipped for consultation 33 Others: VI Appendix 3: Results for the survey questionnaire for 10th graders Strongly agree Agree Disagree Strongly disagree Clusters Unsure Items 14 50 65 50 31 27 64 79 32 45 85 63 15 15 77 96 14 68 92 32 11 52 97 44 62 74 52 14 37 73 53 31 16 92 56 45 11 114 78 15 76 62 58 12 I have poor academic backgrounds 95 75 18 15 13 My vocabulary is limited 92 80 21 12 I like writing skill most among four language skills Interest in learning English writing skills I am excited to participate in writing lessons Topics and contents of writing are often interesting and real-life like I am much satisfied with my writing competence Writing skill gives me a deeper Benefits of understanding of the English language learning Writing skill helps me use language English knowledge writing effectively skills more accurately and Good writing skill facilitates me to learn other language skills better It is hard to better writing skill I lack motivation and interest in learning writing 10 My class is overloaded 11 I lack exposure to books and reading Challenges when learning materials VII English 14 I have poor grammar knowledge 58 42 writing 15 I lack regular writing practice 54 115 27 25 75 60 37 13 86 82 31 68 98 22 17 82 76 35 10 85 79 38 25 52 75 55 105 76 29 62 48 35 42 23 55 59 41 30 25 58 56 38 32 26 28 76 74 20 12 skills 16 I feel stressed when learning writing skill 37 45 28 17 I am afraid of making writing mistakes (grammar, word coherence/cohesion, choice, punctuation, structures…) 18 I often feel at a loss of words or ideas for writing 19 My language proficiency is poor 20 I often think of the ideas in Vietnamese and then translate them into English 21 My teachers average less time on teaching writing skill 22 Teacher’s teaching methods are not always appropriate 23 Teacher’s feedback on students’ writing is not very frequent 24 Teacher’s criteria for evaluating students’ writing are not very clear 25 Topics in the textbook are not very interesting 26 I don't have many materials and references for consultation 27 Others: … VIII 28 My teachers should spend more time teaching writing skill 29 My teachers correct mistakes and give feedback on my writings more often Expectations and suggestion 30 More writing activities should be conducted in the class and at home 59 98 32 12 112 65 18 75 95 28 97 78 25 72 108 23 31 Writing skill should be taught equally with language knowledge and other language skills 32 More materials and references about writing skills should be equipped for consultation 33 Others: IX Appendix 4: Câu hỏi vấn dành cho học sinh Em có thích học kĩ viết tiếng Anh không? Tạisao? Kĩ viết có quan trọng với em khơng? Tạisao? Khi học kĩ viết em gặp khó khăn, trở ngại gì? Theo em, cần phải làm để học tốt kĩ viết? Em cảm thấy cần hỗ trợ để giúp em học viết tốt hơn? Tại sao? Appendix 5: Interview questions for the students and their answers Are you interested in learning English writing skills? Why? S1: Not very much because it is very difficult S2: No, because in the writing lessons, I find it very boring, sometimes it's stressful I often not have enough ideas or vocabulary to finish the writings GS3: Just a little, because sometimes I see this skill is quite interesting GS4:Not very much I know this skill is important, so I pay attention to the lessons in the class and try to finish the homework S5: No, because I feel hard to think of ideas to fulfill the writing tasks Are English writing skills important to you? Why? S1: No because I just study for exams and I am not really interested in learning writing skills S2: No because English is not my favourite subject, and I think it is very difficult and boring this skill S3: I know this skill is very important, and this skill has a close relation with and facilitate to better learning other language skills S4:Not very much because though I know it is an important skill that has relation with other skills, I just study this skill for my exams as I am sitting on the test, it is required that I just remember and apply grammatical structures to complete the test X S5: No because this skill is very hard to learn because it requires so many elements to be dealt with such as vocabulary, critical thinking, social knowledge background Moreover, I am often at a loss of ideas and words to compose a writing What challenges you face when learning English writing skills? S1: I lack vocabulary and structures to express my ideas; grammar – based exams not require much writing skills S2: Students’ motivation and attitude towards writing skills; grammatical items and vocabulary S3: Ideas and vocabulary to have a good writing that attracts the readers S4:In the class, my teachers sometimes don't instruct clearly how to write Actually, writing skill is often spent less time than other skills by both teachers and pupils because we often learn grammatical structures and how to apply in sentence building/ transformation exercises S5: Vocabulary and ideas to finish the writing tasks Some strange and difficult topics in textbooks What you think should be done to learn writing skills well? S1: The teachers should organize activities (language games) before instructing writings to motivate and keep the pupils awake and interested in writing lessons S2: I think the students should be provided background knowledge and vocabulary related to the topics before writings If so, we feel easier to get started writings The teachers also should give us the feedback and explain clearly why we made mistakes if possible S3: The exams should equally involve four skills, so that the pupils will pay attention to all skills including writing skills Also, more material and references for teaching and learning writing should be provided and be available in the library S4:I think the teachers should organize more activities in writing lessons, especially language games so that we can both have fun and remember the lessons better; and the Internet access is always available in the library for searching learning and teaching resources XI S5: Practice more to memorize what we have learnt in the class and apply in the writings Try to finish homework and spend time practicing free writings What supports you need to better your English writing skills? Why? S1: Teacher’s frequent feedback on my writing performance; visual aids are also provided to make the writing lessons more interesting S2: Clear instructions from the teachers and more activities for writing provided S3: More up – to – date materials and references for teaching and writing skills should be well – equipped, and other sources of mass media such as magazines and newspapers in English should also be available so that the students can take advantage of them to boost their effective learning and keep updated with social events S4:The Internet access and library should be often available to every student and instructor so that they can use learning websites as well as learning material and reference resources for study S5: More real – life like activities and extracurricular activities should be organized to create environment and chances for students to exchange and benefit their writing learning outcome XII Appendix 6: Câu hỏi vấn dành cho giáo viên Những khó khăn thầy/ gặp dạy kĩ viết gì? Đâu trở ngại lớn thầy/ cô? Tạisao? Để dạy viết hiệu quả, theo thầy/ cô cần phải làm gì? Thầy/ Cơ áp dụng biện pháp để nâng cao hiệu dạy viết? Thầy/ Cơ thấy thành cơng chưa? Tại sao? Thầy/ Cô đánh giá kĩ dạy viết hình thức nào? Appendix 7: Interview questions for the teachers and their answers What difficulties you face with when teaching English writing skills? T1: Writing requires a set of complicated sub-skills like language skills, critical things and social knowledge, so I face quite a lot of problems such as students’ motivation, their lack of lexical resources, ideas, poor grammatical background… T2: Lack of vocabulary among the students; the topics in the text books for writing skills are not attractive and persuasive enough; the lack of motivation among the students to improve their writing skills T3: Little time for writing lessons in class; lack background knowledge in the subject among students; inability to use wide range of language, loss of ideas to write, motivation, frequent practice… T4: Students’ low motivation, unclear purposes of learning writing,less participation, lack of training materials,poor knowledge background about writing topics, some difficult and strange topic in the textbook, less frequent practice… … T5: Students’ weaknesses in critical thinking, inadequate knowledge of social issues, inability to maintain coherence and cohesion, insufficient lexical resource What is the biggest obstacle for you? Why? T1: Students’ motivation interest because if they have low impetus and enjoyment, they will not actively participate and interact with each other in the lesson XIII T2: They are students’ motivation and purposes of learning writing skills which result in their eagerness of joining classroom activities and set clear goals to study T3: Students’ motivation and poor social knowledge background because low motivation and lack of knowledge lead to the loss of ideas and words when learning writing T4: Students’ low motivation, less interest and poor knowledge background because these factors decide students’ better engagement in the class and clear target of learning T5: Students’ low motivationand inadequate knowledge of social issues because these factors affect and decide students’ attitude towards learning not only writing skills, but other language skills as well Also, they facilitate students to develop their critical thinking to apply in their writing performance What you think should be done to teach English writing skills effectively? T1: Encourage students when learning writing skills; offer a wide range of topics for students to get exposed;design tasks for students to practice writing; integrate different forms of assessment: self-feedback, peer-feedback, teacher’s feedback, grading, portfolio; improve related sub-skills T2: Teacher should investigate the use of corpus linguistics in teaching and learning collocations, which is really useful and updated for teachers and students By using some specialized corpus related to some specific topics, students have chances of accessing to authentic languages and find themselves many high-level collocations/ chunks to improve their lexical resources T3: Encourage students to learn; give them appropriate feedback; assign frequent writing tasks to give chance for students to practice I especially encourage the students when they can finish their homework writing themselves even though they just write some simple sentences but follow the structure T4: Encourage students to revise their work; spend enough time for practicing; provide clear instructions throughout the writing process; provide helpful feedback; require the students read a lot XIV T5: Before writing, teachers as well as students should find some more information about the topic, not only in the textbook but also in the article, news… and encourage students to read a lot of them in order to have some basic updated knowledge about the topic What measures have you taken to improve the effectiveness of writing lessons? T1: Teaching and assigning writing compositions, and asking students to frequent practice T2: I use different methods of teaching vocabulary for students, especially the application of corpus-based method which helps the students to access to authentic languages to learn collocations more effectively T3: Providing them with reading text, sentence structures, vocabularyand sample writings T4: Instruct the students to organize their texts properly; provide the students with useful languages and structures; make comments on the students' work T5: Iencourage the students when they can finish their writing homework themselves even though they just write some simple sentences but follow the structures Have you found yourself successful? Why? T1: Not really because my students are at low level of English, also they seeminguninterested in learning this skill Also, some of them are less motivated in taking part in writing lessons T2: Sometimes because learning writing is a challenging task for both teachers and students which includes a set of requirements to be achieved effectively T3: Not really, but I outdo to achieve the goals of each lesson and encourage my students to get involved in class activities which facilitate them to develop them ideas and improve their writing skills T4: Actually no because teaching writing is a difficult task that requires teachers XV and students to make big efforts In the writing lesson, I usually apply many methods and teaching techniques with a hope that my lessons benefit the students and improve their writing skills I never feel happy and satisfied with my lessons because I always want to teaching better than my expectations T5: It is hard to answer because evaluation and feedback by colleagues and students are crucial I think that when I see bright happy smiles on my students’ face at the end of each writing lesson, it appears to me that I have done my job successfully How you evaluate your students’ writing skills? T1: Both formative and summative assessment (grade + feedback) T2: I base on the writing criteria of IELTS task to evaluate students’ writing, namely task achievement, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy T3: Mark all mistakes relating to grammar, vocabulary, conjunctions, punctures… T4: Background knowledge, useful languages and structures, grammar T5: I base on their use of language, structure, grammar, their own knowledge about topic XVI ... implications for better quality of teaching and learning English language, especially teaching and learning English writing skills at 10th grade at a high school in Hanoi are also proposed 1.7 Organization... 10th grader students in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi" with an expectation to pinpoint difficulties in teaching and learning English writing skills so as... interviews have been analyzed and clarified so as to elaborate the hindrances confronted by teachers and 10th graders in teaching and learning English writing skills at a high school in Hanoi The