VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THI ̣BÍ CH NGỌC METHODS TO INCREASE THE ENGLISH MAGAZINE PROJECT POWER IN THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH WRITTEN LANGUAGE FOR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THAINGUYEN UNIVERSITY (Phương pháp gia tăng hiêụ quả của Đề án ta ̣p chí Tiế ng Anh trong viêc̣ học bút ngữ cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Tiế ng Anh ta ̣i Khoa Ngoa ̣i Ngữ, Đa ̣i ho ̣c Thái Nguyên) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410 HANOI-2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIET NAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY-HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST – GRADUATE STUDIES ***************** NGUYỄN THI ̣BÍ CH NGỌC METHODS TO INCREASE THE ENGLISH MAGAZINE PROJECT POWER IN THE STUDY OF THE ENGLISH WRITTEN LANGUAGE FOR ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES, THAINGUYEN UNIVERSITY (Phương pháp gia tăng hiêụ quả của Đề án ta ̣p chí Tiế ng Anh trong viêc̣ học bút ngữ cho sinh viên chuyên ngành Tiếng Anh tại Khoa Ngoại Ngữ, Đa ̣i ho ̣c Thái Nguyên) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Teaching Methodology Code : 601410 Supervisor: Phạm Thị Hạnh, M. HANOI-2011 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements………………………………………………………….
(i) Abstract……………………………………………………………………… (ii) Table of contents……………………………………………………………. Background of the study ……………………………………………. Aims of the study……………………………………………………. Scope of the study…………………………………………………….
Significance of the study………………………………………………. Structure of the study…………………………………………………. Definitions of concepts ………………………………………………. 7 PART B: DEVELOPMENT 8 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 8 1.1 Project-based learning ………………………………………………….2 Different types of project in learning written language ……………….3 The necessity of English Magazine Project to the study of written language……………………………………………………………….4 Challenges of project-based learning …………………………………… 13 1.5 Portfolios in writing …………………………………………………….6 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………… 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 Rationale for the use of an action research……………………………… 17 2.2 Background of the study………………………………………………… 20 2.
24 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.1 Possible problems for students and teachers which prevented the project from effective implementation.2 Students‟ problems in the two first week magazine columns.3 Comparison of the students‟ writing performance before and after using 35 portfolios. Discussion of research questions………………………………………. Limitations of the study…………………………………………………. Suggestions for further study…………………………………………… 42 5.
Overview of the research program ……………………………. Group action plans ……………………………………………. V XII LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com vi LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Table 1………………………………………………………………………. 27 Table 5……………………………………………………………………… 28 Chart 1……………………………………………………………………… 29 Chart 2……………………………………………………………………… 30 Chart 3……………………………………………………………………… 31 Chart 4……………………………………………………………………… 32 Chart 5……………………………………………………………………… 33 Table 6……………………………………………………………………… 34 Table 7……………………………………………………………………… 35 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 1 Part A: INTRODUCTION This part will briefly state the background of the study, the problem initiating the study, the aims of the study, methodology of the study (including participants and procedures), its scope, significance and structure.
Background of the study Currently, project-based learning is applied in a rather large scale of language teaching worldwide and is considered to be a new effective approach to L2 learning and teaching. The types of project can vary according to certain purposes of teaching, of which some popular ones are magazine project, excursion project, culture project and television show. Among these, English Magazine project (EMA) is to develop students‟ four integrated skills but particularly focuses on written English (reading and writing). In this kind of project, students are required, in groups, to design their own magazines with typical columns as professional ones.
Topics are varied depending on the magazine themes and students‟ interests. Students perform their ability and creativeness on the writing of different styles and topics. The teacher acts as a guide for providing feedback and advice to students‟ work. Over the last few years, there have been a number of studies on project-based learning.
Most of them focus on the benefits or advantages of PBL in teaching English as a second language (North, 1990; Vincent, 1990; Alan and Stoller, 2003; Yan Guo, 2007); others concern the steps in a project work (Stoller, 1995), Project-based learning and assessment (Mansoor, 1997) or Project-based Learning Activities (Foss, Carney, McDonald and Rooks, 2007). However, it is hard to know how many teachers have been tried out this approach and how they implement it in the actual context of classroom. There are few studies on the implementation of certain project reported by language teachers and there are not many papers stating their satisfactions or their wishes to change the method of teaching. The application of the EMA is not an exception since there seems not to have any paper discussing it in detail.
LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 2 It is, therefore, necessary that the idea of looking into the actual experience of teachers in implementing projects in general and EMA project in particular needs further investigation. English Magazine project has been applied as a part of the curriculum at Foreign Languages Faculty, Thai Nguyen University (FLF-TNU) for approximately five years. The project was developed from the cooperation between Vietnam and Netherland in Education. Eight selected universities in Vietnam have been taking part in the Profession- Oriented Higher Education (POHE) since 2005.
The FLF-TNU was the first experiment of this Project. It aimed at delivering better-trained graduates with a professional attitude. Different from the old methods, this project focuses on students‟ competencies needed at workplace and takes them to be center of learning. Therefore, it will provide students with a professional higher education necessary for their career.
During the time of taking part in the project, the students have to do various compulsory projects in which they role-play different careers, such as actors, journalists, advisers, tour guides, and master of ceremony. These projects help them improve their linguistic skills and the ability to produce English in real life. The students are free to choose one of the obligatory projects to finish within a term or a school-year. Beside some necessary skills, working-in-group competence was appreciated.
The teachers play as supervisors, observers and evaluators of the students‟ process and products. At the end of the year, the students have to make presentations to introduce and convince the audience of their products. EMA is one of the projects aiming at developing students‟ writing competence in English. It has been officially included in the training program and students can register to take part in the course.
The prerequisite of the course is that students have completed their course in English Written Proficiency at intermediate level. EMA is conducted at the same time with students‟ course in Advanced Writing. The Project is done on registered groups of students within one semester of 15 weeks. During the first two weeks, teachers will guide students to work together to decide on the themes and main content of the magazine as well as break down their work into weeks.
(See Appendix 3) During the following weeks, students work in their group to write the magazine columns. They may set their group meeting time, go out to collect data and conduct peer- feedback within the group. The class meets once a week so that teachers can give feedback LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 3 to his/her students‟ writing. The class consists of around 35 students broken down into five to seven smaller groups.
Therefore; the teacher would have at least seven drafts to revise each week. The feedback is conducted during the class time of 100 minutes (2 periods) per week. The teacher reads the drafts, detects students‟ problems in organization, punctuation, word choice, spelling and grammar. He or she then suggests choices for better writing.
Problem identification Taking the role of an instructor for several groups of students during her three years of working with the project, the researcher has found some problems that prevent the project from taking its effectiveness. One of the problems is that students‟ team work seems to be not quite effective. They rarely do group-editing as required and rely too much on teacher‟s feedback. Some even commit plagiarism.
As a result, little improvement was displayed in their writing. Another problem is time pressure on the part of teacher to give feedback to all groups of students. The actual time for class contact seldom meets the need of editing. The teacher, therefore, did a hard work not only in class but also at home so as to give essential feedback to students‟ articles.
Inspired by those obstacles, ideas for changes were outlined and an action research was done in the researcher‟s class. A new teaching plan was designed to increase students‟ activeness and their effectiveness in group work. The plan was intended to consist of two parts: increasing the students‟ group-editing before handing in the paper to teacher for feedback and controlling students‟ work of writing, editing and reading through weeks by portfolios. Aims of the study The study on “Methods to increase the English Magazine Project (EMA) power in the study of English written language for English major students at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University: An action reseach” was carried out with a view to: - Finding out the main obstacles toward the empowerment of the project for both teachers and students.
- Bringing the effective intervention to help improve students’ performance in the project. LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 4 The research focused on the following research questions: 1. What problems do teachers and students face when working with the project? 2. What changes that might help enhancing the project revealed from the problems? 3.
Can the teacher‟s interventions help save her time and improve students‟ performance in EMA project? If yes, to what extend? 4. Participants The subjects of the study were 30 students of English major at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. They have all achieved the intermediate proficiency level after their two years at the college. These 30 students were in the same class and the researcher was the guide of the group during the project work.
During the study, the researcher acts as a participant observer and other teachers cooperate with the researcher in the study. Procedures * Data collection: The full period of data collection covered the whole term. The effect of interventions is viewed via the following instruments: - Classroom observation - Students‟ journals - A questionnaire - Informal interviews with students and teachers * Data analysis: Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Some parts of the questionnaire were converted into statistics, numbers and percentage in the form of tables and charts for the purpose of comparing and analyzing.
The number of errors in students‟ writings was also calculated for comparison and contrast. Students and teachers‟ responses to interviews were collected in the form of notes; extracts from students‟ journal writings and collected readings were quoted as evidences for the analysis; classroom activities and students‟ reactions were observed and described by teacher‟s diary. * Procedures: LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com 5 Initially, informal interviews and a questionnaire were delivered to students and teachers at the faculty to see their attitude towards the project and the problems they met during the first four weeks of the course. Students‟ articles within the first two weeks were analyzed to find out further problems.
After changes were applied in the selected group of students, the interview was repeated among teachers and students. Student‟s final drafts in their portfolios of the last two weeks were reviewed for comparison. Scope of the study The study is limited to investigating the methods to increase the EMA project power in the study of English written language for English major students at Faculty of Foreign Languages, Thai Nguyen University. The study only focused on written language competence of students and the target population of the study, therefore, was students who have achieved their intermediate level – the required proficiency for them to do the EMA project.