A study on the use of journalistic questions technique in teaching the writing skill to efl 11th graders

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI OANH A STUDY ON THE USE OF JOURNALISTIC QUESTIONS TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING THE WRITING SKILL TO EFL 11th GRADERS MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION VINH - 2018 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI OANH A STUDY ON THE USE OF JOURNALISTIC QUESTIONS TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING THE WRITING SKILL TO EFL 11th GRADERS Field: Theory and Methodology of English Language Teaching Code: 8140111 MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Ngo Dinh Phuong Assoc Prof Dr VINH - 2018 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates, and have not been published elsewhere Author Nguyen Thi Oanh i ACKNOWLEGDDEMENTS First of and foremost, I would like to express my deepest thanks to my supervisor, Assoc Prof Ngo Dinh Phuong whose expect guidance, vast knowledge of educational research and teaching experience greatly supported me during the time I carried out this graduation paper I am also grateful to all my lectures at the Department of Post-graduate Studies, Vinh University Their sincere support and considerations have enabled me to pursue and finish the course I would also like to thank all the teachers and students of class 11A2 at Pham Hong Thai high School for their cooperation in giving me information ii ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages ICT Information and Communications Technology Ws Wh - Word questions H How - Word questions iii ABSTRACT In the era of globalization, the ability to communicate with foreigners is crucial for all students For Vietnamese, although their writing capability slightly edges few other countries in the region like Thailand, Cambodia, and Lao, People's Democratic Republic, the average score is still far below the more advanced economies like Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia One of the main contributors to the poor performance of the students in the country is often contributed toward teaching approach Henceforth, in this paper, an investigation into the use of journalistic questions technique in teaching the writing skill to EFL 11th graders were carried out with 44 students studying in11A2 class of Pham Hong Thai high school From a statistics analysis and student t-test of data obtained from testing outcomes of two separated groups, the evidence pointed toward statistically significant evidence for the positive impact of journalist questioning on students’ accuracy and fluency in writing skills From this outcome, some recommendations were, therefore, pointed out for teachers and future potential research iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEGDDEMENTS ii ABBREVIATIONS iii ABSTRACT iv TABLE OF CONTENTS v LIST OF TABLES vii LIST OF FIGURES vii CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of study 1.2 Purposes of the study 1.3 Research questions of the study 1.4 Scope of the study 1.5 Methods of the study 1.6 The organization of the study .6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Writing skill 2.1.1 The importance of writing skill in language education 2.1.2 Writing process 11 2.1.3 Assessing the writing skill 12 2.1.4 Teaching writing .21 2.2 Journalistic questions technique 30 2.2.1 The definition of the concept 30 2.2.2 The Advantages of Journalists Question Strategy 33 2.2.3 Teaching Writing by Using Journalists Question Strategy .36 CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 377 3.1 The rationale of research methodology 377 3.2 Research approach 388 3.2.1 The process of research 388 3.2.2 Data collection 399 3.2.3 Research participants 40 v 3.3 Ethical issues 41 CHAPTER FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 45 4.1 The pre-test checks on writing and division of EFL 11th graders into two different groups 45 4.1.1 The pre-test checks on writing 45 4.1.2 The grouping of the students in the data 48 4.2 The application of journalistic questions in teaching the writing skill to the EFL 11th graders in the experimental group 51 4.3 The after-test check on writing of EFL 11th graders in two groups 53 4.3.1 The after-test check performance of control group 53 4.3.2 The after-test check performance of experimental group .55 4.3.3 The comparation on performance of control group and experimental group 58 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 59 5.1 The conclusion of using journalistic questions technique in teaching the writing skill to EFL 11th graders .59 5.2 Some recommendations .61 5.3 Limitations of the study .62 5.4 Suggestion for further study .62 REFERENCE 64 vi LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Summary of the study sampling population, sample size, research method, research instruments, and data type 41 Table 2: Statistics of the pre-test for the 44 participants altogether 46 Table 3: Gender statistics of the sample data 47 Table 4: Statistics of the pre-test dividing into the control group and the experimental group 49 Table 5: Example of journalist questions to be used in the research 52 Table 6: Statistics of the post-test dividing into the control group 54 Table 7: T-test result for the pre-test and post-test of the control group .55 Table 8: Statistics of the post-test dividing into the experimental group 57 Table 9: T-test result for the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group 58 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Process of research in thesis 38 Figure 2: Gender statistics of the control group and the experimental group 50 vii CHAPTER1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Rationale of study Writing represents what you know and feel about something and communicates that knowledge to the readers Writing skills are one of the most basic human communication skills that play a very important role in the work of any individual and in any position Writing skills are an important part of information exchange Having an effective English writing skill allows you to convey a clear message that expresses the whole idea as well as extends the ability to affect more people than talking face to face or talking over the phone However, writing skills not come from innate origin, nor are they naturally acquired, but formed from personal training and self-training in real life Among skills in learning English, though related, writing is considered as the most difficult skill Learning to write well takes a lot of time It takes memorizing rules and practicing methods and techniques It needs many competencies including grammar, dictation, and cohesion to express the ideas or opinions Each piece of writing takes time to draft and revise Reid (1994) concluded that for many students who are studying writing, one method to improve their writing is to write They write every day, informally Practice in writing can make them more confident so that they can write more easily However, learning to write fluently and accurately has been argued to be the most difficult of the macro skill for all language users (Nunan, 1989) Learning to write well requires much consciousness, patience, knowledge and practice and this is normally a challenging issue for students Particularly for Vietnamese students, English writing has always been a challenging task Writing skills in English are a major barrier for Vietnamese students in the process of international integration as well as in accessing employment in foreign businesses In fact, in the most common standard for English ability, the IELTS and the TOELF IBT test scores (the former for British English and the latter for American English), Vietnamese students have been recorded to score the poorest in the writing test compared the other three skills 4.3 The after-test check on writing of EFL 11th graders in two groups Similar to the pre-test check, the students underwent a 45-minutes writing test on the chosen topic: “Describe a camping holiday” The marking, again, are marked by two separate markings with grade range from to 10 with 10 being the highest possible marks and the marking will be confirmed with the help of several other teachers aside from the author From literature review and analysis, it is expected that the traditional teaching approach, through focusing on vocabulary and grammar, would improve mostly students’ accuracy, the journalists questioning, however, would raise both skills, especially fluency through thoroughly preparing students of structures and answers relating to the topics 4.3.1 The after-test check performance of control group Given the traditional teaching focus on the coming test topics, unlike the result of the pre-test, the participants were able to obtain much better results in both accuracy and fluency As a matter of fact, in the control group, from average scores of 5.73 and 6.00 respectively in the two skills, the pre-test reveals increase of around 0.32 and 0.27 appropriately In other words, the change was more significant for “Accuracy” skill than it does “Fluency” Unknowing whether the previous test gave the students more experience in dealing with similar article, clearly, the traditional teaching approach, through focusing on vocabulary and grammar, would not only improve students’ accuracy, but also students’ fluency Though, the impact on the former seems to be slight stronger On the other hand, the post-test results become even more varied Standard deviation in the outcomes increase which indicate the widening gap between students’ capability 53 Meaning, students, depending on other factors like studying habit, attitude, motivation, and many others, fluctuate in the extent of receiving the benefit of the teaching approach After the test Change Accuracy Fluency Accuracy Fluency 22 22 0 Average test score 6.05 6.27 +0.32 +0.27 Standard deviation 1.65 1.70 +0.20 +0.01 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -2 -1 +1 -1 +1 +2 +1 10 0 0 Sample Test score distribution Table 6: Statistics of the post-test dividing into the control group Clearly, both the widening gap of students’ ability and the improvement in results also shows in test score distribution of the post-test result While there are 54 a few more students gaining better outcomes above (two of them exactly in both accuracy and fluency), there is no change in weak students with result below (only one less student in fluency skill) Besides, most students still score around Therefore, the influence is not equal between students However, from the t-test value calculated using Excel, assuming two-tail test and unequal variance, of the two set of results of pre-test and post-test in the control group, it seems that the evidence is quite insignificant With t-test percentage being above 25 percent, the null hypothesis on a significant change in the second group of data of post-test may be rejected at even 90 percent confidence level In brief, while traditional approach seems to increase both students’ accuracy and fluency slightly, the change varies between students, and the testing seems to indicate the impact to be insignificant Skills T-test Accuracy 0.250321 Fluency 0.297969 Table 7: T-test result for the pre-test and post-test of the control group 4.3.2 The after-test check performance of experimental group As for the experimental group, similarly, since the Journalist teaching approach prepares students about the answers to important points to the article, the post-test outcomes are much better in both accuracy and fluency In details, while their Accuracy result rose by 0.64, the increase in Fluency was 1.14, a striking result These numbers signify improvement in average of around over 10 percent and 20 percent for students in terms of these skills Likewise, similar to the 55 control group, it is unknowing whether the previous test gave the students more experience in dealing with similar article, the Journalist questioning approach, which emphasize on answering the various types of questions relating to the topics, improve both students’ accuracy and fluency Though, as suspected, the improvement in latter skill is more apparent compared to former one Meanwhile, the standard deviation statistics shows that, also similar to the control group, the post-test results become even more varied Thus, students’ gap is also widening despite their significant improvement in scores in average There must be other factors impacting students’ study result and further research should be carried out to ascertain of this fact After the test Change Accuracy Fluency Accuracy Fluency 22 22 0 Average test score 6.36 6.32 +0.64 +1.14 Standard deviation 1.56 1.52 +0.04 +0.62 0 0 0 0 0 -2 4 -2 -4 -3 -4 Sample Test score distribution 56 4 +3 +3 +7 +1 10 0 0 Table 8: Statistics of the post-test dividing into the experimental group Now, concerning the test score distribution of the post-test result, the improvement is clearly significant In fact, the median for the outcome is no longer around or but between and 7, especially for fluency skill where out of 22 students scored Therefore, while the influence seems to be unequal between students and many weak students remain weak with marks below and 6, many other students scoring averagely have moved into equal standing with those with good English skills scoring or More significantly, from the t-test value calculated using Excel, assuming two-tail test and unequal variance, of the two set of results of pre-test and posttest in the experimental group, the impact is shown to be statistically significant at 90 percent significant level for Accuracy outcome and 95 percent significant level for Fluency result The null hypothesis on a significant change in the second group of data of post-test may not be rejected, consequently Therefore, with the Journalist questioning approach, although the change varies between students, there is statistically significant evidence behind its’ positive impact on students’ accuracy and fluency and many students have improved greatly 57 Skills T-test Accuracy 0.088745 Fluency 0.002469 Table 9: T-test result for the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group 4.3.3 The comparation on performance of control group and experimental group Lastly, concerning the difference on performance of control group and experimental group in the post-test, from equal standing in accuracy and weaker capability in fluency, students in the experimental group are now able to perform much better in the former skill and slightly better in the latter skill The impact from the Journalist questioning approach to students’ writing skill quite surpassed the journal expectation However, concerning the standard deviation, although both groups study seems to become more fluctuating as the figures rise, the increase in variation in the experimental group seems to be greater Actually, the gap between students in both groups is moving closer now Meaning, while the positive effect of Journalist questioning approach is quite significant, the study should better take into consideration of other factors affecting students like attitude and motivation The combination of all studies would be able to draw out better evidences After all, what if, there are more serious students in the experimental groups and they are solely the ones who saw their results improved disregarding the teaching approach Such case would answer both the increase in average mark and standard deviation of this group In details, the difference between gender ratio of the two groups may have played a part in this difference in post-test outcome 58 CHAPTER CONCLUSION 5.1 The conclusion of using journalistic questions technique in teaching the writing skill to EFL 11th graders In brief, in the current age of increasing global integration, more and more Vietnamese businesses are joining the global market whereas many multinational conglomerates are investing in Vietnam further increase the importance of English as a means of communication The use of English in communication and in work also plays a decisive role in the success of individuals and businesses In addition, foreign transactions, exchanges of work between multinational companies, have set the need for effective communication and communication in English Business English writing skills play a very important role in the exchange of information on the daily basis from emails sent to customers, reports, to all the details, samples and professional communication with foreign colleagues The writing style has a different way of writing, the grasp of writing skills and structure will help the writer to present the text in a correct, accurate and professional manner In a globalized economy today, practicing English writing skills is a must to reach for success English is an important weapon for those who want to develop their career in the global marketplace Therefore, it is crucial for Vietnamese students nowadays to have a good grasp of English writing skill In fact, learning English as a foreign language in Vietnam has become a pressing issue in recent years Evidence for this urgent need is that the foreign language project in the national education system for the period of 2008 - 2020, presided over by the Ministry of Education and Training, shows the necessity of learning foreign 59 languages aiming to meet the human resources requirements for the industrialization and modernization of the country until 2020 in the context of globalization and international integration (Nguyen, 2017) Meanwhile, writing is an important form of communication in day-to-day life, but it is especially important in high school and college However, learning to write fluently and accurately has been argued to be the most difficult of the macro skill for all language users (Nunan, 1989) Learning to write well requires much consciousness, patience, knowledge and practice Meanwhile, Journalist Question technique is a technique that can help the students to explore their idea in writing to cover the content of the narrative text In many researches, the approach has been found to be have significance impact toward students’ writing skills Previous evidences may include studies conducted by Armilia Riza (2012), PuspaDewiAyuKurniyasari (2015), Zuriyanti NIM (2012), and Muslim (2014) In details, inspired by Muslim (2014), the paper carried out an experimental research of 44 students at Pham Hong Thai about the influence of Journalist questioning on writing capacity The findings show that while the evidence on the impact of traditional approach on increasing both students’ accuracy and fluency is insignificant, there is statistically significant evidence behind its’ positive impact on students’ accuracy and fluency and many students have improved greatly In addition, from equal standing in accuracy and weaker capability in fluency, students in the experimental group are was shown to be able to perform much better in the former skill and slightly better in the latter skill after being exposed to the teaching approach in question The findings add more evidence on the superior impact of Journalist questioning technique over traditional ones in teaching students writing, particularly in term of improving Fluency which includes paragraphing, ideas, and punctuation 60 However, it should also be reminded that while traditional approach slightly widens the gap in students’ writing capability, the Journalist questioning teaching approach increase the gap even more so In other words, this approach is not applicable for all students in the sample 5.2 Some recommendations Thus, from the findings above, it should be recommended that: • First, teachers at Pham Hong Thai may consider employ Journalist Question technique more in teaching writing to better improve students’ capability • Second, as both approaches fail to become effective for some weaker students which may result in dividing the classes into two totally separated groups – those who does well and those who does not Hence, teachers should take into account other factors and identify other approaches to mix into the teaching approaches to further improve the effectiveness of the activity • Third, because there may be many factors influencing students’ study outcome, teachers may consider performing more similar researches with consideration of other factors into account to identify the most importance factors undermining the effectiveness of Journalist Question technique and thus find a possible approach to cover for the downside of the approach in widening students’ writing capability gap • Fourth and final, it should be noted that the sample data only include students at Pham Hong Thai school Hence, the paper findings and recommendations may be limited to students at the school So, it may be sensible to replicate this study at other schools in the region and in other regions to further consolidate the conclusion Nonetheless, from the finding of this paper, since there is statistically significant evidence behind its’ positive impact on students’ 61 accuracy and fluency and many students have improved greatly, there is no doubt about the Journalist Question technique with students at this school In other words, the employment of journalist questioning technique should be taken in serious consideration at Pham Hong Thai school for its’ effectiveness proven in this paper 5.3 Limitations of the study However, the study has few restrictions ranging from sample details, data gathering methodology, and analysis approach First, the sample consists of just students at Pham Hong Thai high school and thus the implications of the findings may be limited to just the school After all, participants in other regions may have different backgrounds and have different perspectives and responses Second, the analysis approach was merely data analysis from test results In fact, the only comparable determinants between the control group and the experimental ones are their performance in terms of “Accuracy” prior to the exposure to the teaching and the post-test Meaning, the paper disregards many other factors which may also influence the outcome like gender, motivation, and attitude For instance, as stated, what if, there are more motivated students in the experimental groups who are willing to listen to the teachings disregarding the approach and they are the ones responsible for the significance change in result 5.4 Suggestion for further study Nonetheless, given the limitations in this paper, further study with consideration of other factors affecting students like attitude and motivation should be carried out to ascertain the extent of effectiveness of the journalist question approach For instance, the future study should add more determinants into model consideration 62 Furthermore, it should be recommended that further research using larger sample data with backgrounds in different regions and more types of questions in the questionnaire would be advisable 63 REFERENCE Buehl, D (2011) Developing Readers in the Academic Disciplines Newark: International Reading Association Chicaiza, A O (2009) The 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Write Successful Essays Victoria: Monash University Thuy, N H (2009) Teaching efl writing in Vietnam: Problems and solutions - a discussion from the outlook of applied linguistics VNU Journal of Science, Foreign Languages, 25, pp 61 - 66 Retrieved July 5, 2018, from http://repository.vnu.edu.vn/bitstream/VNU_123/57615/1/25.1.9.pdf 66 APPENDIX 67 ... like Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, and Indonesia The main cause of this situation is that higher education institutions not pay adequate attention to the training and organize activities to. .. the use of Journalistic questions technique to increase the writing accuracy and fluency of EFL 11 th graders in a case study in Vietnam In other words, the findings aim to find out whether the. ..MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING VINH UNIVERSITY NGUYEN THI OANH A STUDY ON THE USE OF JOURNALISTIC QUESTIONS TECHNIQUE IN TEACHING THE WRITING SKILL TO EFL 11th GRADERS Field: Theory and