Đăng ký Đăng nhập
Trang chủ Improving 10 graders' writing with guided writing practice an action research ...

Tài liệu Improving 10 graders' writing with guided writing practice an action research

.PDF
110
1
65

Mô tả:

M IN ISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANO I U N IV E R SIT Y ĨRUN8 M M to use g u id ed w ritin g p ra ctice in high sch ools?.......................................... 15 2.2.3.1 Guided writing e x e r c ise s........................................................................................ 16 2.2.3.2 The role o f the teacher in guided writing practice..................................... . 17 2.2.3.3 The role o f group work in guided writing practice......................................... 18 2.2.3.4 Sequences to teach guided writing practice.......................................................18 2.4 S u m m a r y ...................................................................................................................................... 19 C H A P T E R 3: T H E M E T H O D O L O G Y .................................................................................... 21 3.1 T he research m etho ds .......................................................................................................... 21 3.1.1. Action resea rch .................................................................................................................. 21 3.1.2 Action research p ro ced u re............................................................................................. 23 3.1.2.1 Identify problem (w eeks 1 - 2 )............................................................................... 23 3.1.2.2 Collecting initial data (w eeks 3 -4 )....................................................................... 23 3.1.2.3 Analyzing data / generating hypotheses (w eek 5 ) .......................................... 23 3.1.2.4 Planning action (w eek 6 ) ........................................................................................24 3.1.2.5 Implementing action (w eeks 7 - 1 2 ) ......................................................................24 3.1.2.6 Collecting data to monitor change (w eeks 7 -1 2 )............................................ 24 3.1.2.7 Evaluating students' improvement after the intervention (w eeks 13-15)25 3.2 D ata collection in str um en ts .......................................................................................... 25 3.2.1 Questionnaire su rv e y ....................................................................................................... 25 3.2.1.1 Rationale behind the use o f questionnaire su r v e y ..........................................25 3.2.1.2 Questionnaire 1 to collect pre-data (Appendix A ) ..........................................26 3.2.1.3 Questionnaire 2 to collect post-data (Appendix B ) ....................................... 26 3.2.2 Classroom o b serva tio n ....................................................................................................27 3.2.2.1 Rationale behind the use o f classroom observation........................................27 3.2.2.2 Observation sheet (Appendix C)..........................................................................27 3.2.3 Teaching d ia ry............................................................................................................ 28 3.2.3.1 Rationale behind keeping teaching diary.......................................................... 28 3.2.3.2 Description o f teaching diary (Appendix D ) ...................................................28 3.2.4 Document analysis......................................................................................................29 3.2.4.1 Rationale behind the use o f writing papers...................................................... 29 3.2.4.2 A nalysis o f writing papers.................................................................................... 29 3.3 T he participants ..................................................................................................................... 30 3.3.1 The obsei-vers............................................................................................................. 30 3.3.2 The researcher...........................................................................................................30 3.4 S u m m a r y .................................................................................................................................... 30 C H A PTER 4: T H E R E S U L T S ......................................................................................................31 4.1 Initial data from teaching diary a n d Q uestionnaire 1 (A ppendix A ) ....... 31 4.1.1 Students ’ attitude tow ard learning writing (Data from leaching d a ily and Questionnaire 1 )....................................................................................................................31 4.1.2 How students learned writing and what problem s they had.............................. 32 4.1.2.1 Data collected from teaching dairy..................................................................... 32 4.1.2.2 Data collected from Questionnaire 1 ..................................................................33 4.1.3 Students poor writing (Data from teaching dairy and Questionnaire 1 ).... 34 4.1.4 Students 'preferences fo r w ritingpractice (Data from Questionnaire 1 ) .... 35 4.1.4.1 Working in grou p s................................................................................................... 35 4.1.4.2 Teacher’s h elp............................................................................................................36 4.1.5 Summary...................................................................................................................... 36 4.2 P lanning action s t e p s ......................................................................................................... 37 4.2.1 Preparation.................................................................................................................. 37 4.2.1.1 Guided writing lesson plans.................................................................................. 37 4.2.1.2 Checking the classroom ’s equipment and facilities....................................... 38 4.2.2 Group -work.................................................................................................................. 38 4.2.2.1 Grouping and physical settin g ..............................................................................38 4.2.2.2 R ole o f group work in guided writing lesso n s.................................................39 4.2.3 Teacher's giving su pport.......................................................................................... 39 4.3 D ata collected in the action s t a g e ............................................................................ 40 4.3.1 Data collected from teaching d ia ry ...................................................................... 40 4.3.2 Data collected from Questionnaire 2.................................................................... 42 4.3.3 Data collected from observation sh e e t.................................................................45 4.3.4 Data collected from writing papers ’ analysis (writing papers 1-5)...............51 4.4 A ction research evaluation ........................................................................................... 57 4.4.1 Evaluation o f classroom observation.....................................................................57 4.4.2 Evaluation o f writing papers analysis (writing papers 1-5)............................ 58 4.4.3 Data collected from Questionnaires 1 & 2 ..........................................................60 4.4.4 Summary o f major findings....................................................................................... 62 C H A PT E R 5: C O N C L U S IO N ......................................................................................................64 5.1 A sum m ary of A R ...................................................................................................................64 5.2 R ecom m endations ..................................................................................................................65 5.3 L imitations an d suggestions for further r e se a r c h ............................................67 R E F E R E N C E S.....................................................................................................................................69 A PPE N D IX A: Q U E S T IO N N A IR E 1 (P R E -D A T A )...........................................................73 APPENDIX B: QUESTIONNAIRE 2 (POST DATA)................................................79 APPENDIX C: OBSERVATION SHEET....................................................................85 APPENDIX D: TEACHING DIARY............................................................................ 86 APPENDIX E: GUIDED WRITING LESSON PLAN 1 ............................................87 APPENDIX F: GUIDED WRITING LESSON PLAN 2............................................. 91 APPENDIX G: GUIDED WRITING LESSON PLAN 3 ............................................94 APPENDIX H: RATERS’ CHECKLIST 1.................................................................. 97 APPENDIX I: RATERS’ CHECKLIST 2.................................................................... 98 ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 1 ...................................................................................... 99 ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 2 .................................................................................... 100 ADDITIONAL MATERIAL 3 .....................................................................................101 iv ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I would like to express my gratefulness to my supervisor, Mrs. Nguyen Nguyet Minh, (M.A) for the enthusiastic guidance she gave me while I was doing this thesis. I am thankful to her ideas, suggestions, instructions, deep comments, and constant support. Without this, I could not have been completed my research. I am also deeply grateful to Mrs. Nguyen Thai Ha, (M.A) from the Department o f Post Graduate Studies of Hanoi University for her helpful advice and support. Many special thanks are sent to all the lectures and organizers of the M.A course at Hanoi University. I would like to thank all my friends for their help, my colleagues and my students taking part in my research for their cooperation. Finally, I would like to thank all the members o f my family, who continuously encouraged me to complete this thesis. ABSTRACT With the hope to improve the 10 graders’ writing skill at Pham Hong Thai High School (PHT High School), the research aimed to find out the causes of the students’ poor writing, difficulties they faced with writing lessons, and what could be done to help them. To find the answer to the above questions, an action research w^as carried out. The steps of the action were carefully considered and adjusted to the real teaching situation. The subjects o f the research were 21 students chosen from class 10D2 at PHT High School. A combination o f research instruments (teaching diaries, questionnaires, observations and documents analysis) was employed to elicit the data. The analysis o f the pre-data showed that most of the students had positive attitude toward learning English and writing; however, they found the skill difficult. Many students did not feel confident when they moved into independent writing. The results o f the writing papers in the previous term revealed their weakness in organization, coherence, vocabulary, spelling and mechanics. Obviously, further guidance should have been provided before the students could write independently. It was then hypothesized that if the students had guided writing before they moved to independent writing, their writing would improve. An action research plan adapted from the theory on guided writing practice to help students improve their writing was implemented for five weeks. After that, the post-data were collected and analyzed. The evaluation o f the action research proved that after the implementation o f guided writing lessons, the students’ writing improved and their confidence was enhanced, too. The results of the study confirmed that guided writing practice is helpful in teaching 10th graders’ writing and it should be applied in teaching writing in general. LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as Foreign Language PHT Pham Hong Thai High School MOET Ministry o f Education and Training OHP Overhead projector LIST OF TABLES Table Page Table 1: The writing section o f English 10 Table 2 a: Students’ attitude towards learning writing before the 3 42 teaching implementation Table 2 b: Teacher’s guidance during the guided writing practice 43 Table 2 c: Effectiveness of the guided writing practice 44 Table 3 a: Result from the writing papers 1 51 Table 3 b: Result from the writing papers 2 53 Table 3 c: Result from the writing papers 3 54 Table 3 d: Result from the writing papers 4 55 Table 3 e: Result from the writing papers 5 56 Table 4: Students’ attitude towards learning writing before and after the 61 teaching implementation. LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Action research cycles 22 LIST OF GRAPHS Graph 1: Writing Papers in Category of Focus 58 Graph 2: Writing Papers in Category of Organization & Coherence 59 Graph 3: Writing Papers in Category o f Grammar &Mechanics 59 Graph 4: Writing Papers in Category of Vocabulary Vlll 60 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study and statement of the problem For some students in the EFL classroom writing seems to come naturally and with ease, for some it is a struggle. The latter happens more often when the writing lessons are conducted with insufficient writing instructions. Many years ago, most Vietnamese teachers applied product approach to teach writing. In the writing task, there was only one teacher’s instruction, for example, ‘‘Write a paragraph about your home town”. There was no explanation about how to do the task and what exactly the teacher wanted the students to write. After the instruction, students were left to work on their own. The problems with the product approach were detected and gears o f research resulted in the process approach in writing, which classifies writing into a number of activities: setting goals, generating ideas, organizing information, selecting appropriate language, making drafts, revising and editing (Hedge, 2000). In other words, the process approach has brought students with the strategies to write. Then came the genre-based or text-type approach with the insight into the nature o f language that has shaped the school-writing syllabus. When students learn a second language, they learn to communicate with other people. Writing is a powerful instrument of communication. Therefore, in writing sections o f our second-language syllabus, teachers have tried to get students writing in a number o f common everyday styles. As Flowerdew (1993) points out the syllabus has a range of kinds o f writing such as sales letters, research articles, and reports all linked with different situations. All these developments have, to some extent, affected the way writing is taught in Vietnam. 1 In the recent years, the new series of textbooks, English 10, 11 and 12, have brought about new changes to teaching and learning o f English in Vietnamese high schools. However, many teachers and students of my school, Pham Hong Thai (PHT) High School consider writing a difficult part in each unit. The 10 graders in particular, find writing the most challenging language skill to learn. In the curriculum o f English 10 (see Table 1), there are 16 units with one writing lesson per unit. According to the curriculum o f the MOET, students who choose English, Maths and Literature as the main subjects have four English classes a week. They have to spend three classes with the textbook and one optional class to improve the four skills. It means, the teacher can have one class to help students with writing a month. As can be seen in Table 1, a variety o f writing types is presented with the aim to help students become familiar with writing for different purposes. The writing skill is often taught after reading, speaking, and listening. During the writing lessons, the students do not only practice writing but also integrated skills such as reading, speaking and listening. The students can use grammar, vocabulary and ideas they gain from the previous lessons to write. Students who finish English 10 are supposed to be able to write the text types like letter (Unit 4, 6, 8, 10, 11), form (Unit 2), description (Unit 9, 13, 15, 16), instruction (Unit 5, 8), narrative (Unit 1), recount (Unit 3, 12), information report (Unit 14), discussion (Unit 7). Each writing lesson, which lasts in 45 minutes, provides students with a model of a specific writing type such as letters, simple descriptions, report information or narratives before doing the writing tasks by themselves. The writing tasks are designed to help students understand the content, structure and vocabulary used in each unit. After finishing those tasks, students should be able to produce their text within a 100-120 word limit. However, not all writing lessons provide a sample writing, which enables students to get started easily. 2 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. T ypes of w ritin g W riting a narrative R e q u ire m en ts Practice writing a narrative by using given prompts. Use the sim ple past tense and connectors. Filling in a form Practice filling in comm on forms such as enrolm ent form, sim ple application form. Use appropriate words and structures in the forms. W riting about Practice w riting a sim ple C. V people's background Get to know the format, lay out and essential information ofaC.V W riting a letter o f Practice writing a simple a letter o f complaint. com plaint W rite a letter o f com plaint about the poor quality o f the service at an English Center. W riting a set o f Practice writing sim ple instructions on how to use some instructions household appliances. Understand the verbs used in instructions. W riting a Practice writing a confirm ation letter responding to a confirmation letter request and an invitation. W riting about advanta^ Practice writing a paragraph about advantages o f and disadvantages o f television and other types o f m ass media. mass media W riting an informal Practice writing a letter giving directions to a certain letter o f giving place. direction Use the sequences m arkers, verbs o f instructions Describing Practice writing a descriptive paragraph about dolphins by information from a using the facts and figures from a table. table Get to know some features o f a descriptive paragraph. W riting a letter o f Practice w riting a letter o f invitation using the cues invitation provided. Be fam iliar with expressions used in an invitation letter and the model o f it. W riting a letter o f Practice writing a letter o f acceptance or refusal. Acceptance or refusal Be fam iliar with expressions used in a letter o f acceptance or refusal. Get to know some features o f a letter o f acceptance or refusal. W riting a profile Practice w riting a profile based on prompts provided. Get to know some features o f a profile. Use appropriate tenses o f verbs when writing a profile Describing a film Practice w riting a description o f film they have seen, based on prompts. W riting an Practice writing an announcem ent about a sports event. announcem ent Be fam iliar with a form at o f an announcem ent and the language used in it. Describing a city Practice describing a city o f the students’ choice, using the structures and vocabulary they have learned in the lesson. Get to know the ways o f organizing their information Describing a chart Practice describing the inform ation presented in a chart, using com parative structures and based on cues. Get to know some features o f a chart description including the organization and the language use. Be fam iliar with analyzing the chart bar and organizing ideas. Table 1: The writing section of English 10 3 To teach writing to my students I applied the genre approach, more details of which will be provided in Chapter 2. First, I tried to do modelling writing to help the students understand the purpose, language features o f the model text then I followed my modelling with joint construction of a new text, in which both teacher and students built a new text together. We discussed vocabulary, grammar, organization o f the text and we both gathered information for the new text. Finally, we moved to independent writing. After that, my students handed in their writing. In fact, after doing the writing exercises in the book, many students still find it difficult to start writing in the classroom and find it more difficult to perform well in their writing tests. Not all the students could finish their piece of writing in class in fixed time. Some encountered problems with task response, vocabulary and grammar used, cohesion, coherence and lost marks. In other words, the students did not fully understood the organization of a new type of writing, they were not aware o f the purpose o f the writing task, incapable of expressing ideas that they had as they did not have sufficient lexical and grammar resource and most o f them did not feel confident as they rarely practiced writing. I needed to do something to support their writing development and I thought something was missing in my writing scaffolding. As the descriptions above indicate, guidance in the writing section o f the book and the teacher’s instruction is insufficient makes the writing lessons difficult and may contribute to the students’ poor writing. Another reason for students’ poor writing was that the students did not have chance to practice writing in class because the teacher had to follow a very tight schedule strictly. It was clear that the students needed writing practice, which could have provided them with chance to be exposed to the features o f the text as well as to share the things they gained from modelling to write their own papers. All the reasons stated above made me think about applying guided writing practice in extra classes to help my students to improve their writing. 4 In brief, the problems in teaching writing English 10 negatively appears to affect students’ writing and research must be carried out to find a solution. 1.2 Aim of the study As discussed in the first section, there were some problems in fulfilling the writing tasks. The purpose o f this study was to find out what the problem were and if guided writing practice improved students’ writing at Pham Hong Thai High School 1.3 Scope of the study The research was carried out with 21 students who are studying in one grade 10 at PHT High School, and based on the analysis of their writing papers. It restricts the conclusion only to the given data, since the writing performance was conducted this population o f students only. Furthermore, the outcomes of the study may not apply to all situations upon which the students are dependent. 1.4 Significance of the study The findings o f the study will provide us with effective techniques to use in the writing process in order to ease the student’s problems in writing and make them find the writing lessons more meaningful and useful. It is also necessary to study whether guided writing practice actually improves students’ writing ability and which of the various guided writing activities are more effective with this cohort. 1.5 An overview of the study The study consist of five chapters Chapter 1, Introduction, provides the background to the study and statement of the problem and aim o f the study with the research questions. The scope, the significance o f the study and organization o f the rest of the thesis are presented in this chapter as well. 5 Chapter 2, Literature Review, discusses the literature related to different authors o f teaching writing approaches, different definitions o f teaching guided writing activities and the process o f teaching guided writing activities in language classroom in high schools. Chapter 3, Methodology states the research questions, the data collection instrument, the research method, the subjects, the research procedures. Chapter 4, Data analysis and Discussion, analyses and discuss the data and the lists o f major findings of the study. Chapter 5, Suggestions and Conclusions suggestions made based on the major findings and discussion in the previous chapter for a better improvement of students’ writing. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 Approaches writing teaching in second language classroom The teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) writing has undergone some major changes. This chapter aims to present three most typical of them: product, process and genre and then this chapter will also discuss how to combine the approaches with genre features and activities to the teaching of the 10lh graders’ writing. 2.1.1 The product approach The product approach was introduced and became popular in 1960s. On this process, writing focuses on the structure of language. The teacher provides the students with the form o f the text and imitation of input is the result of the writing development (Badger & White, 2000; Hyland, 2003 a). Pincas (1982 b) sees writing as being mainly about linguistic knowledge, with attentively focused on the accordance with use of vocabulary, syntax, and cohesive devices. At first, the sentence-level accuracy is the focus and then the approach shifted to the writing paragraph elements. Many teachers used productbased activities to develop students’s writing composition. Sharing the same opinion, Nunan (1991) and Richard (1992) describe that in the product approach, students are taught model texts and after that, they attempt various exercises; such as checking comprehension by completing sentences, or adding logical connections and finally, they would be able to produce similar texts based on their own information. Thus producing different kinds of texts is to prevent students from producing errors. However, this idea is has received the first criticism because it affects students’ motivation and self-esteem (Simpson, 2007). Another negative point of the product approach is the ignorance of the student’s actual processes while producing a piece of writing. By imitating and producing 7 out a perfect product, the students use the same plan in an extremely large number of settings without the regardless of contents. In fact, not many of them can create a perfect product on the first draft. As White (1988), Jordan (1997), Escholz (1980) argue that the approach, without the nature of sequence, provides the learners little or no insight into actual process leading them to the final product. In short, for the disadvantages above, the product approach is not effective in preparing students to be the best writers. 2.1.2 The process approach In the mid-1970s, the process approach began to replace the product approach. The situation is different in class where the process approach in writing is applied. Many different kinds of process approach to writing have developed. They share some basic features (Hedge 1988, White and Arndt 1991) and pay much attention to linguistic skills, such as planning and drafting, and less on linguistic knowledge, such as knowledge about grammar and text structure. The process to writing comes about as a result of examining how fluent writers compose a piece of writing. Based on the information, the methodology is adjusted to help students gain the strategies needed to compose. According to Tribble (1996), writing activities enable learners to move from the generation of ideas and the collection of data through to the 'publication' of a finished text. The writing process classifies writing into a number o f activities. Textbook writers may label and classify differently but they refer to the same things. In her book Writing, Hedge (1988) classifies the writing process into the following sub­ process: prewriting, writing, rewriting and editing. In the prewriting stage, a writer plans what to write, he or she will consider the following: 8 What is the purpose and who are the audience. He or she is referring to the function of the text, which meant to give a report on something, forgiving explanation of procedure, for inviting or for refusing an invitation, for persuading somebody to agree with writer to take some action. The purpose of the text will influence the organization and the choice of the language used in the text. On the other hand, the audience affects the style of the text, whether it is friendly, formal, serious or tentative. As the audience can be an individual, a group, or an institution. It is can be a close friend a figure of authority; an examiner. This stage also includes generating ideas and organizing the ideas. Students can generate ideas through various ways such as listing making mind maps, making word trees, etc. Then they arrange ideas by mental note or making an elaborate outline. It is important to pay attention to the flexible nature of the writing plan. The writers do not have to stick to the plan. In the writing and rewriting stage, the writers would select and structure the result of the brainstorming session to provide a plan of the text. They would make the first draft of the writing. This stage can be done by working individually or in groups. During the process, the writers will stop, read the draft, look at how the text is developing, and if necessary revise the plans. The writers may want to include new ideas, or change the present ideas. In the editing stage, the writers look at the overall structure of the text and try to see how clearly they presented ideas, from the reader’s point of view. In other words, where the previous stage is concerned with what to say, the editing stage is concerned with how to say it effectively. The writers also need to check the accuracy (grammar, punctuation) and make some final adjustments. In the process-focused classrooms, the teacher’s role is described as “a facilitator” (Richards, 1992: 111). It means the teacher helps the learners with writing strategies, providing them a variety of activities that are believed to promote the development of skill language used (Trzeciak and Mackay, 1994). 9 The teacher also observes and discusses with the learner on different questions during the writing process. Therefore writing roles o f teachers and learners and patterns of interactions between them will have to be constantly negotiated. As Badger and White (2000) reinforce “Teachers draw out the leamers’s potential’. The stage the writers go in the writing process does not follow a straight line. Deng (2007) shows that in this approach, writing is not considered to be a simple “straightforward process” with only one draft, but a complicated process. The process consists of a long way o f generating ideas, writing multiple drafts, interacting o f peers and teacher, revising and editing (Flower, 1989; Flower & Hayes, 1981;Zamel, 1983). Actually, the advantage o f adopting the process approach is obvious, as it makes writing process a process of discovery for students: discovery of new ideas and new language form to express those ideas. However, according to Badger and White (2000), the process approach has its own disadvantages because it provides writers the same set o f process for all kinds o f writing, and gives insufficient importance to the purpose and social context o f the piece of writing. Nevertheless, the process approach is widely accepted by many teachers because it allows their students to understand the steps involved in writing, and it recognizes that what learners bring to the writing classroom contributes to the development o f the writing skill. 2.1.3 The genre approach This is the third major approach, which is relatively new to ELT. A genre is a kind o f writing; that arises within a particular culture; and is a product of a culture (Collerson, 1988). To make meaning in social context, people use genres. According to Callaghan and Rothery, “Genres are the ways people make meaning with one another in stages to achieve their purpose” (1993: 35). 10 The genre-based approach to the teaching of writing has developed out of an attempt to apply insight gained from Systemic Linguistic to education. It thus draws heavily on the work of Halliday and others (Halliday, 1973, 1985; Halliday & Hasan, 1976). It is based on a functional model of language, which systematically describes the relationship between the context in which language occurs and the actual language used. This model, through its theory of register and description of grammar and discourse, relates context of culture and context of situation to actual language used. The genre-based approach to teach writing is often referred to as the Curriculum Genre or the Curriculum Cycle. Callaghan and Rothery (1993) define the Curriculum Genre as a cyclical process, which consists of stages that teachers and students work through in order to learn to write a specific genre. There are three main stages in the curriculum genre (Callaghan & Rothery, 1988; Martin, 1993; Cope & Kalantzis, 1993): modelling, joint construction o f text and independent construction of text. In the modelling stage, students analyze sample texts in order to become familiar with the purpose and features of the text. The students look each stage that makes up the schematic structure o f the genre and the function of each stage. In the joint construction of text (negotiation of text or shared writing), the teacher acts as scribe and construct a text with the students by asking pertinent questions related to the task at hand. When students are clear about what is expected, the teacher moves into the writing phrase. On other hand, the students get to negotiate with the teacher on the choice of structure and language features. This stage enables student to be exposed to the text constructed and what some o f the considerations are to get attention of the reader. During the independent construction of text (independent writing) students independently complete the tasks the teacher has shown the in the earlier stages. 11
- Xem thêm -

Tài liệu liên quan

Tài liệu xem nhiều nhất