(Sáng kiến kinh nghiệm) solutions to master upper secondary students’ performance in the essay writing task

Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 “Solutions to Master Upper-secondary Students’ Performance in the Essay-Writing Task in the English Examination for Gifted Students at the Provincial Level” PART I: INTRODUCTION I Rationale for selecting the topic of the study: Training excellent students of English at the upper-secondary level of education is generally considered a greatly challenging mission for each teacher of English The success of this aspect of the job is mainly determined by the students’ performance in the major examinations, especially the provincial English examination for upper-secondary gifted students throughout Thanh Hoa province In fact, the students’ performance is directly based on their exam results concretized with the total marks of the exam paper The exam questions are divided into various parts that test the participants’ different English skills One of the skills playing the key role in deciding whether the students’ achievements are high or not would be the writing skill in the last part with its most important task is writing an essay It cannot be denied that it is essay writing that has been a terrible nightmare for many students, including talented ones The nightmare is so haunted that my students usually get too nervous to accomplish their writing entirely, they even skip this task Thus; the hope to achieve satisfactory results seems to be an unrealistic dream that never comes true This fact, along with the desire to make a quality breakthrough, has constantly urged me to something practical to improve the situation Hence, the topic “Solutions to Master Upper-secondary Students’ Performance in the Essay-Writing Task in the English Examination for Gifted Students at the Provincial level” has been studied in the hope of finding out more suitable teaching techniques and approaches to apply for gifted student training so that it will be more productive in the coming time II Purposes of the study: This study has been conducted with a strong desire that it can help raise students’ awareness of the importance of English essay writing in written communications as well as in the gifted student examinations at the provincial level On that basis, they can have more motivations and interests in studying how to write essays and doing practice more regularly As a result, they will gradually be able to master their performance in essay writing, which may give them much help to get prizes, especially high ones in their important examinations Furthermore, with this experience initiative, I hope to contribute some of my personal ideas on the good Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 student training to teaching experience sources for my teacher colleagues to use as a reference in the English teaching process in general III Objects of the study: This teaching experience initiative specially focus on researching and analyzing problems or difficulties that gifted students encounter in English essay writing, and finding out possible solutions to these problematic issues to help master their performance in such an important competition as the Provincial English Examination for Gifted Students IV Scope of the study: The study process was mainly based on the English programme for the uppersecondary students at Mai Anh Tuan High School in the school year 2017-2018, and through English tests, examinations for gifted students in Thanh Hoa province, as well as other provinces throughout our country, in the recent years V Bases and of the study: The experience initiative has been studied based on my own practical teaching experiences, referring to documents related to the researched topic, including database from the internet, observing other teachers’ lessons, and consulting my colleagues, who are experienced in gifted student training PART II: DEVELOPMENT To improve high school gifted students’ performance in English Essay writing, first and foremost, it is necessary to investigate and analyze students’ difficulties related to this task and their negative impacts on exam results Afterward, the previously analyzed problems will suggest effective ways to find out possible solutions that help better the situations I Problems facing gifted students in English Essay writing: Gifted students are great learners; however, as learners of English as a foreign language, they are confronted with a wide range of difficulties in writing English essays The problems may be caused by the outer or intra-lingual factors of English These factors, whether internal or external, can make the task of mastery difficult for learners of English to achieve, and can have a negative effect on their proficiency Following are the common challenges that may face gifted students in writing and restrict their achievement Over-obsession named essay writing: Nowadays, most students are too obsessive with writing essays whether in their mother tongue or in their second language such as English They tend to think that this task is beyond their ability, and that it is only a waste of time because they Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 can never write a good essay; hence, they choose to quit the task right from the beginning despite its importance Effects of modern lifestyle: Schoolchildren are living a fast-paced life in which everything seems to run at the speed of light With the support of modern devices, spoken communications become easier and more convenient than ever before Rather, the tendency of teaching and learning English at present is to focus more on spoken communication skills than on written ones In consequence, writing skills, including essay writing, attract little attention from high school students Gifted students’ fear: Gifted children sometimes have a fear of vague concepts and prefer to study things that have a right answer Some gifted children prefer factual writing to creative writing This is due in part to the fact that many gifted children are perfectionists and perfectionists like getting every assignment right the first time! Unfortunately, in creative writing, there is not always a right or a wrong solution Lack of motivation: At upper-secondary level of education, one of the primary motivations to master writing skills seems to be examinations However, apart from the gifted student examinations, there are hardly other ones to motivate students Also, a flash of anxiety about future careers appears not to be great inspiration to urge students to pay much attention to essay writing Improper development of analytical and cognitive skills: Students need to develop their cognitive and analytical skills in order to improve their essay writing This includes learning to understand and think better, which is something rarely implemented in high-school education Lack of vocabulary: Students hardly enjoy essay writing when they have an insufficient stock of vocabulary The outcome of their vocabulary insufficiency is nothing but poor quality essays Thinking in the mother tongue: Students are greatly influenced by their first language They tend to their thinking in the mother tongue, and then try to translate what they have thought into English Their habit usually makes their writing products become a mess! Poor Grammar and Syntax Skills: Even the most talented students need to learn how to understand complex sentences, differentiate different parts of speech, use proper punctuation and proofread their writing for errors Lack of evidence and relevance: Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 Students sometimes provide evidence that is not relevant to the main topic This is a consequence of not spending enough time for planning the essay or trying to reach the word limit It may also be the case that even relevant facts can appear irrelevant because students sometimes not use appropriate wording and fail to link different paragraphs and ideas with each other As a result, even relevant facts and arguments sound irrelevant 10 Essay question misunderstanding and wrong identification of essay types: Students sometimes fail to understand the questions, and get difficulty in identifying the right essay type to write Thus, their writing may easily digress in an inappropriate format 11 Weak or no thesis statements: Gifted students’ creative ability seems to be infinite, so that sometimes they keenly pursuit and try to express their creative thoughts without realizing that they have written a long paragraph or essay with a weak or no thesis statement 12 Lack of cohesion and coherence: Sometimes students write such rambling essays that can be difficult for their readers to understand The information may be presented without being clearly related to the given assignment question, and/or without conforming to the genre pattern expected in the context An incoherent essay, of course, can never get great appreciation 13 Failing to structure ideas effectively: Gifted students may have numerous interesting and creative ideas; however, their time for essay writing is limited, so they occasionally fail to find the best way to structure their ideas in content effectively 14 Poor time management: Many gifted students are not very good at time management, which leads to inappropriate time division for different tasks and task incompletion Undoubtedly, when the task is not completed, their essay cannot be highly valued 15 Plagiarism: It is seen as stealing someone else’s intellectual property when students use their work without crediting Gifted students have a good ability to remember what they have read about a certain topic and then try to use as much as they can when meeting the same topic Once, one student remembered almost all the whole essay of the same topic and wrote it down on her paper without forgetting a word from the original 16 Formatting and resource organization: Sometimes, students’ essay is not properly formatted The sources used for their essay are not well organized and cited in a way suitable for its type Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative 17 Lack of writing practice: School-year: 2017-2018 Gifted students, with their talent and intellectual ability, can deal with tasks, even the most challenging ones, rapidly and effectively Therefore, sometimes they seem to be a little bit impatient with essay writing practice, a task that needs doing regularly and seriously 18 Little feedback on gifted students’ essay writing: Many teachers assign essay-writing tasks to students, but fail to provide them with comprehensive feedback Giving a student a grade for her/ his writing is simply not enough if one wants to teach her/him how to write better II Suggested problem solutions: Generally, high school gifted students today face numerous challenges in terms of essay writing In order to help them overcome these obstacles, there are possible solutions as follows Over-obsession named essay writing: To help students steadily overcome their over-obsession named essay writing, the teacher has tried to find out their strengths, even the smallest ones, to give them positive comments and timely praise them To the best of my knowledge, it is these fair comments and well-timed praise that can help the students have more confidence in themselves as well as motivate them to bravely face such difficult tasks as essay writing Further, the teacher has given a very clear explanation of English essay writing importance, not only in their exams but also in their future career and life, to them so that they can realize how vital it is Besides, the teacher has provided them with essay writing tasks with the level of difficulty gradually increasing in order to avoid their obsession with the tasks Effects of modern lifestyle: To limit the effects of modern lifestyle on students’ essay writing, the teacher often chooses common topics and encourages them to share their ideas on these topics by writing them down sometimes Moreover, the teacher shows them that it would be better when they could make improvements in both spoken communication skills and written ones, especially, to the ones who want to get a scholarship for studying abroad Gifted students’ fear: An interesting question has been raised for students “Why has Einstein’s theory of relativity been greatly appreciated up to now?” Isn’t it because the theory is about the fact that everything in life is relative? Thus, the teacher should always share with them that it is completely fine when they are not right the first time and how interesting and challenging to creative tasks like essay writing where they have opportunities to express their own ideas, opinions and attitudes that may help change their life positively! Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative Lack of motivation: School-year: 2017-2018 Writing examinations are great motivations to students, so that essay-writing contests have been suggested being organized to stimulate the spirit of studying writing essays among my students This kind of task has also been proposed being included in the English exams at Mai Anh Tuan high school to create more chances for our students to train themselves and improve essential skills for their future career Improper development of analytical and cognitive skills: Enhancing students’ analytical and cognitive skills can be implemented by the following simple ways The first would be active reading, involving questioning what they are reading when they read By asking questions as they read, they are engaging their brain in higher thinking Another useful technique is to question and compare the writers’ perspectives on a subject to their own They also should take note of new ideas and thoughts that are a result of their reading Active reading stimulates and expands their brain and allows it to think in new ways Students are advised to join discussions or conversations, ask everyone they meet questions, and try to learn something from them Whether it is life lessons such as how to manage stress or how they developed successful careers or what their parenting philosophy is, questions are essential to keeping the brain engaged They can improve their interpersonal communication skills at the same time and maybe even make a friend or two By improving their analytical skills, they can be able to comprehend and appreciate debates and concepts, break down complex information and streamline solution-finding processes Lack of vocabulary: Students can enrich their vocabulary stock themselves by reading and learning new words or phrases in contexts They can also study more words from their dictionaries When they meet a new word, they should learn all other words in its family and patterns as well as idioms related to it Another better way to help them build up their vocabulary is to try to have conversations or discussions about topics where new words or phrases are inserted Thinking in the mother tongue: Thinking in the native language is a normal tendency to foreign language learners However, it is too difficult for students to get a great success when they wish to express their ideas in English while doing their thinking in their own language! Therefore, it is important that students stop thinking in their mother tongue and trying to translate in their head One good way to it is to use monolingual dictionaries where the entries and their definitions are written in the language they are learning By using this kind of dictionary, students can train their brain to focus on the meaning, or the concept that a word represents, rather than its literal translation into their native language Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 That way, they are less likely to translate it themselves when they use it Another useful method is to use images instead of translations when learning new vocabulary Using images or symbols while writing new words down again and again can help students train their brain to stop translating words when communicating in English That is because they can learn to associate words with images or symbols rather than their exact translations Besides, students are advised to read a lot and memorize phrases When reading, they have to be confronted with idiomatic expressions and phrases This time, they should try to memorize those phrases that they come across – this will help them when constructing their own sentences Instead of having to make them from scratch when you need them, students will be able to recall some of the phrases that they learned when reading And, because they have the ready-made phrases in their head, they won’t have to look for translations of individual words and their brain will be less likely to be preoccupied with that One more way that is a bit funny to help students prevent themselves from thinking in their native language and trying to translate into English is that they tell themselves off! Whenever they catch themselves translating words in their head, they must say “translation, translation, translation.” By doing that, they can draw their own attention to the frequency with which they translate in their head Consequently, they begin to it less frequently Poor grammar and syntax skills: To notice the progress that students makes in terms of grammar and syntax, the teacher always tries to listen to them and point out to the mistakes they make The teacher also asks them what they have learned every day and has conversations with them often While speaking to them, the teacher needs to pay attention to the sentences they form Moreover, the teacher often spends some certain time reading and marking their essays, then taking notes of their errors of grammar and syntax and suggesting possible ways to correct these errors Lack of evidence and relevance: With irrelevant evidence, students cannot support and prove their argument effectively Therefore, students should have relevant evidence in their essay in order to persuade the readers and increase the validity of the argument The best solution is to study well and get acquainted with the topic While reading about their topic, they need to take notes on the most relevant issues and store them for later use (for references and citations) Additionally, to limit irrelevant evidence in their essay, before students start writing an essay, they had better make an outline and plan their essay carefully They also try to connect each part of their essay, arguments and facts to the main idea and the topic At each stage of the essay, they need to keep asking themselves “Is this relevant?”, “Am I answering the question?”, and “Does this relate directly to Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 the subject I have been asked to discuss?” If they begin to introduce a new and separate problem or topic to discuss and prove a part of their argument, they have to make sure that they return to the main subject and explain how these secondary facts are relevant to the main argument 10 Essay question misunderstanding and wrong identification of essay types: One of the reasons why students sometimes misunderstand the essay questions and fail to identify the right type of essay is because they get too nervous when reading these questions Therefore, students should study the questions carefully to know what to At the same time, they need to try their best to keep calm and enhance their confidence while confronting with difficult questions in important exams And, the best way to be free from fear in this situation is to study well and make good preparations for it Moreover, right identification of essay types is much dependent on the nature of each type of essay Hence, the teacher needs to discuss with the students the significant features of different essay types, focusing on prominent signal right from the essay questions There are four main genres of essay writing, including Expository essays, Descriptive essays, Narrative essays, and Argumentative (Persuasive) essays a Expository Essay Definition: An expository essay explains something or answers questions like: What is it? How should we define it? How you it? How does it work? What is the history of it? What caused it? What are the effects? What is the meaning of it? [1] b Descriptive Essay Definition: A descriptive essay, as the name implies, is a form of essay that describes something In this genre, students are assigned the task of describing objects, things, places, experiences, persons, and situations The students use sensory information to enable readers to use their five senses of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight to understand the topic of the essay [1] c Narrative Essay Definition: A narrative essay is a type of essay that tells a vivid story, usually from one person’s viewpoint It uses all the story elements - a beginning, middle and ending, plot, characters, setting and climax - all coming together to complete the story [1] Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative d Argumentative (Persuasive) Essay Definition: School-year: 2017-2018 An argumentative essay is a type of essay that presents arguments about both sides of an issue It could be that both sides are presented equally balanced, or it could be that one side is presented more forcefully than the other It all depends on the writer, and what side he supports the most [1] To recognize this type, the students need to pay attention to such words or phrases in the questions as: Give the arguments for and against Assess the importance of Examine the arguments for and against What are the advantages and disadvantages of ? Evaluate Critically examine the statement that To what extent is true? Discuss Give your views on What you think about ? Do you agree that ? Consider whether To what extent How true How far you agree [1] 11 Weak or no thesis statements: Every paper students write should have a main point, a main idea, or central message The argument(s) they make in their paper should reflect this main idea The sentence that captures their position on this main idea is what we call a thesis statement A thesis statement focuses their ideas into one or two sentences It should present the topic of their paper and make a comment about their position in relation to the topic Their thesis statement should tell their readers what the paper is about and help guide their writing and keep their argument focused Students should provide a thesis early in their essay - in the introduction, or in longer essays in the second paragraph - in order to establish their position and give their readers a sense of direction In order to write a successful thesis statement, they should the following: Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 - Avoid burying a great thesis statement in the middle of a paragraph or late in the paper - Be as clear and as specific as possible; avoid vague words - Indicate the point of your paper but avoid sentence structures like, “The point of my paper is…” [1] 12 Lack of cohesion and coherence: 12.1 Cohesion: Cohesion is basically the interconnection of two different sentences How these sentences are related to each other that is called cohesion To make their essay cohesive, students should the following: Use connectors/linkers Candidates forget to put a simple linker that may be necessary When they are writing, they simply know their thoughts but when the examiner reads, he is not aware of their idea He will find it difficult to follow their ideas without linkers Linkers like for example, in addition to this, to my mind, etc are some of the cohesive devices used in writing Use pronouns Students can definitely use pronouns to avoid repetition of abstract nouns Repeating a name would seem awkward and therefore may fetch them lower bands For this, they can use pronouns like this, that, it, they, etc Use synonyms To avoid repetition, a candidate can definitely use synonyms or different grammatical structures with various forms of a word For example, a verb can be converted into an adjective or a noun and so on So, this is how their essay writing task coherence and cohesion is marked The students need to know all these to focus on their weakness So, prepare well and get their required results [1] 12.2 Coherence: Coherence is the logical arrangement of the writer’s ideas All ideas should be logically arranged and one key point should inevitably follow its explanation That is what makes a good paragraph Usually, students tend to write too many ideas in a single paragraph and that often results in an incoherent paragraph Those ideas are not fully developed Basically, the students need to include vital information in every paragraph First, they need to have a clear idea of their essay structure How many paragraphs they’re going to write and how these paragraphs will link with each other Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 10 Teaching Experience Initiative a Introduction School-year: 2017-2018 b Arguments in favour of your opinion c Arguments against your opinion d Conclusion The above structure is just an example The students can have their own structure for the paragraph Later on, they can build their paragraph level coherence with the following points Make the topic sentence clear and concise: Very often, the first sentence of the paragraph clearly states what is mentioned in the whole paragraph This sentence is called a topic sentence This sentence needs to be simple and short If students’ topic sentence is too long, it means that they are trying to add too much information into their paragraph So, they need to edit and again assess it Don’t use too many points in a paragraph: Include only one or at most two information in a paragraph This arrangement allows students to develop their topic fully and thus, they can represent their point of view more clearly Include examples: Examples are very informative and they clearly relate to the topic This makes reader understand the theme quite easily So, use examples to explain your point clearly Summarise the whole paragraph: Students should not forget to summarise their paragraph with a short sentence or a result Further, they should never leave their paragraph in an awkward position Use punctuations precisely: Students often underestimate the importance of punctuation marks Nevertheless, they are as important as grammar They make every sentence clear Without proper punctuation marks, the examiner will find it extremely difficult to follow your line of thoughts [1] 13 Failing to structure ideas effectively: The teacher guides the students to make an outline of their essay in order to structure their ideas effectively Begin their outline by writing their topic at the top of the page Next, they write the Roman numerals I, II, and III, spread apart down the left side of the page Next to each Roman numeral, they need to write the main ideas that they have about their topic, or the main points that they want to make If they are trying to persuade, they need to write their best arguments If they are trying to explain a process, they need to write the steps that should be followed They probably need to group these into categories Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 11 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 If they have trouble grouping the steps into categories, they can try using Beginning, Middle, and End If they are trying to inform, they need to write the major categories into which their information can be divided Under each Roman numeral, write A, B, and C down the left side of the page 10 Next to each letter, write the facts or information that supports that main idea When they have finished, they have the basic structure for their essay and are ready to continue [1] 14 Poor time management: Time management is one of the most important things that a student needs to take care of during examinations Here are some golden rules of time management that help students to finish their exam paper within the given time Students should remover wrist-watch from wrist and keep it in front of them by the answer sheet This helps them to keep an eye on time while answering the questions Usually, the invigilators distribute the answer sheets five to ten minutes before the exam time This is the best time to fill in the first page that contains their name, roll number and other necessary information If they are lucky and you get question paper two to three minutes before the exam time, they should utilize it to read the question paper instead of doing other unnecessary things like drawing margins, filling information, etc They need to read the question paper thoroughly from the beginning to the end and mark the questions that they can answer correctly It is always preferable that students start paper from the question for which they are very well prepared Nevertheless, they have to keep in mind that they should not spend extra time on it Usually, students become excited and spend most of time on the first question They always have to remember that this may affect their overall performance as at the end they may run out of time Past papers give very clear idea about the paper pattern Students should be mentally prepared that how to start paper, of course they cannot predict the question but their keen observation of the subject matter helps them to start their paper well Students should always divide the paper in parts and allocate suffice time for each question/part Suppose they have to answer five questions in all and the time on hand is only three hours, the better approach is to allocate 30 minutes to each question and the remaining 30 minutes should be utilized for the revision, final touch-ups, and tying up the answer sheets Objective questions take less time than others therefore allocation of time for these questions should be accordingly Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 12 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 Students always have to remember they not need to copy the questions on the answer sheet It is the waste of time It would be a better approach to put another tick on the answered question This will boost students’ energy and give them a sense of accomplishment Students should read the answers carefully once they have done the entire paper Many students read the answers just after writing them It is a human physiology that people may not see their mistakes immediately but reading the same piece of writing after sometime can help them to identify easily and to overcome errors 10 Students should avoid taking breaks during the exam time, and not leave early Instead of leaving early, students should sit and re-read what they have written; they can double-check all of their answers; check their spelling and rewrite any illegible, hastily scrawled words 15 Plagiarism: To avoid plagiarism while writing an essay, students should know how: Paraphrase: A paraphrase is a restatement in students’ own words of someone else’s ideas They must change both the words and the sentence structure of the original, without changing the content So, when they have found information that is perfect for their essay paper, they can read it and put it into their own words Cite: Citing is one of the effective ways to avoid plagiarism This usually entails the addition of the author(s) and the date of the publication or similar information Quoting: When quoting a source, students should use the quote exactly the way it appears Cite Quotes: Citing a quote can be different from citing paraphrased material This practice usually involves the addition of a page number, or a paragraph number in the case of web content Cite students’ Own Material: - If some of the students’ material is being used for their own essay, they must cite themselves They should treat the text the same as they would if someone else wrote it It may sound odd, but using material they have used before is called self-plagiarism, and it is not acceptable Reference: One of the most important ways to avoid plagiarism is including a reference page or page of works cited at the end of their essay paper 16 Formatting and Resource Organization: In order to get good marks, an essay should be properly formatted All sources used must have good organization and be cited in a way suitable for the type of paper The teacher should make sure that the students have this clear and format all papers in the way requested Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 13 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 Here is an example of suggested essay format of the argumentative type, which is commonly included in the English exams for gifted students at the provincial level Introduction It basically consists of two components: + The opening statement + The thesis/the idea of the essay The introduction is aimed to get the full attention of the reader The opening statement needs to be clear and logical as it is the thought, which leads the reader to the thesis where the persuasive essay idea is thoroughly presented Body paragraphs The body of any persuasive essay reveals the arguments that support the thesis statement of the work Each of the arguments should include: + the point of argument + the explanation of the argument + facts/evidence that support the idea/thesis + a small summary leading to the next argument Conclusion Summarize the persuasive essay idea It is the evaluation of the statements made and the arguments given The conclusion therefore refers to the thesis statement of the work [7] 17 Lack of writing practice: In order to become better in essay writing, students, even gifted ones, have to practice it regularly and seriously Without sufficient practice, students can never take their writing skills to a higher level 18 Little feedback on gifted students’ essay writing: Feedback is information that the teacher gives to the students that helps them close the gap between where they are now with their work, and where they could be The goal of feedback is to provide students with insight that helps them to improve their performance There are two steps that the teacher should follow to give them effective feedback These are: - Tell the students about their current level of performance - Tell them what they could to improve After assigning essay-writing tasks to students, the teacher should always try to provide them with comprehensive feedback, which affirms what they did well, Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 14 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 corrects and directs them, points out the process, and coaches students to critique their own efforts, not only to give them a grade for their writing III Further Practice: It is said that Practice makes perfect The acquisition of the theory is undeniably important, however, practice is really a key to the mastery of students’ performance in essay writing To encourage students to regular practice with much enthusiasm, a variety of essay writing questions have been prepared for students’ further practice in class as well as after class Below are typical ones that commonly appear in the English examinations at the provincial level After their practice, some samples have been provided for them to study and to use as references (See APPENDIX - Essay samples.) Question 1: Some experts believe that it is better for children to begin learning a foreign language at primary school rather than secondary school Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.[2] Question 2: Sports programmes are hugely popular on television nowadays But some people argue that these programmes are to blame for the poor health of many young people who prefer to watch rather than part take in physical activity To what extent you agree or disagree? [3] Question 3: As computers are being used more and more in education, there will soon be no role for the teacher in the classroom To what extent you agree or disagree? [6] Question 4: In some countries, young people are encouraged to work or travel for a year between finishing high school and starting university studies Discuss the advantages and disadvantages for young people who decide to this Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience [2] Question 5: You have decided to give several hours of your time each month to improve the community where you live What is one thing you will to improve your community? Why? Use specific reasons and details to explain your choice [6] Question 6: Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 15 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 The overuse of natural resources causes an ultimate exhaust of them People have been using them to be in the swim of new styles such as making new furniture of recent design This causes a huge harm to the environment Therefore, the government should discourage people the overuse of these resources To what extent you support or oppose the idea? [4] Question 7: Nowadays we are producing more and more rubbish Why you think this is happening? What can governments to help reduce the amount of rubbish produced? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience [4] Question 8: Some people opine that damage to the environment is an inevitable consequence of the improvement in the standard of living To what degree you agree or disagree with this opinion? You should use your own ideas, knowledge, and experience and support your arguments with examples and relevant evidence [4] Question 9: Using a computer every day can have more negative than positive effects on young children To what extent you agree or disagree? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience [4] … To help students make good preparations for their examinations, the teacher has always studied and updated the new trend of essay questions and the marking criteria for the students to focus on in order to make much progress in their essay writing PART III: CONCLUSION I Study results: Below are some achieved results of the study after being applied to excellent student training in class 11G at Mai Anh Tuan High School in the school-year 20172018 These statistics are based on the English tests for gifted students and the ones to select the best students to participate English examinations at higher levels in this school-year in comparison with the results of the previous year The examination results of the gifted students in the school-year 2016-2017: 1.1 At Mai Anh Tuan high school: Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 16 Teaching Experience Initiative Students School-year: 2017-2018 Class Results of Total marks Essay Writing Nguyen Van Tu 10G 5.5/10 points 14.5/20 points Nguyen Thi Gam 10G 5/10 points 13/20 points Nguyen Thi Bich Hang 10G 4.5/ points 11.2/20 points Among the three students, Nguyen Van Tu and Nguyen Thi Gam were selected for the group of the five best students to participate in the provincial English examination for gifted students in the school-year 2016-2017 1.2 In the provincial examination: Students Class Results of Total marks Essay Writing Nguyen Van Tu 10G 5/10 points 9.2/20 points Nguyen Thi Gam 10G 4.5/10 points 9.2/20 points With the total marks mentioned above, these two students did not win any prize in this provincial examination The examination results of the gifted students in the school-year 2017-2018: 2.1 At Mai Anh Tuan high school: Students Class Results of Total marks Essay Writing Nguyen Van Tu 11G 6/10 points 15.5/20 points Nguyen Thi Gam 11G 5.5/10 points 13.4/20 points Nguyen Thi Bich Hang 11G 5.5/ 10 points 13.2/20 points Hoang Mai Trinh 11G 5/ 10 points 9.2/20 points Among the four students, three including Nguyen Van Tu, Nguyen Thi Gam and Nguyen Thi Bich Hang were selected for the group of the five best students to participate in the provincial English examination for gifted students in the schoolyear 2017-2018 2.2 In the provincial examination: Students Le Thi Lan Anh Class Results of Mai Anh Tuan High School Total marks Page 17 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 Essay Writing Nguyen Van Tu 11G 8-8.5/10 points 15.4/20 points Nguyen Thi Gam 11G 7-7.5/10 points 12.4/20 points Nguyen Thi Bich Hang 11G 6-7/10 points 10.2/ 20 points With the total marks mentioned above, all these students won the prizes in this year’s provincial examination, including one second prize, one third and one consolation Generally, for every teacher, being a trainer of gifted students is apparently a great honor, but also a great pressure, especially for a teacher of English at Mai Anh Tuan high school, a high school at a rural area In the history of the school, the performance of its excellent students of in the provincial English examinations was relatively modest Thus, how to improve student achievement in such an examination really became a challenging target to meet for a very inexperienced teacher in the role of the talented student trainer who was mainly responsible for the school’s team of English Despite the enormous challenge, the desire to make a significant quality breakthrough to contribute to creating the image of the school always encouraged both my students and me to constantly make every effort in the process of training so that the team achieved much higher performance than that of the previous school-year According to the rankings of Thanh Hoa education and training department, the performance of our school team of English ranked fourth in the province in the school-year 2017-2018 The above estimates show that the teaching experience initiative I have attempted to study has initially produced certain achievements The students’ essay writing skills have been advancing considerably with steadily increasing marks that positively contributed to creating the feat that 100% of the students won the prizes, consisting of high prizes, instead of the situation that no one did win any prize In the comparison with the results of the previous school-year, these initial results seem quite impressive; hence, I would like to share this teaching experience initiative in the hope that it could help contribute a little to improving the quality of training gifted students of English at the upper secondary education Moreover, I wish that the study would be of some value to both teachers and students in their process of English teaching and learning essay-writing skills II Suggestions: Obviously, the study still has certain limitations Thus, it would be my pleasure to get as many pieces of contributive advice or suggestions as possible to better my teaching initiative so that it will become more productive in the accomplished student training process at high schools in the coming time I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude for all the constructive ideas! Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 18 Teaching Experience Initiative School-year: 2017-2018 Thanh Hoa, May 29th, 2018 The author Le Thi Lan Anh REFERENCES [1] The internet [2] https://www.ieltsonlinepractice.com [3] http://www.ielts-practice.org [4] https://www.ielts-mentor.com [5] http://www.ielts-blog.com/ [6] https://www.testbig.com [7] http://www.custom-essays.org Le Thi Lan Anh Mai Anh Tuan High School Page 19 ... greatly influenced by their first language They tend to their thinking in the mother tongue, and then try to translate what they have thought into English Their habit usually makes their writing. .. about their topic, or the main points that they want to make If they are trying to persuade, they need to write their best arguments If they are trying to explain a process, they need to write the. .. students stop thinking in their mother tongue and trying to translate in their head One good way to it is to use monolingual dictionaries where the entries and their definitions are written in the