VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES &INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ THỊ NHÀN THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ SELF-REFLECTION ON LEARNERS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER IN HANOI (VAI TRÒ CỦA CHIẾN LƯỢC TỰ PHẢN HỒI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI KẾT QUẢ THI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI ) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 140 111 Hanoi – 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** LÊ THỊ NHÀN THE EFFECT OF TEACHERS’ SELF-REFLECTION ON LEARNERS’ WRITING ACHIEVEMENT AT AN ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTER IN HANOI (VAI TRÒ CỦA CHIẾN LƯỢC TỰ PHẢN HỒI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN ĐỐI VỚI KẾT QUẢ THI VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH TẠI MỘT TRUNG TÂM ANH NGỮ TẠI HÀ NỘI ) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 140 111 Supervisor: Tô Thị Thu Hương, PhD Hanoi - 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com DECLARATION I, Lê Thị Nhàn, declare that the thesis entitled “The effect of teachers’ self- reflection on learners’ writing achievement at an English language center in Hanoi” reports the result of the study conducted by myself. The minor thesis is submitted to the Faculty of Post-graduate studies, ULIS, Hanoi for the Degree of Master in TESOL.
It has not been published anywhere. Hanoi, September 15th, 2014 Lê Thị Nhàn i TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the first place, I would like to send my sincere thankfulness to my supervisor – Ms. To Thi Thu Huong for all her valuable guidance, helpful advices, recommendation, and encouragement during the time I tried to complete this minor thesis. Without her, I would not have followed the right direction for the accomplishment of this research.
Secondly, I would like to express my gratitude to all those who gave me the possibility to complete this thesis. I want to thank Wider World Language Center for giving me permission to work with their students and to do the necessary research work in their office. I have furthermore to thank all the students of Wider World Language Center for their stimulating participations and valuable hints. Thirdly, I would like to thank all the teachers of Post-Graduate Faculty for their valuable lectures which lay the foundation for my minor thesis.
Last but not least, I would like to express my biggest love and thankfulness to my family for their unconditional contributions during my thesis production. It was my parents who gave me the will to continue this challenging work. ii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ABSTRACT The concept of teachers’ self-reflection refers to the extent to which teachers contemplate and reflect on their teaching experience in the classroom in order to improve their teaching skills. This study seeks to explore the effect of teacher’s self- reflection on the learners’ writing achievement at a language center.
The main objectives were to (1) examine whether teacher’s self-reflection have any effect on the students’ writing achievement and (2) to what extent this innovative teaching strategy have had an impact on students’ writing skills. In order to reach these objectives, the action research was conducted on 15 EFL learners at Wider World language Center. The effectiveness of the program was investigated through the comparison of students’ pre-test and post-test scores, and analysis of teacher’s diary. The results of the study indicated that teacher’s self-reflection do have facilitating effect on students’ writing achievement.
The findings also revealed that the attitudes of students towards learning English writing were more positive. On this basis, the study recommended some implications for teaching and directions for further research with reference to the context of teaching English writing at language centers in Vietnam. iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION .iii TABLE OF CONTENT.vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES………………………………………….viii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study.
Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study. Significance of the research. Method of the study.
Design of the research .4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 An overview of teaching writing. Role of writing and teaching writing. Approaches to teaching writing. An overview of reflection.
Definition of reflection. Importance of reflection .3 Models/frameworks of reflection. 12 CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY 2. Rationale for action research design.
Background of the study. 16 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The English program and the writing component…………………. Data collection instruments.
Students’ writing products and portfolios. Implementation of the action research. Data analysis procedure. 23 CHAPTER III: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.
The results of students’ pre-tests and post-tests………………. The results of teacher’s diary………………………. Summary of the study. Limitations of the study.
Recommendations for further studies.I Appendix 1: Checklist of writing tasks in Energy 1 .I Appendix 2: Pre-test .II Appendix 3: Post-test. III Appendix 4: Teacher’s diary. IV Appendix5: Students’ journal.VI v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Appendix 6: Checklist of grading rubric for writing test……………………….VIII Appendix 7: Students’ writing pre-test scores.X Appendix8: Students’ writing post-test scores.XI Appendix9: Students’ writing sample (before the intervention).XII Appendix10: Students’ writing sample (after the intervention).XIV Appendix11: Teacher’s diary sample.XVI Appendix12: Students’ journal sample.XXII vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a foreign language TEFL Teaching English as a foreign language TESL Teaching English as a second language WWLC Wider World language center vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 1 Comparison on central tendency in students’ pre-test and post-test 25 Table 2 Comparison on variance in students’ pre-test and post-test 26 Table 3 Comparison on standard deviation in students’ pre-test and post-test 26 Table 4 Students’ writing performance in the pre-test 28 Table 5 Students’ writing performance in the post-test 30 Figure 1 Comparison on distribution of students’ pre-test and post-test scores 24 viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION This very first chapter of the thesis is to introduce the rationale for the study, the aim and objectives of the study as well as the research questions which the study was to carry out to find out the answers. It also presents the scope of the study, the significance of the study, an overview of the methods employed to conduct the research as well as the design of the study.
1 Rationale for the study EFL teaching theories and methods have been explored for a long time. Thanks to the development of psychology and pedagogy, many teaching methods have influenced EFL teaching, such as immersion, task-based, content-based, project-based, which could be classified into three major categories of language-centered, student-centered and learning- centered. In the 21st century, EFL teaching methods began to be doubted as some linguists held that there should not be the most effective method. A trend of anti-method is spread which brought about the approaching of the post-method era.
Famous linguist Kumaravadivelu proposed the post method pedagogy with his macro strategies’ theory in the early 21st century, with corresponding EFL teaching theories and curriculum reform as a result. The post - method era in language teaching is characterized with a movement away from fixed methodological packages for teaching language toward a concern with teachers’ professional expertise, growth, wisdom, experience, learners’ needs, the context of teaching, and the political conditions of the environment in which teaching takes place (Prabhu, 1990; Kumaravadivelu, 2001; Richards, 2002).This is an indication of the importance of teachers’ professional development in recent years (Harmer, 2001, cited in Al-Hashmi, 2004). Also of importance is teachers’ ability to go beyond existing norms and taken for granted habits and their ability to practice innovative ideas. One way for teachers to develop professionally is to use reflection as an indispensable part of their practice (Calderhead & Gates, 1993).
1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com A reflection professional development project involves supporting teachers to reflect on aspects of their practice in order to understand it better and then to try out improvements. One popular approach is action research, in which teachers select a focus for research that is of particular importance for them, such as an issue in teaching and learning that they have found to be problematic, or a new challenge that they are facing. The teachers then reflect on the issue they have chosen, and gather information from various sources, develop some course of action to address it. As they try out their planned action in practice, they observe the effects carefully, and then adjust, refine or otherwise change their innovation before trying it out again, and so on in a cycle of action, reflection and refinement.
Through this cycle of reflection and action, teachers move towards an improvement in their practice in a way that is relevant to their context and founded on careful reflection and discussion. The connection between reflection and development of teacher’s skills and student’s improvement is documented in international literature. There is, however, no known local research in the context of Vietnamese English language centers examines this area. This paper contributes to filling this research gap by reporting on a study which seeks to understand how teaching reflectively aid in improving students’ English writing achievement at Wider World Language Center (WWLC) in Hanoi.
Aim and objective of the study The aim of this study is finding the suitable method to improve the English writing achievement of students at WWLC. Within this purpose, the central objective of this study is to examine the effectiveness of teacher’s self- reflection on improving the students’ English writing achievement as measured by the pre-test and post-test. Research questions In order to achieve the research objective, the study was designed to find out the answers to the following questions: 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Does teacher’s self-reflection have any effect on the English writing achievement of students at Wider World Language Center? 2.
To what extend does the application of teacher’s self-reflection improve students’ English writing achievement at the center? 4. Scope of the study The research was conducted on 15 students at WWLC. Regarding its scope, the research was only aimed at justifying the effect of teacher’s self- reflection on the students’ English writing skill. Other aspects of English learning would not be investigated due to the relevant constraints of a minor thesis.
Moreover, this research involves with the relationship between teacher’s self- reflection and students’ English writing achievement in a small scale with the young students of a center in Hanoi. The result of this research, therefore, can be generalized in order to find the better pedagogical innovation in teaching at this center. Although it is conducted in a small scale, it might be considered as a part of a big picture about language teaching in post method era and can be a basis for further studies. Significance of the study There is unknown quote that “if you always do what you always did, then you always get what you always got”.
This quote illustrates the necessity for practitioners in any environment to consider how best to refresh their practice, to get better at what they do, to benefit from good practice that they may have seen in others, or to avoid aspects of their own practice that students or others have told them needs correction. This paper contributes as introducing the use of reflection as a practical means of improving the quality of teacher’s teaching and contributing to their future professional lives. Moreover, in the context of Vietnam the number of studies on the development of young learner teaching method is still limited; this study therefore contributes a small role in filling this gap especially in the context of an English language center. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.