Tài liệu Application of genre based approach in teaching writing to 10th form students action research at sơn dương high school, tuyen quang province

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH APPLICATION OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING WRITING TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS: ACTION RESEARCH AT SƠN DƢƠNG HIGH SCHOOL, TUYÊN QUANG PROVINCE Nghiên cứu hành động về áp dụng phƣơng pháp dạy viết dựa vào thể loại cho học sinh lớp 10, trƣờng THPT Sơn Dƣơng, Tỉnh Tuyên Quang M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* NGUYỄN THỊ VÂN ANH APPLICATION OF GENRE-BASED APPROACH IN TEACHING WRITING TO 10TH FORM STUDENTS: ACTION RESEARCH AT SƠN DƢƠNG HIGH SCHOOL, TUYÊN QUANG PROVINCE Nghiên cứu hành động về áp dụng phƣơng pháp dạy viết dựa vào thể loại cho học sinh lớp 10, trƣờng THPT Sơn Dƣơng, Tỉnh Tuyên Quang M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: Assoc. Prof., Dr. LÊ HÙNG TIẾN Hanoi, 2014 DECLARATION I certify that this thesis entitled: “Application of genre-based approach in teaching writing to 10th form students: action research at Sơn Dương High School”, which is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, is the result of my own work. I have provided fully documented references to the work of others. The material in this thesis has not been submitted for any other formal course of study. Signature Nguyễn Thị Vân Anh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Prof., Dr. Le Hung Tien for his crucial advice, critical comments, invaluable suggestion and also his devoted lessons. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to all the lecturers of the Post Graduate Faculty of University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their scholarly knowledge and amazing lectures that have helped to increase my interest for English Methodology and my teaching job. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the library staff for being so helpful and supportive. Especially, I wish to express my appreciation to my students of Group 10A1 at Sơn Dương High School, who have been really helpful and cooperative in the implementation of the study. Finally, I would like to thank my family and my friends for their emotional support, without which doing the thesis would have been a much more difficult experience for me. ii ABSTRACT When teaching writing skill to 10th form students at Sơn Dương High School, the author of this research found that most of the students did not seem interested in writing lessons and their writing performance was unacceptable. In an attempt to solve the problems of students‟ poor writing performance, a hypothetical solution –the use of genre-based approach to teaching writing – was tested in this study through a small-scale action research project. This research focuses on improving students‟ writing skill by applying genre-based approach to teach writing to the 10th form students at Sơn Dương High School. In order to achieve the aim, Action Research was employed to measure the influence of genre-based approach on the students‟ writing performance. The action research was conducted with five main steps: Problem identification, Preliminary investigation, Hypothesis, Intervention and Evaluation. The data was collected via a number of instruments including a preliminary questionnaire, a post questionnaire, a pre-test and a post-test. After a preliminary investigation had been carried out, writing course applied genre-based approach was designed, and then implemented in the second semester of the school year 2013 - 2014 with the participation of 38 students from Group 10A1 at Sơn Dương High School. The findings from the tests and the questionnaires revealed that students did make progress in their writing, and students‟ opinions were positive about the treatment. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT......................................................................................................................... iii TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... iv LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS ............................................................... vi PART A: INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................. 1 1. Rationale for the study ............................................................................................... 1 2. Aims and objectives of the study ............................................................................... 2 3. Research questions ..................................................................................................... 2 4. Scope of the study ...................................................................................................... 2 5. Methods of the study.................................................................................................. 2 6. Design of the thesis .................................................................................................... 2 PART B ................................................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW ...................................................................... 4 1.1. Overview of writing ................................................................................................ 4 1.1.1. What is writing? ............................................................................................... 4 1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing ....................................................................... 4 1.1.2.1. The product approach ............................................................................... 5 1.1.2.2. The process approach................................................................................ 6 1.2. Why choose a genre-based approach? .................................................................... 7 1.2.1. Definition of a genre. ....................................................................................... 7 1.2.2. Genre-based approach: ................................................................................... 8 1. 3. Related studies ..................................................................................................... 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................... 12 2.1. Rationale of the using action research .................................................................. 12 2.2. Research setting .................................................................................................... 14 2.2.1. Overview ........................................................................................................ 14 2.2.2. Writing tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 10 ................................................... 14 2.2.3 Selection of participants ................................................................................. 14 2.3. Data collection instruments .................................................................................. 15 2.4. Data analysis procedure ........................................................................................ 16 iv CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .......................................................... 17 3.1. Problem identification........................................................................................... 17 3.2. Preliminary investigation ...................................................................................... 17 3.2.1. Analysis of students’ preliminary questionnaire. .......................................... 17 3.2.1.1. Students‟ attitudes towards writing skill. ................................................ 17 3.2.1.2. Students‟ self assessment of their writing competence. ......................... 19 3.2.1.3. The difficulties students had encountered. ............................................. 20 3.2.2. The results of the students’ pre-tests.............................................................. 21 3.3. Hypothesis ............................................................................................................ 21 3.4. Intervention ........................................................................................................... 21 3.5. Evaluation ............................................................................................................. 23 3.5.1. The results of the students’ post-test. ............................................................. 23 3.5.1.1. The performance of students in the content of the writing test .............. 24 3.5.1.2. The performance of students in the organization of the writing test ...... 25 3.5.1.3. The performance of students in using the vocabulary ............................ 26 3.5.1.4. The performance of students in using the language ............................... 26 3.5.1.5. The performance of students in using the mechanics ............................. 27 3.5.2. The results of the questionnaire for students after taking part in action research. .................................................................................................................. 27 3.5.2.1. The students‟ self-assessment of the genre-based approach ....................... 28 3.5.2.2. The changes the students had after participated in action research ............ 29 PART C: CONCLUSION ............................................................................................. 31 1. Summary of the findings.......................................................................................... 31 2. Concluding remarks ................................................................................................. 32 3. Limitations of the study ........................................................................................... 32 REFERENCES .................................................................................................................. 34 APPENDICES ...................................................................................................................... I v LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS Figures Figure 1: Martin‟s models of genre ....................................................................................... 8 Figure 2: Steps in the action research cycle ......................................................................... 13 Figure 3: Steps in the action research cycle in the current research .................................... 13 Tables Table 1: Students‟ difficulties in learning writing skill ....................................................... 20 Table 2: The overall results of students‟ writing tests ......................................................... 21 Table 3: The overall results of students‟ post- tests............................................................. 23 Table 4: The students‟ attitude towards post-improvement lessons .................................... 28 Table 5: The students‟ self-assessment of their writing performance ................................. 28 Charts Chart 1: Students‟ attitudes towards writing skill ................................................................ 18 Chart 2: Students‟ self assessment of their writing competence ......................................... 19 Chart 3: Comparison of the results from pre-test and post-test ........................................... 24 Chart 4: Students‟ performance in the content .................................................................... 25 Chart 5: Students‟ performance in the organization of the writing tests ............................. 25 Chart 6: Students‟ performance in using the vocabulary ..................................................... 26 Chart 7: Students‟ performance in using the language ........................................................ 27 Chart 8: Students‟ performance in using the mechanics...................................................... 27 Chart 9: Students‟ responses on changes they had from new approach .............................. 29 vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study Nowadays, English has played a remarkable role in the fields of economics, politics, science, culture and education. In Vietnam, it is regarded as one of the most important subjects at all levels of education. Especially, since Decision 1400/QĐ-TTg dated 30 September, 2008 of the Prime Minister on the Approval of the Project entitled “ Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the National Education System, period 20082020” (National Foreign languages 2020 project) was implemented, English has become one of the most important subjects in general education curriculum. The teaching and learning of English in our country has changed from the grammar translation method (GTM) to the communicative language teaching (CLT). As a result, our English textbook series were compiled under the impact of the communicative approach which focuses on four skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing. Compared to the other three skills, writing is considered to be challenging skill to master. Students find it too difficult to write well while teachers feel frustrated. At Sơn Dương High School, the dominant approach to teach writing is process approach which focuses only on process of writing. As the teacher of English at Sơn Dương High School, when teaching her students in writing lessons, the author of this study realized that her students did not seem to be interested in learning writing and had some difficulties to learn writing better. It appears to her that she needs to make some changes. And the question was raised that “How can teacher help students to make an improvement in learning writing?” Through reading the literature, the writer of this study was impressed with the idea of teaching writing through a genre-based approach. However, through finding and reading the materials related to topic the writer realized that this approach to writing was little researched in Vietnamese high schools. So, she decided to experiment this approach to her teaching writing to her own students in her school. The aim of this action research is to examine whether a genre-based approach to writing is helpful to her students or not. 1 2. Aims and objectives of the study This study is designed with an aim to improve students‟ writing performance of English by applying genre-based approach to teach writing skill to students. In order to achieve this aim, the following objective was set out for the study: - To examine how genre-based approach to teaching writing affected students‟ writing performance. 3. Research questions In order to achieve the aim and objective the study was designed to find out the answer to the following question: How does the genre-based approach affect the 10th form students’ writing performance? 4. Scope of the study Because of the limitation of a minor study, the research is only conducted at Sơn Dương High School in order to recognize the problems in learning writing skills of the 10th form students with the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. The study mainly focuses on applying genre-based approach to teaching writing in helping students work well in writing lessons. 5. Methods of the study Given that this study was implemented in the hope of improving the students‟ English writing skill, the researcher decided to adopt action research because this type of research is aimed at improving a situation. After a preliminary investigation had been carried out, a writing instruction course was designed, and then implemented in the second semester of the school year 2013-2014 with the participation of 38 students from Group 10A1 at Sơn Dương High School. The data was then collected through survey questionnaires. Questionnaire responses were analyzed by means of descriptive statistics. In addition to the questionnaires, students‟ writing were collected through pre-test and post-test and analyzed to measure the students‟ progress in their writing performance. 2 6. Design of the thesis The study consists of three main parts as follows.  The first part, Introduction, deals with rationale, aims and objectives of the study, research questions, scope, methods and design of the study.  The second part, Development, contains three chapters, in which chapter 1 deals with some theoretical background that is relevant to the purpose of the study, chapter 2 presents a detailed description of the research methodology, and chapter 3 discusses the findings of the study. This chapter is by far the most dominant one.  The final part, Conclusion, recapitulates all the main points discussed throughout the thesis, and suggests further research orientations. 3 PART B CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter gives an overview of relevant literature and studies that deal with approaches in teaching writing skill. It includes three main sections. The first section describes an overview of the writing with its definitions and some dominant approaches. The second section discusses why genre based approach is chosen to apply to improve students‟ writing performance. The last section is to list some related studies in the world and in Vietnam. 1.1. Overview of writing 1.1.1. What is writing? As it was mentioned in Part A, writing is a significant and essential area of development in a native language and in a second language; therefore, there have been numerous definitions of writing given by different researchers and linguists. Writing is defined as a social process by Candlin and Hyland (1999). They stated “Writing is therefore an engagement in a social process, where the production of texts reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made” (Candlin and Hyland, 1999: 107). Writing, in language teacher' opinions, is "a language skill which is difficult to acquire" (Tribble, 1996:3). It is "a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take into account the sometimes extended periods of thinking that precede creating an initial draft" (Harris, 1993:10). According to Byrne (1988), writing is the act of forming graphic symbols (letters or combination of letter) which were arranged to form sentences, and a sequence of sentences arranged in a particular order and linked together in a certain way on flat surface of some kind was produced. After considering some different views of writing, let‟s see some approaches to teach writing which have been introduced and applied to facilitate the writing lessons. 1.1.2. Approaches to teaching writing As mentioned above, among the four communicative skills writing is considered to be challenging students expected to master. Writing is complex and multifaceted in nature. Therefore, helping students to write better is also a challenge to the teacher. Over the last 4 few decades, there have been numerous pedagogies developed to improve students‟ writing proficiency. Although there are a great number of such approaches, with the limitation of the minor thesis, only three approaches which are considered prominent in teaching writing are chosen to discuss. They include the product approach, the process approach and the genre-based approach. Needless to say, each approach has its own merits and backwards and is suitable for a particular context of learning and teaching EFL. 1.1.2.1. The product approach In traditional pedagogy, for a long time, the product approach which focuses on the form and content of the finished writing product had dominated much of the teaching that happened in the English classroom. The writing teachers who subscribe to the product approach are more concerned to evaluate learning through text analysis of students‟ final piece of writing according to some criteria such as the standard of rhetorical style, accurate grammar, and conventional organization (Brown 1994: 320). In his work, Clark (2003: p4) described how the approach realized in a writing class: “Learning to write in those days meant being able to figure out what the teacher wanted in order to create an acceptable product, and apparently few teaches thought that helping students acquire a workable writing process was part of their job. Whatever process students used, they had to manage on their own.” As far as the product approach is concerned, learning to write has four stages: familiarization, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing. Due to its primary focus on the finished products, the product approach was attacked by many criticisms. Trible (1996: 37) wrote, “in that context [using product approach], one of the trash’s main role will be instill notions of correctness and conformity”. This product approach is claimed to be totally teacher-centered and productfocused. The weaknesses of product approaches are that process skills, such as planning a text, are given a relatively small role, and that the knowledge and skills that learners bring to the classroom are undervalued. However, strengths of this approach can not be denied, for this approach, the need for learners to be given linguistic knowledge about texts is recognized. In short, product-based approach sees writing as mainly concerned with knowledge about the structure of language, and writing development as mainly the result of the imitation of input, in the form of texts provided by teacher. 5 1.1.2.2. The process approach During the seventies of the 20th century, while the product approach received a lot of critics, teachers are more concerned about the process approach. Unlike the product approach, the process approach focuses on thinking and writing processes. It is argued by Nunan (1991: 87) that while the product-oriented approach aims at developing the leamer's writing skill mainly at sentence-level, the process-oriented approach aims at language at discourse-level. Writing in process approach is seen as predominantly to do with linguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and there is much less emphasis on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar and text structure. There are different views on the stages that writers go through in producing a piece of writing, but a typical model identifies four stages: prewriting, composing/drafting, revising, and editing. The pre-writing activity would involve introducing techniques that help the students discover and engage a topic. Instead of turning in a finished product right away, students are asked for multiple drafts of work. After discussion and feed-back from readers, the learners would revise the drafts. Rewriting and revision are integral to writing, and editing is an on-going multiple-level process. In such writing classroom, the central elements are the writer, the content and the purpose, and multiple drafts. The role of the teacher in a process-approach classroom is an education facilitator. Writing is essentially learned, not taught. Providing input or stimulus for learners is perceived as unimportant, since the teacher‟s task is only to facilitate the exercise of writing skills and draw out the learners‟ potential. Since its foundation, the process approach has been widely accepted because it shifted the focus on the writing process of writers. In comparison with the product approach, the process approach has undoubtedly made great improvements on practical teaching and provided much thought for English teachers. However, in the process of implementing, there has been backwards revealed. The approach has a somewhat monolithic view of writing as Badger and White (2000) stated. “The disadvantages of process approaches are that they often regard all writing as being produced by the same set of processes; that they give insufficient importance to the kind of texts writers produce and why such texts are produced; and that they offer learners insufficient input, particularly in terms of linguistic knowledge, to write successfully.”. Atkinson (2003) 6 gives his comments: “The process approach seems to narrowly focus on the skills and processes of writing in the classroom itself and as a result fails to take into account the social and cultural aspects that have an impact on different kinds of writing”. In summary, it can be said that the process approach sees writing primarily as the exercise of linguistic skills, and writing development as an unconscious process which happens when teachers facilitate the exercises of writing skills. To sum up, with brief review of some definitions of writing and two approaches commonly applied in teaching writing over the last few decays as product and process, both advantages and drawbacks are defined and looked into. The next section, the genrebased approach and its application on the teaching of writing to high school students will be largely focused. 1.2. Why choose a genre-based approach? As discussed in section 1, in the 1970s and the most of the 1980s, experts and teacher were primarily interested in the process approach. In the later 1980s and the 1990s, however, theoretical interest in writing instruction seemed to shift to a genre based approach. This section will explore the genre based approach in more detailed, and consider how this approach has influenced writing instruction. 1.2.1. Definition of a genre. Martin (1993: 13) defines genres as staged goal oriented social processes through which social subjects in a given culture live their life. Callaghan and Rothery (1988: 25) explain three elements in the definition in detail: “Genres are defined as social processes because members of a given culture have learned to use them in an interactive social setting. They are goal oriented because they have evolved to allow people in the culture to achieve their goals; to get things done. They are staged and have a distinctive beginning, middle and end structure which is the means for people achieving their goals. Swale (1990: 58) defines a genre as “a class of communicative events, the member of which share some sets of communicative purposes. These purposes are recognized by the expert members of the parent discourse community, and thereby constitute the rationale for the genre. This rationale shapes the schematic structure of the discourse and influences and constrains choice of content and style.” 7 Genres are also influenced by other features of the situation, such as the subject matter, the relationships between the writer and the audience, and the pattern of organization. Martin (1993: 120) offers a diagrammatic explanation of genre. Purpose (Genre) Channel (Mode) Subject matter Interlocutor Relationship (Field) (Tenor) Text Figure 1: Martin’s models of genre As teachers, we are able to engage in more specialized genres such as lesson plans, student reports, and feedback sheets, bringing a degree of expertise to the ways we understand or write familiar texts. In more precise terms, we possess a schema of prior knowledge which we share with others and can bring to the situations in which we read and write to express ourselves efficiently and effectively. 1.2.2. Genre-based approach Genre-based approach is the approach in which students are explicitly exposed to the language features, text structures and the social purposes of each text type. Then, students step by step produce the text with appropriate scaffolding of the teacher. At the heart of the approach, therefore, is the view that writing pedagogies should “offer students explicit and systematic explanations of the ways language functions in social contexts” (Hyland: 2003). A range of methods is employed in a classroom using the genre approach. For instance, Paltridge (2001) proposes a framework that involves investigating the texts and contexts of students‟ target situations, encouraging reflection on writing practices, exploiting texts from different types of genre and creating mixed genre portfolios. The underpinning theory of such a pedagogical approach, according to Vygotsky (1978), as reported in Hyland (2003), is an “emphasis on the interactive collaboration between teacher and students, with the teacher taking an authoritative role to „scaffold‟ or support learners as they move towards their potential level of performance. 8 Genre-based approach promises very benefits for learners as they pull together language, content, and contexts, while offering teachers a means of presenting students with explicit and systematic explanations of the ways writing works to communicate. For teachers, genre-based approach not only addresses the needs of ESL writers but also draws teachers into considering how texts actually work as communication. Teachers of writing clearly need to be teachers of language as it is necessary to exercise appropriate linguistic choices in the ways they treat and organize their topics for particular readers which helps students to give their ideas authority. By categorizing and analyzing the texts they ask students to write, teachers become more familiar with the ways meanings are created and more sensitive to the specific communicative needs of their students. Teachers are therefore in a better position to reflect on their own writing and that of their students, offering them a means to understand, deconstruct, to make decisions about the teaching methods and materials to use, and to approach current instructional examples with a more critical eye. Derewianka (1990) indicates that in order for learners to learn to write a specific genre, teachers and learners work through a cyclical process which consists of four stages, namely Building the Field, Modeling, Joint Construction and Independent Writing. The first stage is intended to give students time to gather information about what they will be writing. Then, in Modeling, they are exposed to an authentic text of a particular genre to familiarize with its generic structure, language features and communicative purpose. Then with the help of their teacher, they jointly construct a text. Joint writing allows students to experience the processes of thinking and social interaction in writing by observing how meanings and language are chosen to serve a particular communicative purpose and by participating in the decision making which mould them into more confident writers. Finally, students write the text of the same genre on their own. The principles of the genre based approach are realized in the teaching and learning cycle or model. The teaching model consists of a number of stages that the teacher and students go through so that students gradually gain independent control of a particular genre. The stages usually come in circle to indicate that there are different points of entry depending on the needs of the students. 9 The examples of genres would be narrative, recount, explanation, information report, exposition, procedure. In teaching from the genre-based approach, the four part cycle is proposed. This involves: a. Building the context : - Brainstorming, discussions and opportunities to reveal relevant personal experiences. - Vocabulary development b. Modeling / deconstruction the text According to Derewianka (1992: 7), if learners are to write in a particular genre, they first need to become familiar with its purpose and features through rich exposure in the genre. This is achieved as follows:  Introduce a model of the genre to the class  Discuss the purposes for which we use this genre in our society  With the class identify how the text is structure. Each genre has a distinctive set of stages which help it to gain its purpose.  c. Discuss the function of each stage. Joint construction of the text - Before students write independent texts, it is useful for them to participate in the group writing of a text in the chosen genre. A text may be jointly constructed by the whole class, by a small group, or by a teacher and learner during conference. - As well as demonstrating what form the final product may take, the joint construction of a text should also demonstrate the process involved in writing a text. d. Independent construction of the text - Having read and examined the example texts in the chosen text and having experienced of joint-constructing a similar text, students now are ready to choose the own texts on a related topic. In addition to providing teachers with a way of organizing their courses, genre based writing instruction follows modern theories of learning in giving considerable recognition to the importance of collaboration, or peer interaction, and scaffolding, or teacher-supported learning. In short, while study genre-based approach students move backwards and forwards through alternate processes of induction and deduction, between language and meta- 10 language, activity and received knowledge, experience and theory. That‟s why the aim of teaching genre to grade 10 students in my school would empower them to write a variety of purposes and audiences. So writing should be taught as how it can be used in context meaningfully. 1. 3. Related studies To stimulate the students‟ writing skill, especially writing recount text, the researcher, Setyani (2008) conducted a classroom action research using headline news. The students can get the headline news from the newspapers or magazines or television. From these media, the students can make news in English. So writing headline news will help the students in writing recount text. Therefore, the main problems of the students in writing recount text can be solved. Finally, the students can write recount text grammatically and have competence in making English news. Thi Kim Anh Dang (2002) has applied a genre-based approach in teaching the writing of English discussion genre to Vietnamese EFL students at the tertiary level. In her thesis, she pointed out that almost students found the model discussion texts and their construction helpful for their writing and they gave very positive feedback on the stages of the teaching cycle and showed that they were aware of the overall objective of the program, which was for them to gain independent control of the discussion genre, as well as to understand the purposes of each the stages. Nghi Nguyen, Phan (2012) and Ha Ngoc, Nguyen (2013) did the study at Tuyen Quang Gifted School in order to find out the way to help 10th form students and 11th form students write a better personal recount. Through students‟ writing results and their responses to the questionnaires, they both found that most of the students‟ difficulties in writing came from lacking vocabulary, structures, language features as well as ideas to write. Students after the treatment are motivated to learn writing skill and have more confidence in writing and using English. 11 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY This chapter presents a detailed description of how the research was carried out including the rationale of the using research, research setting, data collection instruments, data collection procedures, and data analysis procedures. 2.1. Rationale of the using action research Action research is conducted to investigate a specific teaching situation or practice when the teacher in charge wants to find a solution to that situation or practice. This action research was carried out in an attempt to find out solutions to the improvement of students‟ writing skills. It was carried out by the teacher-researcher with her own students in an intact class. For these reasons, the researcher believed an action research design would fit well her purpose. (Nunan, 1992) Although there exist models which include different steps to carry out the action research, they all share the following basic elements: the process begins with the researcher identifying a problem, then a plan of action is worked out, afterwards the plan is implemented, and the process culminates when the researcher evaluates the effectiveness of the plan and proposes next actions to further address the problem. In this study, the teacher-researcher followed the model proposed by Nunan (1992) because the steps in his model made it easier and more convenient for the teacherresearcher to carry out the research. Besides, it reflected correctly what steps were taken during the study. According to Nunan (1992), the action research process has seven steps as illustrated in Figure 2 below: 12