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 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 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. LÊ HÙNG TIẾN Hanoi, 2014 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com 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 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. 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 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.province 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.province iii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.province TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES AND CHARTS.
vi PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rationale for the study. Aims and objectives of the study. Scope of the study.
Methods of the study. Design of the thesis. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Overview of writing.
What is writing?. Approaches to teaching writing. The product approach. The process approach.
Why choose a genre-based approach?. Definition of a genre. Genre-based approach:. Rationale of the using action research.
Writing tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 10 .3 Selection of participants. Data collection instruments. Data analysis procedure .province iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.province CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Analysis of students’ preliminary questionnaire.
Students‟ attitudes towards writing skill. Students‟ self assessment of their writing competence. The difficulties students had encountered. The results of the students’ pre-tests.
The results of the students’ post-test. The performance of students in the content of the writing test. The performance of students in the organization of the writing test. The performance of students in using the vocabulary.
The performance of students in using the language. The performance of students in using the mechanics. The results of the questionnaire for students after taking part in action research. The students‟ self-assessment of the genre-based approach.
The changes the students had after participated in action research. Summary of the findings. Limitations of the study .province v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.province 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 .province vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.province 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 2008- 2020” (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.province 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. 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. 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. 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.province 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. 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.province 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.province 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.
Overview of writing 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.