MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ DO THI MINH NGUYET AN INVESTIGATION INTO HOW VIETNAMESE STUDENTS HAVE IMPROVED THE USE OF EVALUATIVE LANGUAGE TO EXPRESS ATTITUDE IN ENGLISH PARAGRAPH WRITING – A CASE STUDY OF NGUYEN TRUONG TO HIGH SCHOOL MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.11 SUPERVISOR: TRAN VAN PHUOC, ASSOC. HUE, 2017 BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ------------ ĐỖ THỊ MINH NGUYỆT ĐIỀU TRA VỀ VIỆC SINH VIÊN VIỆT NAM CẢI THIỆN VIỆC SỬ DỤNG NGÔN NGỮ ĐÁNH GIÁ ĐỂ THỂ HIỆN ATTITUDE TRONG VIẾT ĐOẠN TIẾNG ANH – MỘT TRƯỜNG HỢP NGHIÊN CỨU TẠI TRƯỜNG NGUYỄN TRƯỜNG TỘ Ở THÀNH PHỐ HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: TRẦN VĂN PHƯỚC, PGS. HUẾ, 2017 STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Signature Đỗ Thị Minh Nguyệt i ABSTRACT This research is conducted to investigate into how Vietnamese students have improved the use of evaluative language to express attitude in English paragraph writing. A total of 40 students from Nguyen Truong To high school participated in the study. The data were collected via paragraph writing pre-test and questionnaire. The results of this study highlight 3 main points.
Firstly, most of students at Nguyen Truong To high school have rather accurate perceptions of what an evaluative paragraph is and the importance of use evaluative language when writing evaluative paragraph. Secondly, the reality of the use of language elements to present attitude in 3 given topics is various. Many reasons for difficulities in writing evaluative paragraph are discovered. Thidly, some suggestions how to teach evaluative paragraph in English are proposed.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Above all, I would like to express my special gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Trần Văn Phước who has given me the whole-hearted guidance and helped me to overcome all the difficulties during the time I carried out this study. I wish to express my thanks to Ms. Nhung and all students of 11B4 Nguyen Truong To high school for creating the favorable conditions for me to implement this study.
It cannot be denied that our library plays an important part in providing all of us with various documents as well as necessary references needed for our papers. Finally, I thank to my family and my best friends for all the encouragement and advice they gave me. Hue, 11/2017 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS.
iv LIST OF TABLES. vi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study .4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.
Definition of evaluation. Approaches to teaching writing skills. Method of writing evaluative paragraph .18 CHAPTER 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY. Subjects of the study.
Paragraph writing Pre-Test .23 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. Students' perceptions of the use of evaluative language in writing in English.The reality of the use of evaluative language to express ATTITUDE towards 3 given topics in their paragraph writing in English of Nguyen Truong To high school students.NTT High School students’ preparation for writing an evaluative paragraph. The reality of the use of language elements to present ATTITUDE. Data from paragraph writing Pre-test.
Data from questionnaire. The techniques can be applied to improve their evaluative writing in English paragraphs. Some suggestions how to teach evaluative paragraph in English .66 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION & IMPLICATION. Implications for teacher.
Implications for students. Suggestions for further research. 70 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Students’ perception of an evaluative paragraph.
Students’ perception of the importance of presenting evaluation in writing. Students’ perception of suitable topics/ issues for presenting evaluation. Students’ perception of language elements for evaluation when writing. Students’ perception of kind of words used most frequently in evaluative paragraph.
Students’ perception of kind of phrases used most frequently in evaluative paragraph. Students’ perception of kind of sentences used most frequently in evaluative paragraph. Students’ perception of difficulty/easiness to evaluate in a foreign language. Students’ perception of necessity to be trained skills of writing evaluative paragraph.
Percentage of opinions of students’ preparation for writing an evaluative paragraph. Attitude totals in topic 1. Attitude totals in topic 2. Attitude totals on topic 3.
Statistics of positive/negative sentences of Affect in topic 1. Statistics of positive/negative words of Affect in topic 1. Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of affect in topic 2. Statistics of positive/ negative phrases of Affect in topic 2.
Statistics of positive/ negative words of Affect in topic 2. Statistics of positive/negative sentences of Affect in topic 3. Statistics of positive/ negative phrases of Affect in topic 3. Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of Judgement in topic 1.
Statistics of positive/ negative phrases/ words of Judgement in topic 1. Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of Judgement in topic 2. Statistics of positive/ negative phrases of Judgement in topic 2. Statistics of positive/ negative words of Judgement in topic 2.
Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of Judgement in topic 3. Statistics of positive/ negative phrases of Judgement in topic 3. Statistics of positive/ negative words of Judgement in topic 3. Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of Appreciation in topic 1.
Statistics of positive/ negative phrases of Appreciation in topic 1. Statistics of positive/ negative words of Appreciation in topic 1. Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of Appreciation in topic 2. Statistics of positive/ negative phrases of Appreciation in topic 2.
Statistics of positive/ negative words of Appreciation in topic 2. Statistics of positive/ negative sentences of Appreciation in topic 3. Statistics of positive/ negative phrases/ words of Apprciation in topic 3. The students’ response.
Reasons for difficulties/ease in writing evaluative paragraph. The students’ preparation. The students’ responses to get ideas. The students’ ideas about activities for mastering language elements for evaluation.
Students’ responses to be able to write an effective evaluative paragraph. The students’ responses to techniques to develop evaluative writing skill. 62 vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale In the process of globalization, English plays an important part in developing many fields, such as economy, politics, and culture, et.
It has been a language learned and taught in almost part of the world.Therefore, there is a great demand for teaching and learning English. In recent years, particularly, English learners and users focus much on the ability to communication in English. There exist misunderstandings in the term of communication. For them, communication competence means that learners can communicate in spoken language.
This leads too much attention to speaking and listening skills. Coffin and Hewings acknowledged this misunderstanding in their research. According to Coffin and Hewings (as cited in Xinghua &Thompson, 2009), “there less attention is given to EFL/ESL students’ writings”. Fortunately, recently there have been encouraging signs in teaching writing skill in English.
This phenomenon is a good sign because writing is an essential skill which needs to be mastered in teaching and learning English. According to Setiawan et al. (2014), writing helps learners with the chance to find ways of showing their ideas in a foreign language. The purpose of teaching and learning writing is to promote “student’s learning and their daily communication”.
Nguyen Ho Hoang Thuy (2009) supported with this view. She said that writing skill helps “developing the students’ English writing skill in paticular and communicative competence in general” (p. Having a proper understanding of the importance of writing skill, many studies have been conducted to get more understading about this skill. Writing skill is not only recognised as an inportant skill but also as one of the most complex skills to be mastered.
The complexity of writing skill was concluded in variety of researches (Setiawan et al., 2014; Trinh & Nguyen, 2014; Nguyen, 2009). According to Tangpermpoon (2008), writing is the most difficult, complex and problematic to 1 learners because it demands learners to have several “lexical and syntactic knowledge as well as principles of organization in L2 to produce a good writing” (p. As a consequence, in writing classes in context of Vietnam, “learner use neither writing strategies nor the knowledge of the writing process when they produce their own writing texts”(Trinh & Nguyen, 2014, p. Moreover, Eliwarti& Maarof(2014) also emphasised that in order to succeed in writing skill, many different activities should be required at the same time.
According to them “while expressing ideas, students need to think about the appropriate vocabulary, the spelling of the words, the mechanics, the style, as well as the correct structure to be used in arranging good English sentences” (p.112) It is widely acknowledged that one of the main functions of language is to express their opinions, attitudes, as well as thoughts towards people, things or phenomena. Expressing interpersonal meanings such as giving opinions, making judgements, and expressing emotions is an essential part of any language because it reflects students’ ability in ways they think critically. They are seen in both spoken and written form. In a word, people always high demand in evaluating, expressing everything and constructing ideas which exists around them not only spoken language but written one.
In order to do a good job at expressing interpersonal meanings, it is important for learners to master evaluative language when writing an evaluative paragraph. However, one of main problems in evaluative writing is the use of evaluative language properly and effectively. Because of significance of evaluation language , a large number of studies in this field have been conducted. For example, Mei’s and Allison’s research (2005), Xinghua’s and Thompson’s research (2009),Lancaster’s research (2014).
In context of Vietnam, however, there have been a limited number of studies of evaluative language carried out. Moreover, this aspect of evaluative language is rarely explicitly taught in English writing classes. For these reasons, I would like to carry out the study entitled "An investigation into how Vietnamese students have 2 improved the use of evaluative language to express attitude in English paragraph writing - a case study of Nguyen Truong To high school in Hue City". This study will be a significant endeavor in apprehending the way how students use evaluative language in writing.
More important, this study will be able to contribute a consideration suggestion as reference material for teachers and students in English writing classes that focuses on the perspective of evaluative meanings. For the English teacher, he or she can apply suitable strategies and approaches how to teach evaluative paragraph in English. For students, they can make their understanding in writing evaluative paragraph clearly, improve and master evaluative paragraph writing in English. Aims of the study With the presented rationale, the specific aims of the study, according, are: a) to understand evaluative language used to express attitude about some given topics in English paragraph writing b) to find out how students write evaluative paragraphs in English c) to provide some suggestions to help students improve evaluative paragraph writing in English.
Scope of the study This study investigates the use of evaluative language in writing tasks collected through 3 given topics at High School in Hue by drawing on Appraisal framework. The study is fulfilled with 40 students of grade 11B4 at NTT High School. The study focuses on ATTITUDE, one of the three subsystems within the Appraisal framework. Research Question In order to serve the aforesaid aims, the study attempts to answer the following questions: 1.
What are students' perceptions of the use of evaluative language in writing in English?