VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------------------ HOÀNG THỊ MAI HƯƠNG CHALLENGES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING WRITING SKILL WITH THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 11 ( BASIC STREAM) AT TINH GIA 5 HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HOA PROVINCE (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG VIẾT THEO SÁCH TIẾNG ANH 11 ( HỆ CƠ BẢN) ĐỐI VỚI GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT TĨNH GIA 5, TỈNH THANH HÓA) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Hanoi, 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ------------------------------ HOÀNG THỊ MAI HƯƠNG CHALLENGES IN TEACHING AND LEARNING WRITING SKILL WITH THE TEXTBOOK ENGLISH 11 ( BASIC STREAM) AT TINH GIA 5 HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HOA PROVINCE (NHỮNG KHÓ KHĂN TRONG VIỆC DẠY VÀ HỌC KỸ NĂNG VIẾT THEO SÁCH TIẾNG ANH 11 ( HỆ CƠ BẢN) ĐỐI VỚI GIÁO VIÊN VÀ HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT TĨNH GIA 5, TỈNH THANH HÓA) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60 14 10 Supervisor: Đỗ Bá Quý, MEd Hanoi, 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. EFL: English as a foreign language.
ESL: English as a second language. iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS Table 1: The differences between the process writing and the product writing Table 2: Checklist of writing tasks in the new „Tieng Anh 11‟ textbook Table 3: The purposes of teaching writing Table 4 : Teachers‟ general thoughts of the writing lesson Table 5: Problems in teaching writing Table 6: Students‟ actions in the writing lesson Table 7: Factors influence students‟ participant and interests Table 8: Evaluation of forms of writing texts in the textbook Table 9: Activities to attract students to the lesson Table 10: Activities to improve students‟ writing skill Table 11 : Purposes of learning writing skill Table 12: Problems in learning writing Table 13: Activities to make lesson more interesting Table 14: Activities after writing Chart 1: The importance of writing skill Chart 2: The capability of using English of the students ? Chart 3: Teachers‟ general thought of the tasks in textbook Chart 4: Students‟ feeling of the writing skill Chart 5: Students‟ general thought of the writing tasks in the textbook Chart 6: Students‟ frequency in completing the tasks in textbook Chart 7: Teachers‟ frequency of giving suggestions before writing Chart 8: Mistakes in students‟ pieces of writing v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration………………………………………………………………… i Acknowledgements……….…………………………………………………………………… iii List of abbreviations……….……………………………………………… iv List of tables and charts…………. v Table of content………. vi PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 1.
Rationale of the study…………………………………………………. Aims and objectives of the study……………………………………… 2 3. The scope of the study ………………………………………………… 2 5. Design of the study…………………………………………………….
3 PART II: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 4 1. Definitions of writing :…………………………………………………. Roles of writing………………………………………………………… 5 3. Approaches to the teaching of writing………………………………….1 Controlled-to-Free Approach:………………………………………… 7 3.2 The Free-Writing Approach:………………………………………….3 The Paragraph-Pattern Approach:…………………………………….4 The Grammar-Syntax- Organization Approach……………………… 8 3.5 The Communicative Approach……………………………………….6 The Process Approach……………………………………………….
8 vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. What makes writing difficult to acquire? ……………………………… 13 CHAPTER 2 : THE CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 15 2.1 The context : Tinh Gia 5 high school………………….2 The new „Tieng Anh 11‟ textbook……………………. 19 CHAPTER 3 : DATA ANALYSIS AND STUDY FINDINGS 20 3.1 Teacher‟s survey questionnaires………………………………………. Students‟ survey questionnaires……………………………………… 28 3.1 Poor facilities and large size classes………………………………… 36 3.2 Teachers‟ and students‟ inappropriate attitudes towards the writing 36 skill………………………………………………………………………… 3.3 Unsuitable tasks in the textbook …………………………………….4 Students‟ poor linguistic competence……………………………….
36 vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.5 Students‟ lack of background knowledge…………………………….6 Passive learning style………………………………………………… 37 3.5 Suggested solutions to overcome the challenges……………………… 3.1 Raising the students‟ awareness of the importance of the writing 38 skill………………………………………………………………………….2 Improving students‟ linguistic competence ………………………….3 Make the work arrangement effective……………………………….4 Making writing lesson vivid and interesting………………………….5 Providing effective correction work………………………………….6 Assigning more practical writing tasks ……………………………… 41 3.7 Creating a positive and supportive learning atmosphere …………. 41 PART III: CONCLUSION 1. Limitations of the study……………………………………………… 43 3. Suggestions for further research……………………………………….
45 APPENDIX ……………………………………………………………… I Survey questionnaire (for students)………………………………………. IV Lists of classroom observations …………………………………………. IX viii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION This very first part of the thesis is to introduce the rationale for the study, the aims and objectives of the study as well as the research questions which the study was to carry out to find out the answers. It also presents the scope of the study as well as the design of the study.
Rationale of the study Nowadays, as learning a second language is paid more and more special attention to, there has been a growing tendency towards the emphasis on communicative competence in language teaching and learning. Writing, therefore, is regarded as a productive skill which provides students with opportunities to put all the language elements they have learnt into practice and to show communicative competence effectively. However, in fact, writing is not often as important to many students as other skills such as reading and speaking and it tends to get rather neglected in many Vietnamese language classes. Furthermore, writing itself is a very complex and difficult skill to acquire.
Therefore, teaching students to write well is one of the most challenges in education. In studying the teaching writing skill process at Tinh Gia 5 high school, I have been found that there are a lot of difficulties in teaching and learning English, especially the writing skill. Among four language skills, taught in English, writing can be seen as the most boring and hardest one. Thus, teaching and learning writing skill at Tinh Gia 5 high school isn‟t paid attention, even that some teachers had to cut down this skill lessons.
Facing up this problem, so many questions about teaching and learning writing skill always concern me a lot: “What problems might the students face when learning skill? What should be done to help them overcome those problems? How should we teach each form of written text so that the students can learn it effectively? etc….” I, therefore decided to do the research on “Challenges in teaching and learning writing skill with the textbook English 11 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com (basic stream) at Tinh Gia 5 high school, Thanh Hoa province” in hope that the findings and solutions mentioned in this study will make a significant contribution to improve the teaching and learning of the writing skill at Tinh Gia 5 high school as well as those at other high schools. Aims of the study The primary purpose of this study is to explore the teaching and learning of the writing skill by teachers and grade-11 students at Tinh Gia 5 high school. It focuses on finding out the challenges in teaching and learning the writing skill in the new „Tieng Anh 11‟ textbook at this school. The second purpose is to propose some suggestions to deal with teachers‟ and students‟ challenges and assist them to teaching as well as learning writing more effectively.
Research questions of the study This study attempts to seek the answers to the following questions: 1. What are the challenges of teachers and eleventh-grade students at Tinh Gia 5 high school in teaching and learning the writing skill in the new „Tieng Anh 11‟ textbook?” 2. What should be done to help teachers and grade-11students at Tinh Gia 5 high school overcome their challenges? 4. Scope of the study This minor thesis is conducted at Tinh Gia 5 high school in order to recognize difficulties in teaching and learning writing skills of both the teachers and the 11th form students.
Factors causing such challenges are then found out. To go ahead, the thesis also offers some suggestions to better the current context. Design of the study This study has three parts: Part A – Introduction, Part B – Development including literature review, the study, data analysis and study findings, Part C – Conclusion. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The introduction part presents the rationale, aims and objectives, research questions and scope of the study, and design of the study.
The literature review chapter conceptualizes the framework of the study through the discussions of writing. The study gives the specific details of school and the new „Tieng Anh 11‟ textbook. Besides, a general description of method is presented in this chapter. The last chapter concentrates on the data analysis, study findings and some suggestions to help the grade-11 students and teachers at Tinh Gia 5 high school overcome the challenges in teaching and learning of the writing skill with the new „Tieng Anh 11‟ textbook.
The conclusion part at the end gives a conclusion, limitation and suggestions for further research. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW In this chapter, some definitions of writing, the roles of writing will be presented to help the readers be clearer about writing. Besides, this chapter gives an overview of relevant literature and researches that deal with approaches in teaching writing skill and finally the researcher will give the answer for the question „what make writing difficult to acquire?‟. Definitions of writing Writing is an important language skill so we have to understand “what is writing? How to write well ?.” There are many definitions of writing.
Byrne (1991:1) stated about writing that “When we write, we use graphic symbols that is, letters or combinations of letters which relate to the sounds we make when we speak. Then, writing can be said to be the act of forming these symbols: making marks on flat surface of some kind… The symbols have to be arranged, according to certain conventions, to form words, and words have to be arranged to form sentences” Lannon (1989) make a conflicting definition that writing is a process of transforming the material discovered by research inspiration, accident, trial and error, or whatever into a message with definite meaning… a process of deliberate decision. Having the same opinion with Lannon, White (1991:3) assumed that writing is a thinking process in its own right and is not a simple process but a complex one “ writing is a form of problem-solving which involves such processes as generating ideas, discovering a “voice” with which to write, planning, goal- setting, monitoring and evaluating with which to express exact meanings” From another view of writing, Candlin and Hyland(1999: 107) asserted writing as “ an engagement in a social process, where the production of text reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage colleguages and persuade them of the claims that are made.” 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com In language teaching, writing is “a language skill which is difficult to acquire” and it is “not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (Trible, 1996:3). Rivers also definited that “ writing is not a skill that can be learned or developed in isolation but it should be taught and developed in corporation with other skills and aspects of the language studied”.
It is a process that occurs over a period of time, particularly if we take into account the sometimes extended periods of thinking that precede creating an initial draft. In short, writing is an art that writers want to communicate with certain groups of audience. Through the pieces of writing, writers are able to organize intellectually, manage everyday affairs, express ideas or argue. By writing they can have control of both information and people.
Roles of writing Writing emerges with its own functions and brings along communicative code of the writers. When making a piece of writing, the writer implies a message or a certain purpose. In the modern world, writing (written language) severs a range of functions in everyday life. Nunan (1991:84) pointed out, writing is: 1.