VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST GRADUATE STUDIES MAI THỊ THỦY PRE-WRITING STRATEGIES USED BY STUDENTS AT CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND TRAINING, ELECTRIC POWER UNIVERSITY (CÁC CHIẾN LƯỢC SINH VIÊN TRUNG TÂM ĐÀO TẠO VÀ HỢP TÁC QUỐC TẾ, TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC ĐIỆN LỰC SỬ DỤNG TRONG GIAI ĐOẠN TRƯỚC KHI VIẾT) M. Minor Program Thesis Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân Hanoi, 2014 z DECLARATION I, Mai Thị Thủy, hereby declare that the thesis entitled PRE-WRITING STRATEGIES USED BY STUDENTS AT CENTER FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION AND TRAINING, ELECTRIC POWER UNIVERSITY is the result of my own research for the Degree of Master of Education at University of Foreign Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. I confirm that this thesis has not been submitted for any other degrees.
Student’s Signature Mai Thị Thủy z i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In completion of the study, I would like to express my sincere thanks to many people for their contributive suggestions as well as enthusiastic support. Firstly, I would like to send my special appreciation to my supervisor Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân for his enormous help and precious advice. I am extremely grateful to Prof.
Hoàng Văn Vân for his careful guidance in terms of basic theory that has led me to this research. I would like to send my gratitude to him for his precise instruction and endless feedbacks which have enhanced my arguments in the research. He has thrown his full support behind me from the period of choosing appropriate topic to finalizing the chapter conclusion. Secondly, I am indebted to 50 students at the Center for International Cooperation and Training, Electric Power University for having taken part in the data collection process using survey questionnaire and interviewing.
Thirdly, warm thanks are given to all my classmates in K20D for their contributive suggestions as well as experience sharing which has become a motivating stimulus during the time of conducting the research project. Last but not least, I owe my deep gratitude to my beloved family for their whole-hearted encouragement and great support during my time of fulfilling this thesis. z ii ABSTRACT It goes without saying that a good beginning is half the battle. Accordingly, pre-writing strategies are considered an essential tool for students, especially third-year students at Electric Power University who have not been familiar with academic writing.
In order to carry out this research project, 50 students were involved in this study to bring various and critical viewpoints about the main aspect of pre-writing skill illustrated by the term “strategies”. Using two research methods including quantitative and qualitative and two instruments including questionnaire and semi-structured interview, the study attempts to answer to the question: “What strategies are used by students at the Center for International Cooperation and Training, Electric Power University, at the pre-writing stage?” The results shared that the strategies students at Center for International Cooperation and Training, Electric Power University use at the pre-writing stage include brainstorming, outlining, talking it out, categorizing and clustering. Meanwhile, they rarely or never use journaling, questions-asking, branching and free-writing. It is also found that they are not really aware of the importance of these pre-writing strategies.
This explains partly why their writing is of poor quality. The study‟s results suggested that teachers should be more flexible to convert such useful strategies into activities in class to make sure students can understand pre- writing strategies and apply them to writing skill effectively. z iii z iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION…………………………………………………………………… i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………… ii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………………… iii TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………. iv LIST OF CHARTS………………………………………………………………….
vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………………………………… vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Research aims and research questions………………………………………. Significance of the study……………………………………………………… 3 4. Scope of the study…………………………………………………………….
Methods of the study…………………………………………………………. Design of the study……………………………………………………………. 4 PART II : DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: Theoretical and Practical Backgrounds to the study. The concept of writing ………………………………………………………….
The importance of writing in second language teaching………………………… 6 3. Previous studies on the strategies students use at the pre-writing stage………… 8 4. Clustering/mind mapping……………………………………………… 14 4. Talking it out…………………………………………………………… 19 4.
Context of the study……………………………………………………………… 20 5. Center for International Cooperation and Training, EPU……………….