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 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadi : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadii : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadiii: add luanvanchat@agmail.com LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadiv: add luanvanchat@agmail.com 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. 11 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadv : add luanvanchat@agmail. Clustering/mind mapping……………………………………………… 14 4.
Talking it out…………………………………………………………… 19 4. Context of the study……………………………………………………………… 20 5. Center for International Cooperation and Training, EPU………………. 23 CHAPTER II: RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY……………… 24 1.
The research instruments………………………………………………………. Distribution of data……………………………………………………………… 25 5. Data collection procedures……………………………………………………… 26 6. Analysis of data………………………………………………………………….
26 CHAPTER III: RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS………………. Results from survey questionnaire…………………………………………. Students‟ use of pre-writing strategies………………………………. 27 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadvi: add luanvanchat@agmail.
Students‟ frequency of using pre-writing strategies………………… 29 1. effectiveness of pre-writing strategies for generating idea…………. Results from interview…………………………………………………………. Students‟ knowledge about pre-writing strategies…………………… 32 2.
Students‟ awareness of the importance of pre-writing strategies……. 33 PART III: CONCLUSION………………………………………………………. Limitations of the study………………………………………………………. Suggestions for further studies………………………………………………… 37 REFERENCES …………………………………………………………………….39 Appendix 01: Survey questionnaire.
I Appendix 02: Survey interview……………………………………………………. VII Appendix 03: Data statistics for questionnaire……………………………………. VIII Appendix 04: Results from interviewing section…………………………………. X LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadvii: add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF CHARTS Chart 1: Students‟ use of pre-writing strategies Chart 2: Prewriting strategies students often use Chart 3: Prewriting strategies students do not often use Chart 4: effectiveness of pre-writing strategies for generating ideas LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1.
EPU: Electric Power University 2. CICT: Center for International Cooperation and Training LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG downloadviii: add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale “Reading makes a full man, conference a ready man and writing makes an exact man” is one of the most famous sayings of the philosopher and essayist Sir Francis Bacon. Actually, writing is a ticket for human beings not only to enter everyday communication but also to better college grades and greater academic achievement.
In addition, in teaching writing, like in the teaching of other three skills, the necessity of conducting the pre-, while- and post-stages has been increasingly realized nowadays. The while-stage has been supposed most necessary and important. Recent studies have shown that pre-stage also plays an important role in the courses‟ success, especially in the language classroom. Therefore, pre-writing stage, called the preparation stage, has been needed to provide learners with context motivation and necessary sub-skills to assist their writing.
Moreover, it is to give full play to learners‟ prior initiatives. Practically, there have been a number of studies on students‟ writing strategies so far but now has been on strategies used by students at the pre-writing stage. That is one of the reasons why I decided to conduct this project in order to find out something meaningful to fill in the gaps. In addition, although the necessity of examining writing strategies is increasingly recognized recently, after entering the university, lots of students are actually unfamiliar with academic writing.
At university, students were taught to speak, read and write through various approaches, methods and techniques in order to achieve proficiency in the language. Specifically, the main objective of writing is to enable students to write a composition during which they are guided through the process of writing, pre-writing-planning, drafting, revising and editing. This is to ensure that students are given proper guidance when producing a good piece of writing. Ironically, writing is still the skill most students are least proficient in.
They still find it difficult to do any writing task, especially from very first steps of writing. Although a sizable LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download1 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com portion of time is being given to develop writing skills yet students are unable to produce good pieces of essay writing. This problem becomes worse when there is no support on how to prepare the draft before getting into the full writing phase. What I notice in my students‟ composition is that ideas are left out or ideas presented without being fully developed.
Further, it can be seen that they lack cognitive strategies of generating and developing ideas in the topic they chose to write on. Thus, they lack the skills to elaborate on the points they are writing, and they lack cognitive strategies to reflect on what had been learnt. White and Arndt (1991) suggested questions will prompt to help stimulate thinking, to draw on experiences and to develop and shape ideas. As such students have the opportunity to openly express their ideas and thoughts and keep them actively involved in the lessons.
In recognition of importance of pre-writing stage in the writing process, the current situation and the need of practicing pre-writing strategies in English classes, I decide to carry out this study in order to find out what strategies they often use and what they do not use in the hope of helping them improve the quality of their writing. Research aims and research questions The research aim is to explore the strategies used by students at center for international cooperation and training, EPU at the pre-writing stage. In brief, this aim can be realized by the following research question: “What strategies are used by students at the Center for International Cooperation and Training, Electric Power University, at the pre-writing stage?” 3. Significance of the study As mentioned in the Rationale, it is a fact that many students struggle with generating ideas as well as how to put their thoughts into a cohesive product.
In order to assist students in becoming better writers, educators need to thoroughly and explicitly articulate how to effectively complete each stage of the writing process. One of the most important facets of the writing process is the prewriting stage; students LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download2 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com need to be taught on how to successfully produce ideas and once they have generated those ideas, tools need to be provided on how to turn the raw ideas into a complete draft. Therefore, this study can improve education because it will give students a multitude of resources that they can use in order to be successful in beginning a writing task. To overcome difficulties and frustration in generating a piece of writing, they can be equipped with strategies to deal with their roadblocks improve their writing skills.
With this study, I hope to make a small contribution to teaching/learning writing effectively, which may help students retain prewriting strategies and help the teachers find appropriate approaches when teaching writing. Scope of the study In carrying out the study, I do not have an ambition to cover a big topic, but just intend to concentrate mainly on strategies what are used by students at center for International Cooperation and Training, EPU at the pre-writing stage. The time limitation and ability is the small scale of research which is restricted to 50 third – year students at the center for international cooperation and training, EPU. Methods of the study The research will use both quantitative and qualitative methods which are realized through the following instruments: Document analysis: Reading materials of teaching writing in general, strategies students use during teaching writing process and strategies they use at the pre- writing stage.
Survey questionnaire: 4 out of 10 classes were invited to take part in the questionnaire-answering process. The selection process was taken according to cluster sampling basis, which means that 4 classes will be chosen at random. Questions are all in close-ended form to ensure the participants‟ willingness to respond actively and truthfully. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download3 : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Interview: 5 volunteers from these classes will be invited to take part in the interview with the aim of checking data collected from the questionnaire and gaining further insights into the research matters.
Design of the study The research is divided into three parts. The first part, Introduction includes the rationale for the study, aims of the study and research question, significance of the study, scope of the study, method and design of the study.