Applying contrastive rhetoric in teaching toefl ibt essay writing to vietnamese students

i    VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY – HOCHIMINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES  DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND        APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC IN TEACHING TOEFL iBT ESSAY WRITING TO VIETNAMESE STUDENTS Submitted to the Department of English Linguistics & Literature in partial fulfillment of the Master’s degree in TESOL By HUYNH PHONG NHUAN Supervised by: DANG VAN HUNG, Ph.D HO CHI MINH CITY, AUGUST 2011 ii    CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF MASTERS’ THESIS I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled Applying Contrastive Rhetoric in Teaching TOEFL iBT Essay Writing to Vietnamese Students In terms of the Statement of requirements for Theses in Masters’ programs issued by the Higher Degree Committee of the Department of English Linguistics and Literature, University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University of Ho Chi Minh City HCMC, August 2011 HUYNH PHONG NHUAN iii    RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that, I, HUYNH PHONG NHUAN, being a candidate for the degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library In terms of these conditions, I agree to the original of my thesis being deposited in the Library to be accessible for the purpose of study and research, in accordance with the normal condition established by the Librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of theses HCMC, June, 2011 Signature HUYNH PHONG NHUAN iv    ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Dang Van Hung, for his enormous help and his prolific suggestions, and for keeping me focused on my research This thesis would have never been possible without him I also want to express my sincere thanks to Dr Ho Thanh My Phuong and Than Trong Minh for their kind support and advice on many aspects of my study I am deeply indebted to my colleagues at my workplace Without their suggestions, support and kindness, I would never have been able to pursue this work to the end I also want to thank the students who were very responsive to the survey questionnaires My sincere gratitude also goes to all of the professors who devotedly taught me during my postgraduate studies at the USSH In addition, I want to say thankyou to all of my classmates, who have inspired and encouraged me during the study process and compilation of this thesis Another English teacher to whom I want to show my gratitude is Ms Moray Banfield She has done me a great favor by reading and editing the language used in this thesis Finally, I want to express my profound appreciation of my beloved for her support with finance, data entry, as well as her encouragement, understanding, and patience especially during the hard times of this study v    ABSTRACT This thesis is a study of contrastive rhetoric which explores the influence of Vietnamese culture on the writing of Vietnamese learners of English The study aims to raise awareness of the usefulness of contrastive rhetoric theory in teaching and learning English writing Its goals are set to find out (1) teachers’ and students’ attitudes to problems in writing argumentative essays, (2) the quality of students’ writing after applying the concept of contrastive rhetoric, and (3) recommendations for future applications As for the framework of analysis, the study examines the textual patterning of more than 2000 essays by Vietnamese students who were enrolled in TOEFL iBT training programs at one foreign language center In addition, it also utilizes various other research tools such as interviews, surveys, and observations to attain its goals There are more than 200 students and teachers involved in the survey, of whom about 10 teachers presented their viewpoints in interviews Furthermore, data collected from the observation of actual class activities also contribute to the analysis in this thesis The study revealed that the awareness of contrastive rhetoric is rather high in the English teaching and learning community in the Center; however, in some aspects, the approaches to address the cultural issues in English writing not seem to be critical enough The common trends in learning and teaching English writing more often lean towards grammar-translation orientation to create beautiful language rather than developing a persuasive language for argumentative requirements used in TOEFL iBT classes The study, thus, aims to establish a useful framework in order to make use of contrastive rhetoric to enhance students’ writing skill for the academic environment in the future vi    LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES List of Tables Table 2.1: Effective Writing in English and Chinese for Academic Contexts   24  Table 3.1: Implied Purposes from the Student Questionnaires   40  Table 3.2: Implied Purposes from the Teacher Questionnaires   41  Table 3.3: Implied Contents of the Interview Questions  . 42  Table 4.1: Percentage of Use of Transition Words   68  Table 4.1: Results from the Interviews   74  Table 4.2: Class activities under Observations   75  List of Figures   Figure 2.1: Source: Kaplan (1966, 15) Cultural Thought Patterns   17  Figure 4.1: Positions in an Essay to Show the Main Idea   48  Figure 4.2: Attitude of Directness   49  Figure 4.3: Where to State an Opinion: Comparison of Directness in Students at  Different Levels  . 50  Figure 4.4: How to State an Opinion: Comparison of Directness in Students at  Different Levels  . 51  Figure 4.5: Students’ Concern(s) over a Well‐Written Essay   52  Figure 4.6: Students’ Concern(s) over a Well‐Written Essay at Different Levels   53  Figure 4.7: Students’ Ways of Expressing Ideas   54  Figure 4.8: The Most Important Feature in an Essay   55  Figure 4.8.bis: Students’ Concern(s) about Features in an Essay   56  Figure 4.9: Sources of Help for Writing   58  Figure 4.10: Whether a Good Vietnamese Writer Would Be a Good English  Student Writer   60  Figure 4.11: Teachers’ Concern(s) about Teaching Writing   60  vii    Figure 4.12: How to State an Opinion   61  Figure 4.13: Teaching Process  . 62  Figure 4.14: Percentage of Use of Transition Words between the two Groups   63  Figure 4.15: Percentage of Use of Transition Words by Student’s Levels compared  to the Test Group   64  Figure 4.16: Number of Paragraphs per Essay   65  Figure 4.17: Average Number of Paragraphs per Independent Essay   66  Figure 4.18: Average Word Number per Independent Essay   66  Figure 4.19: Directness Shown by Using Common Expressions   67    viii    CONTENTS CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF MASTERS’ THESIS   ii  RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS   iii  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS   iv  ABSTRACT  . v  LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES  . vi  CONTENTS   viii  CHAPTER 1   1  1.1 Background of the Study   1  1.2 Aims and Objectives  . 4  1.2.1 Aims  . 4  1.2.2 Objectives   4  1.3 Research Questions and Hypothesis   4  1.3.1 Research Questions  . 4  1.3.2 Hypothesis:   5  1.4 The professional significance of the study   6  1.5 An Overview of the Methodology   7  1.6 The Delimitations and Limitations of the Study   8  1.7 Definitions of Key Terms   9  CHAPTER 2   11  2.1 Contrastive rhetoric theory   12  2.2 Some typical issues of Vietnamese learners of English writing   29  2.3 TOEFL iBT writing criteria   30  2.4 Special studies of written texts by TOEFL iBT researchers   33  CHAPTER 3   36  3.1 The General Perspective   36  3.2 The Research Context   36  3.3 The Research Participants   38  3.4 Instruments Used in Data Collection  39  3.5 Procedures   43  3.6 Data Analysis   44  3.7 Ethical Considerations   45  ix    CHAPTER 4   47  4.1 Data Analysis   47  4.1.1 Questionnaires ‐ The statistics   47  4.1.2 Documentation   63  4.1.3 Interviews   68  4.1.4 Observations  . 74  4.2 Discussion of Results   75  4.2.1 The Results with Reference to the Literature  . 75  4.2.2 The Results and the Application of Contrastive Rhetoric   78  CHAPTER 5   80  5.1 Summary of Findings   80  5.1.1 Review of the problem statements  . 80  5.1.2 Findings  . 81  5.2 Implications   82  5.3 Suggestions   83  5.3.1 Suggestion for a lesson plan   83  5.3.2 Suggestions for Additional Investigation   87  5.4 Conclusion   88  References   89  Appendix 1   96  Appendix 2   98  Appendix 3   100  Appendix 4   101  Appendix 5   102  Appendix 6   102    APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   1    CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This thesis is a study of how to improve English writing skill by researching the influence of cultural differences on the way to compose an academic English text The research was based primarily upon direct observation by the researcher, an EFL teacher, who used some means of experiential and experimental approaches to the teaching of English writing In the first chapter of this thesis, the researcher presents the factors that may affect this study, specifies the main theme of the study which reaches all aspects of the study, describes its significance in some extent, and briefly summarizes the methodology used in the study The chapter concludes by giving some points about the delimitations of the study and the definitions of some special terms used in this paper 1.1 Background of the Study This thesis is in response to the societal demand of English writing which can be seen by the fact that many English centers are offering training programs for academic writing English learners in Vietnam no longer seem to be satisfied with improving their listening and speaking skills only these days; they also aim to master English writing skills This holds true for young students who want to get an advantage to study abroad, and office workers who desire to know how to write English effectively for business purposes In contrast with the long-held belief that Vietnamese students are usually good at reading and writing compared to listening and speaking, the outcomes of some pretests conducted by the author himself show that their ability in academic writing falls far short of the requirements Ironically, English-writing students not seem to believe in their shortcomings CHAPTER 1 ‐ INTRODUCTION  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   88    and more widely in the scope of a nation in a future dissertation for a doctoral degree, which the researcher of this thesis wishes to achieve 5.4 Conclusion This study of Applying Contrastive Rhetoric in Teaching TOEFL iBT Essay Writing to Vietnamese Students based on the idea of contrastive rhetoric initiated by Kaplan (1965) and, later, by other researchers has gathered some positive light Throughout the study, the results from the collected data support the intention of the researcher laid out at the beginning, that is, the possibility of using contrastive rhetoric concept in teaching English writing in TOEFL iBT programs to improve students’ writing skill Contrastive rhetoric concept, indeed, does help break the barrier between different cultures that is imprinted on the students’ minds and on the way they write Thanks to this concept, writing teachers may have a clear stance to base their class activities on in an appropriate way to help their students reach the goal of writing an academic text in general, and a TOEFL iBT essay in particular This study is just a small contribution conducted in a confined environment and in a limited time, but hopefully it will inspire more research on the topic of applying contrastive rhetoric, or, at least, be helpful to some extent to the teachers who are concerned with an alternative perspective in teaching English writing ‰   CHAPTER 5 ‐ SUMMARY OF FINDINGS, RECOMMENDATIONS AND CONCLUSION  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   89    References Adamson, H D (2009) Theoretical and Pedagogical Perspective Routledge Annelie Ädel (2006) Metadiscourse in L1 and L2 English John Benjamins Publishing Co Babbie, E (1992) The practice of social research (6th ed.) 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Baptist University, U.S.A Wardhaugh, Ronald (2005) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Wiley, John & Sons, Incorporated Wolfe, E W., & Manalo, J R (2005) An investigation of the impact of composition medium on the quality of scores from the TOEFL writing section: A report from the broad-based study TOEFL-RR-72 Yingqin Liu (2007) Cultural Factors and Rhetorical Patterns in Classical Chinese Argumentation Intercultural Communication Studies XVI : 2007 Yoshifumi Kohro (2009) A Contrastive study between L1 and L2 composition: Focusing on global text structure, composition quality, and variables in L2 writing Kyushu International University   References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   96    Appendix 1 Questionnaire for Students Please give one piece of information to begin:  * How many TOEFL iBT courses have you learned so far?      b   c   d   e   f   g  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐  Now, please read and check only one answer.  Which do you think is the most difficult skill in learning English?  † Listening comprehension   † Speaking as fluently as a native speaker  † Writing as fluently as an educated native speaker   † Reading academic texts  † Effective negotiation  † Others    Which do you think is the most important in an essay?  † Good ideas   † Logical organization   † Accurate grammar and diversified vocabulary  † Coherence/Cohesion  † All of the above   † Others    Where is the appropriate place in an essay  to express your main opinion?  † At the beginning   † In the middle  † At the end  † Anywhere is OK      When you are asked to write down your opinion about an issue, you will state it:  † Directly  † Indirectly  † Neutrally (Never showing my true opinion)   † Dependently (on circumstances)    Is a good writer of Vietnamese a good writer of English, as a matter of course?  † Certainly   † Mostly  † Not sure  † Not related    References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   97        How many main ideas are there in a paragraph?   † One   † Two  † More than two  † As many as I want    To have a well‐written essay, you would pay more attention to:  † Accurate grammar and appropriate vocabulary   † The appropriate length of the essay  † The required style of writing  † The organization of the essay  † Interesting and useful ideas  † Sentence structures  † Others    In what way would you like to express your ideas in an essay?  † Freely in a way I think the best  † Within a certain framework I have learned  † In a way that the readers may understand what I mean  † Following a typical text written by a native speaker  † As my teacher explained to me  † Others    To enhance your writing, you would seek help from:  † Text books and writing samples  † Novels, magazines, newspapers   † Social and cultural knowledge  † Teachers of English writing  † Others    10 If you had a chance to suggest a better approach to English writing to your teacher,  you would say:  † Focus more on syntax (rules about words, phrases, sentences)  † Focus more on real topics and on writing practice  † Focus more on correction of mistakes  † Others (write down your opinion, if any):    Thank you for your time and cooperation.   ‰  References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   98    Appendix 2 Questionnaire for Teachers Please give one piece of information by ticking your choice:  * Have you ever taught TOEFL iBT essay writing?     † Yes   ‐   † No  Now, please read and check only one answer.  Which do you think is the most difficult skill in teaching English?  † Listening comprehension   † Speaking as fluently as a native speaker  † Writing fluently as an educated native speaker  † Reading academic texts  † Effective negotiation  † Others    Which do you think is the most important point in an essay?  † Good ideas   † Logical organization   † Accurate grammar and diversified vocabulary  † Coherence/Cohesion  † All of the above   † Others    Where in an essay would you tell your students to put their main idea?  † At the beginning   † In the middle  † At the end  † Anywhere is OK      In a paragraph, where did you tell your students to put the main idea?   † In the first sentence   † In the last sentence  † In the middle of the paragraph  † Anywhere is OK    When you ask your students to write down their opinion about an issue, you would  advise them to state it:  † Directly  † Indirectly  † Neutrally (never showing your real opinion)   † Dependently (on circumstance)    References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   99      Do you think that a good writer of Vietnamese is a good writer of English, as a matter of  course?  † Certainly   † Mostly  † Not sure  † Not related      To have a well‐written essay, students should pay more attention to:  † Accurate grammar and appropriate vocabulary   † The appropriate length of the essay  † The required style of writing  † The organization of the essay  † Interesting and useful ideas  † Sentence structure  † All of the above  † Others    To help your students develop an effective way of writing, the method you most often  apply in class is:  † To follow the lesson order in a text book  † To have them translate from sample Vietnamese sentences  † To have them do grammatical and lexical exercises   † To ask them to keep a diary  † To analyze authentic writing samples   † Others (if any):       To enhance writing, the best source from which students should seek help is:  † Text books and writing samples   † Novels, magazines, newspapers   † Social and cultural knowledge  † Teachers of English writing  † Others    10 If you have a chance to suggest a better approach of English writing to your colleagues,  you will say:  † Focus more on syntax   † Focus more on real topics and on writing practice  † Focus more on correction of mistakes  † Others: (write down your opinion, if any)  Thank you for your time and cooperation. ‰  References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   100    Appendix 3   CLASSROOM OBSERVATIONS: OBSERVATION SHEET  SHEET ID:                        CLASS:  _  NUMBER OF STUDENTS:  DESCRIPTION:  _    1. Method Applied in Class:  a. Lesson order in a text book  b. Translation from sample Vietnamese sentences  c. Grammatical and lexical exercises   d. Analysis of authentic sample writings  e. Writing practice  f. Others:       2. Strong Emphasis in Class  a. Accurate grammar and appropriate vocabulary / idioms / Sentence structure   b. Appropriate length of the essay (number of words) / Time Limit (20/30 min.)  c. Development of an essay (explanation, exemplification)  d. Organization of the essay (unity, coherence, cohesion)  e. Interesting and useful ideas  f. Others:    3. Contrastive Rhetorical Approach  a. Vietnamese / Asian style  1) Indirectness ‐ 2) Digression – 3) Few transition signals – 4) Topic sentence – 5) Loose  organization ‐ 6) Beautiful ideas / Emotionally ‐ 7) Philosophically  b. American / Western style  1) Directness – 2) Unity – 3) More transition signals ‐ 4) More Topic sentence – 5) Strict  organization – 7) Logical ideas / Less emotionally – 7) Less philosophically  c. Others:  References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   101    Appendix 4   Contents of the Interview Sheet Estimated time to complete: 5 min.  Questions  Contents  1.  Do you agree that there is an influence of culture on writing?   Do you agree that the way of writing an English text is different from the  way of writing a Vietnamese text? Could you please explain your opinion?    2.  In case you say YES to the first question, do you want your Vietnamese  students to keep their native way when they write in English, or you want  them to change their writing style completely? Why?  In case you say NO to the first question, switch to the third question.    3.  What are your suggestions about teaching English writing, in general?        References and Appendixes  APPLYING CONTRASTIVE RHETORIC   102    Appendix 5   Recorded files from the Interviews: Teacher1.wav Teacher2.wav Teacher3.wav Teacher4.wav Teacher5.wav Teacher6.wav Teacher7.wav All these recordings are included in the enclosed CD     Appendix 6   All of the students’ examined essays are included in the enclosed CD         References and Appendixes  ... CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY OF MASTERS’ THESIS I certify my authorship of the Master’s Thesis submitted today entitled Applying Contrastive Rhetoric in Teaching TOEFL iBT Essay Writing to Vietnamese Students In. .. of contrastive rhetoric in the Vietnamese setting To prove that the concept of contrastive rhetoric is useful in teaching English writing in Vietnam, the results in students? ?? work after applying. .. acceptable essay according to the official guide to the TOEFL iBT As mentioned earlier, there are two tasks in the writing section of the TOEFL iBT: an integrating writing task and an independent writing