iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Declaration .iii Table of contents .iv List of figures, tables and abbreviations .vii PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Statement of the problem and the rationales for the study. Objectives of the study. Research questions of the study.
Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Design of the study. 4 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW 1.
Definition of reading. Theoretical background of teaching reading. Definition of writing. Theoretical background of teaching writing.
Integrating Reading and Writing. Overview of related research .33 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com v CHAPTER 2 – METHODOLOGY 2. Rationale for using experimental method. Data collection instruments.
Data collection procedures. Data analysis methods. Comparison of experimental and control groups’ writing performance. Comparison of writing performance between groups.
Students’ opinions about the provided course. Students’ evaluation of the program. 58 CHAPTER 4 – DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS 4. Discussion of the research questions.
Comparison of experimental and control groups’ writing proficiency. Students’ opinions about the program. Discussion of the research hypotheses. 66 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi PART C – CONCLUSION 1.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study. 73 APPENDIX 1 APPENDIX 2 APPENDIX 3 APPENDIX 4 APPENDIX 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vii LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS, AND ABBREVIATIONS List of tables and figures Figure 1 Stages of writing process Table 1 Schedule of the writing course Table 2 Descriptive statistics for the pretest and posttest scores of the experimental and control groups Table 3 Mean gains of the experimental and control groups Table 4 Experimental students’ opinions about the reading materials Table 5 Experimental students’ opinions about the program Table 6 Experimental students’ suggestions for future program List of abbreviations ESL English as a second language EFL English as a foreign language L2 Second language TESOL Teaching English to speakers of other languages FELTE Faculty of English Language Teacher Education ULIS University of Languages and International Studies VNU Vietnam National University PET Preliminary English Test SPSS Statistical Package for the Social Sciences LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 PART A: INTRODUCTION This part is dedicated to introducing the rationale of the study, the problem to be addressed in the study, the aims and the objectives of the study, and the research questions to be answered. It will also present the scope of the study, an overview of the employed methods, and the design of the study.
Statement of the problem and rationale for the study English teachers often ask themselves what their students‟ problems are and how they can help their students. One of the sources which allows teachers to know more about their students‟ difficulties is students‟ test results. The author has realized that her students‟ performance of achievement tests is very poor, especially students‟ bad performance of writing tests. The most frequent answer of students when asked about difficulties in writing is that they cannot express their ideas in English and they find it hard to choose a suitable word or structure in order to make their writing sound English.
One of the most frequently- made errors relates to the use of unsuitable expressions; moreover, students‟ writing pieces are affected seriously by their mother tongue. It is clear that students do not have adequate knowledge of sets of vocabulary, grammatical structure, culture, etc. Thus, they encounter difficulties in writing and cannot produce creative writing works. With the purpose of improving the above situation, the author decided to do research on the topic “Integrating Reading and Writing Teaching to Improve VNUH University of Languages and International Studies First-year English-majored Students’ Writing Skills”.
Providing supplementary reading materials was believed to bring students the best progress in a short time because first year students lack background knowledge. Reading passages and doing supplementary exercises give them a chance to acquire target language and cultural knowledge, sets of vocabulary and structures as well to help students write better. However, this method of teaching and learning also has some shortcomings, for example the preparations, teaching techniques, syllabus, students‟ assessment, etc. In L2 literacy contexts, Krashen's (1984) argument that “it is reading that gives the writer the 'feel' for the look and texture” (p.20, cited in Hirvela, 2004) paves the way leading writing researchers and instructors to the vision of reading/writing connection.
He claims LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 that reading, which builds the knowledge base of written texts, helps L2 learners acquire necessary language constructs such as grammatical structures and discourse rules for writing, and facilitates the process of language acquisition. The author is always interested in studying writing instructions and has received the permission and support of the faculty and colleagues; therefore, this study has been motivated. It is hoped to provide educators and teachers with a clearer insight into how the theories of integration of reading and writing can influence and correspond to actual classroom practices. Objectives of the study Firstly, this study is carried out to investigate the theories and findings of the earlier studies and provide more empirical evidence for the effects of integration of reading and writing on learners‟ writing performance to support the tendency of integrated skills teaching in the context of Vietnam and the author‟s workplace.
Secondly, it is an attempt to meet the needs of the first year students in University of Foreign Languages and International Studies (ULIS) to improve their writing ability. Thirdly, it is expected that the results of the study would be useful in some ways for teachers and educators in university who are teaching reading and writing at the same time or anyone who is interested in this field of the English language teaching. Finally, the study is aimed at providing more information for the trend of integrating skills to teach English language learners in the division. This study specially has the following objectives: 1.
Investigating the effects of the integrated reading and writing instruction program on first year students‟ writing performance in EFL settings. Investigating the students‟ opinions about the integrated reading and writing instruction program. Offering some practical recommendations for improvement of first year students‟ writing skills at English I. Research questions of the study LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 In order to achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the research questions of the study are set out as follows: (1) Is there a difference between the writing performance scores of the control group and those of the experimental? (2) What are the students‟ opinions of the integrating reading and writing instruction program and their suggestions for future research? The study was conducted to test the following research hypotheses: H0: There is no difference in writing performance between students who take part in the integrated reading and writing instruction program and those who do not.
H1: Students who take part in the integrated reading and writing instruction program will make more progress in writing proficiency test than those who do not participate in such a program. Scope of the study This study focuses on the present context at English I, Faculty of English Language Teacher Education, University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (FELTE, ULIS,VNUH). This study investigates the impact of the program of integrating reading and writing teaching on first year students‟ writing performance in 15 weeks. These students‟ writing proficiency was measured in correlation to the application of an experimental reading – writing integration program.
Methods of the study The research method employed in this study is a quasi-experimental design to propose the research questions and to find out the answers. The method involves the three basic components of experiments as presented by Selinger and Shohamy, that is, the population (ULIS first year students), the treatment (the program of integrating reading and writing LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 instruction) and the measurement of the treatment (t-test) (1989, p. It is conducted with the participation of 52 first year students. Data collection instruments include pre and post tests, and a survey questionnaire.
More details can be seen in Chapter 3. Design of the study This study consists of five chapters. Chapter 1 introduces the research topic, the rationale for it and provides the aims, the scope, the method, and the research questions as well. Chapter 2 has an overview of the literature on the field of writing and integration of reading and writing teaching.
Chapter 3 describes the methodology of the study including information about the respondents, data collection instruments and the procedure of data collection and analysis. Chapter 4 presents the results of tests and survey questionnaire. Chapter 5 discusses the findings, draws conclusions, provides pedagogical implications, discusses the limitations of the study and provides some suggestions for further research. In this chapter, the author has mentioned the rationale, the scope and the objectives of the study.
The research questions are also presented as well as the employed methods and design of the study. In the next chapter, she is going to review the relevant literature to provide a theoretical framework for the study. PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1 – LITERATURE REVIEW LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 This chapter provides the theoretical background for the study. It includes theories about definitions of reading and writing, teaching reading and writing skills, and previous related research.
Definition of reading There are many definitions of reading, the most frequently quoted of which were proposed by Foertsch (1998), who has suggested three basic definitions of reading. According to the first definition, learning to read means learning to pronounce words. In the second definition, learning to read means learning to identify words and get their meaning. The third definition is that learning to read means learning to bring meaning to a text in order to get meaning from it.
Anderson (1985) defines reading as the process of constructing meaning from written texts. Skilled reading is constructive: learning to reason about written material using knowledge from everyday life and from disciplined fields of study; fluent: mastery of basic processes to the point where they are automatic so that attention is freed for the analysis of meaning; strategic: controlling one‟s reading in relation to one‟s purpose, the nature of the material and whether one is comprehending; motivated: able to sustain attention and learning that written material can be interesting and informative; and a lifelong pursuit: continuous practices, development, and refinement. Nowadays, the literacy research has brought us a more comprehensive definition of reading. It recognizes the importance of skill instruction as one piece of the reading process.
It also supports balanced reading instructions for all students (Allington & Cunningham, 1996). Balanced reading instruction usually means a combination of whole language and phonics approaches which help students develop awareness of individual sounds, cueing strategies, and learn to decode the text and comprehend the material (Kelly, 1997). Teachers should pay attention to students‟ learning styles, some students are "analytic and auditory” ones who benefit from phonics instruction; some students who have "visual, tactile and global learning styles" profit from a whole language approach (Carbo, 1996, cited in Stoicheva, 1999). LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 6 Suleiman (2005) states that reading can be seen as an “interactive” process between a reader and a text which leads to automaticity or reading fluency.
In this process, the reader interacts dynamically with the text as he/she tries to elicit the meaning and where various kinds of knowledge are being used: linguistic or systemic knowledge as well as schematic knowledge.