VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT -------------**0**------------- ĐOÀN THỊ HƯƠNG IMPROVING LEARNERS’ ACADEMIC IELTS WRITING PERFORMANCE THROUGH MODELING (NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT IELTS HỌC THUẬT CHO HỌC VIÊN QUA VIỆC GIỚI THIỆU BÀI MẪU) M.A MINOR THESIS PROGRAM 1 Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Hanoi, 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES POST GRADUATE DEPARTMENT -------------**0**------------- ĐOÀN THỊ HƯƠNG IMPROVING LEARNERS’ ACADEMIC IELTS WRITING PERFORMANCE THROUGH MODELING (NÂNG CAO KHẢ NĂNG VIẾT IELTS HỌC THUẬT CHO HỌC VIÊN QUA VIỆC GIỚI THIỆU BÀI MẪU) M.A MINOR THESIS PROGRAM 1 Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 601410 Supervisor: LAM THI PHUC HAN, M.A Hanoi, 2012 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EAP: English for Academic Purposes IELTS: International English Language Testing System TOEFL: The Test of English as a Foreign Language L2: A second Language EFL: English as a Foreign Language iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Learners’ view on IELTS writing Table 2: Learners’ feelings when writing Table 3: Factors causing difficulties for the learners to write Table 4: Learners’ problems in their writing Table 5: Teaching techniques in IELTS writing class Table 6: Learners’ preference on teachers’ teaching techniques Table 7: The frequency and percentage of errors in pretest and posttest of group A Table 8: The frequency and percentage of errors in pretest and posttest of group B Table 9: The learners’ opinions about the use of model texts to improve their IELTS writing skills Table 10: Teachers’ opinion about the use of model texts to improve their learners’ IELTS writing skills Table 11: Teachers’ suggestions for the use of model texts in IELTS writing classes v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Statement of Authorship………………………………………………….…………iii List of Abbreviations………………………………………………….iv List of tables.v Table of contents……………………………………………………………….vi PART A: INTRODUCTION…………………………. Rationale of the study……………………. Aims of the study………………………………………………. Significance of the study………………………….
Scope of the study…………………………………………………. Method of the study……………………………………………. Organization of the study………………………………………….5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW……………………………….1 The nature and theory of writing……………………….1 The nature of writing…………………………………….2 Types of writing…………………………………………….3 Approaches to the teaching of writing……………….1 General information of IELTS…………………………….2 IELTS writing test………………………….4 Situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Viet Nam and in London Foreign Language Centre……………………………….17 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.3 Data collection procedure………………………………….4 Data analysis procedure…………………………………….…………20 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION…………….1 Report of the results……………………….1 Report on students-questionnaire data…………………….2 Report on the results of pretest and posttest……………….3 Report on interviews with learners and the teachers……….2 Discussion of the results………………………………………. The major findings of the research…………………………….
Pedagogical Implications and Recommendations………………. Limitations and suggestions of the study………………….…………39 REFERENCE APPENDIXES vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale for the study During the last decades, there have been a number of English learners wishing to work and study in English speaking countries. However, one of the prerequisites for their entrance is that they have to sit for either the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or The Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL).
As a result, many non-native learners are trained to pass these kinds of tests. IELTS, which is widely recognized as a language requirement for entering universities and working mainly in the United Kingdom, Australia, USA and New Zealand, is administered by the British Council or IDP Education Australia in Hanoi. The test aims at testing candidates’ four skills: listening, reading, speaking and writing. As a matter of fact, those who want to get high score to be admitted to target universities try to take part in some preparation courses before taking the test.
Therefore, there are a great number of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) Centers in Hanoi who run IELTS preparation courses to meet the demands. Clearly, IELTS writing is one of the important skills for both teachers to teach effectively and for learners to improve themselves. However, due to the complexities of learning to write well in a second language (L2), there has been a vigorous debate on more efficient and effective teaching methods and feedback among EAP teachers and L2 writing researchers. Being an IELTS teacher and also an IELTS learner, the author realizes that IELTS writing requires not only learners’ proficiency in English but also their wide knowledge of the language, culture and country as well.
As a result, the learners often encounter a lot of difficulties in writing. This fact has encouraged the author to investigate the difficulties faced by Vietnamese learners in learning IELTS writing. Moreover, in recent years, several studies on techniques for teaching IELTS writing which have been carried out have proven that the use of model texts in a writing class as a teaching tool has positive effects on learners’ writing 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. This inspired the author to do the research to further explore how this technique affects learners’ writing skill and how teachers and learners assess this kind of technique.
Aims of the study The purpose of the study is to investigate the difficulties encountered by the IELTS learners in learning writing skill. It also aims at investigating how the learners improve their writing performance as a result of being exposed to model texts and what the learners and the teachers think about this teaching technique. In order to achieve the above mentioned aims, the study will be conducted to answer three research questions below: 1. What difficulties do learners face in learning IELTS writing? 2.
How is the learners’ writing performance improved as the result of being exposed to model texts? 3. What are the learners and teachers’ opinions about the use of model texts in improving learners’ writing skill? 3. Significance of the study This study analyzes and finds out the real difficulties that Vietnamese learners face when learning IELT writing skill. By doing this, the author would like to help learners foresee the problems and overcome them in order to improve their writing scores.
More importantly, the study is done to investigate the progress in IELTS writing the learners can make after attending the writing course using model texts as a teaching tool and how the learners and teachers think about this technique. Therefore, teachers who have been teaching IELTS writing in both the target place and in other educational settings can benefit from this study. They will adopt appropriate teaching techniques to teaching this skill. Scope of the study The study focused on learning and teaching IELTS writing skill to Vietnamese learners who were taking part in IELTS preparation courses.
However, due to the small scale of the study, only London Foreign Language Centre was 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com chosen as the research setting. The participants of the study, as a result, were 4 IELTS teachers and 30 learners who were able to provide reliable and valid information for the study. Method of the study In order to achieve the aims of the study, the researcher applied both quantitative and qualitative methods as follows: As for data collection, the author used survey questionnaire, tests, and interviews. Firstly, survey questionnaire was conducted to find out the difficulties in learning IELTS writing and the techniques teachers used in the writing class.
Secondly, tests (pre and post tests) were designed for the learners to check how they improve their writing skill after the course. Thirdly, semi-interviews were conducted among four teachers and fifteen learners who were attending preparation courses in London Foreign Language Centre to investigate what they think about the use of model texts in IELTS writing classes. As for data analysis, the standard IELTS global codification system on a scale of 1 to 9 was employed for rating the participants’ performances on both tests. Then, the data from questionnaire and tests were collected to carefully and thoroughly analyze in order to provide the answers to research questions.
In addition, the interviews were recorded, then transcribed and analyzed so as to answer question 3 6. Organization of the study The study is divided into three parts. The first part is the introduction dealing with the rationale, aims, scope, significance, methods and organization of the study. The second part is the main part of the paper with three chapters.
Chapter 1: provides the background for the study, including a review on key concepts relating to the research topic. This chapter also briefly discusses the literature in the field to reveal the research gap that needs to be filled. Chapter 2: present the research methods adopted in the study. Justifications of the chosen research instruments as well as their implementation are also provided.
3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Chapter 3: reveals the results of the study and the discussions of the results. The last part is the conclusion that summarizes the major findings of the study. This chapter also gives recommendations to both learners and teachers in order to improve the learning and teaching IELTS writing skills. Besides, some limitation of the study and suggestions for further studies are put forward.
Following this part are the Appendices and References. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter provides the theoretical background to the study, including the key concepts and related research in this field to disclose the research gap. It also provides the current situation of teaching and learning IELTS in Vietnam in general and at the investigated centre in particular.1 The nature and theory of writing In terms of skills, producing a coherent, fluent, extended piece of writing is probably the most difficult thing there is to do in language. It is something most native speakers never master.
For second language learners, the challenges are enormous, particularly for those who go on to a university and study in a language that is not their own. This section will discuss the issue of writing in general and writing in EFL in particular. The section is divided into three parts: the nature of writing, a brief discussion of types of writing, and approaches of teaching writing in EFL/ESL classroom.1 The nature of writing Writing in general has a very important role in society (Tribble, 1996; Martin, 1985). Writing can make people become more effective in social life.
Writing is also “associated with status and power” (Tribble,1996:13). Writing, therefore, enables people to “have control not only of information, but of people” (Tribble,1996:13). However, writing is not as easy for the learners to acquire as the speaking skill. According to Tribble (1996) , writing is a language skill which is difficult to acquire.
It also takes a long time to master this skill. The difficulty of writing lies in its nature. Writing is “de-contextualised “, and it is “one-way communication” (Tribble, 1996:10). Ronald (1987) also states that writing “is not a natural activity”, so people have to be taught how to write.
5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Moreover, in terms of language used, good writers should be very skillful at the implementation of elaborated and complex sentences, as well as at the choice of lexical items to make their writing tasks as vivid as what is there in their minds. Besides, learning to write is associated not only with learning new genres and new ways of using grammar but also with different ways of dealing with the world because the social functions of writing tend to focus on “recording things, completing tasks, developing arguments and assembling ideas” (Tribble, 1996:9). Obviously, “writing is a process requiring writers to explore, oppose, and make connections between propositions for themselves” (Boughey, 1997:127). Hedge also claims that the process of writing involves not only composing but also communicating (Hedge, 1988:9).
According to him, when writing in real life, writers often bear in mind the reader they are writing to.