THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRINH THU HUYEN “ENHANCING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING SKILL TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR PROJECT-BASED LEAENING AT HOANG VAN THU SCHOOL, SCHOOL YEAR 2018-2019 (NĂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 – TRƯỜNG THPT HOÀNG VĂN THỤ NĂM HỌC 2018-2019 DỰA VÀO CÁC PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC THEO ĐỀ ÁN) M. THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 THAI NGUYEN – 2019 1 THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES TRINH THU HUYEN “ENHANCING GRADE 11 STUDENTS’ ENGLISH WRITING SKILL TEACHING TECHNIQUES FOR PROJECT-BASED LEAENING AT HOANG VAN THU SCHOOL, SCHOOL YEAR 2018-2019 (NĂNG CAO KỸ NĂNG VIẾT TIẾNG ANH CHO HỌC SINH LỚP 11 – TRƯỜNG THPT HOÀNG VĂN THỤ NĂM HỌC 2018-2019 DỰA VÀO CÁC PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC THEO ĐỀ ÁN) M. THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 8220201 Supervisor: Dr. Cao Duy Trinh THAI NGUYEN – 2019 2 THE CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT I hereby declare that this graduation project is based on my own original work except for quotations and citation that have been duly acknowledged.
I also declare that it has not been previously submitted for any other courses/degrees at Thai Nguyen University or other institutions. Thái Nguyên, ngày tháng năm 2019 Trịnh Thu Huyền Supervisor Dr. Cao Duy Trinh 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was the result of my hard work with the great support of many people. I want to express my hearty gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor – PhD.
Cao Duy Trinh, who has devotedly taught me a lot and helped me widen my knowledge. Without his instruction and guidance, I could not have completed my thesis. I would like to give a big thanks to all of my colleagues who have helped and supported me a lot during the time I did this thesis. They were a big contribution to complete observation sheet and other tests also.
Last but not least, I cannot look over my family who were my biggest motivation and inspiration to take part in this master course. Without them, I cannot finish the thesis so well. 4 ABSTRACT Writing, in any language, is a fundamental skill of communication. At the same time, it is one of the main channels to transmit culture from generation to generation.
Like speaking, you always have several ways to express the same idea, from writing a simple note in a piece of paper to composing a literary work which demands a good command of the language. Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to investigate the effectiveness of the project-based teaching techniques to enhance the students’ English writing skills at Grade 11, Hoang Van Thu high school. It was found then that the various actions and the use of project-based learning technique could improve students’ writing abilities, particularly in the hortatory exposition text. Hence, the research also made some recommendations and suggestions for applying the project-based methods to improve English writing skill of the students.The research is carried out based on a descriptive quantitative study.
5 TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION .Error! Bookmark not defined. Research topic area. The study context. Focus of the study.
Significance of the study. Structure of the study .1 Definition of writing .2 The teaching of English writing .3 The project – based learning .1 Definition of the project-based learning .2 The Steps of Conducting Project-Based .2 Field site and participants .3 Data collection method .23 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Conducting the writing test.2 Applying project-based learning into the writing lessons .2 Research results and findings .1 Results and findings on applying PBL .2 Results and findings on testing and surveying .42 PART 3: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the key findings. Pedagogical implication of the study.
Limitation of the study. 50 APPENDIX 1: PRE-QUESTIONNAIRE .50 APPENDIX 2: POST-QUESTIONNAIRE .53 APPENDIX 3: PRE-TEST .57 APPENDIX 4: POST-TEST .Error! Bookmark not defined. APPENDIX 5: THE LESSONS PRACTICED WITH CLA. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Rationale Among the four English learning skills namely speaking, listening, reading and writing, there are many reasons for writing to be the last acquired domain of learning English, one being that a more detailed and analyzed knowledge of a language is needed to write than to understand (Bialystok & Bryan, 1985). In addition to this, it is challenging for students to write English like a native due to their various knowledge background. In oral communication, they can understand the partner through gestures and appearance. However, in writing they may fail to express their ideas clearly because of the limitation in vocabulary.
To become a writing expert, it is necessary for students to spend much timepracticing more and more. However, these opportunities seem to be rare with them. Besides, Kasper &Petrello (1998) also added that teachers’ responses tend to be negative because they were too familiar with the expectation of failures, which resulted in their students’ difficulties in writing English. The issue can be explained by two main causes.
First, students often think of writing as a translating activity when being asked to write about a specific topic (Fu-Lan, 2006). Second, they tend to focus more on mistakes in spelling and grammar than writing the contents (Elias et al. These factors prevent the students’ writing from coming to the success as a real English native writer. Hence, regarding the students’ difficulties in English writing, the study investigates the application of project-based teaching techniques in enhancing their English writing skills.
The study context Writing is essentially required for communication to connect people, regardless of time and spaces. Although the importance of mastering skill is clear, in fact, students’ writing skill is far from perfection. However, as 8 previously stated, writing is the most difficult language skill for the students, which is evident in their scores and their classroom performances. Living in a text-oriented society, all students need to be proficient writers, but achieving this goal is particularly daunting students who are learning English as their second language.
Due to this universal area of weakness for Vietnam students, this research project has been designed to discover and implement effective strategies that will improve the English writing skills of grade 11th students through the project-based teaching techniques at Hoang Van Thu high school in the school year 2018 - 2019. Focus of the study Writing can be considered as the most difficult skill to be mastered by the second language learners due to the problems occurring in the process of teaching and learning English skills in classroom. Throughout the researching, the use of project-based learning was able to improve the students’ writing skill at grade 11, Hoang Van Thu high school, school year 2018-2019. In specific, the research aims to fulfillthe following objectives: To investigate the situation of grade 11th students’ English writing skillsat Hoang Van Thu high school in the school year 2018-2019; To identify the effectiveness of the project-based teaching techniques at Hoang Van Thuhigh school in the school year 2018-2019; To propose the recommendation and suggestion for enhancing the students’ English writing skills at Grade 11, Hoang Van Thu high school.
In order to achieve the above objectives, this study needs to answer the following research question: What are the problems with theEnglish writing skills for the grade 11 th students at Hoang Van Thu high school in the school year 2018-2019? 9 4. Significance of the study The study means to contribute to the innovation of teaching the writing skills to the students in 11th grade at Hoang Van Thu high school in particular and Vietnam public schools in general. It is also expected that the research findings in this study can help the English teachers as well as the administrators at the high schools in evaluating the effectiveness of teaching English writing through project-based teaching techniques for the students’ writing skill improvement. It is hoped that this paper will serve as a useful source of reference for other researchers and English teachers whose studies are related to the same topic.
However ,the quality of students are not equal, limited time ,lack of decription skill 5. Structure of the study Part 1: Introduction In this part, the rationale, significance and scope of the study will be presented. Part 2: Main contents Chapter1:LiteratureReview In this part, the theoretical background, specifically the previous researches related to speech acts, speech acts in refusals, cross-culture in refusals, non-native English speakers’ refusals and the comparisons among native Vietnamese, native English and EFL learners will be presented. Chapter 2: Methodology In this part, the researcher will discuss the research approach, the participants, the instrument, the data collection procedure and the analysis.
Chapter 3: Results and discussion 10 In this part, the findings of the research will be presented and then will be discussed. Part 3: Conclusions and implications In this part, the researcher will summarize the findings of the research. After that, the limitation of the research as well as the suggestion for further research will also be included. 11 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATUREREVIEW 1.1 Definition of writing Generally, language is divided into two major groups of skills, receptive skills and productive skills.
Receptive skills are skills needed to perceive and understand the language. Receptive skills consist of reading and listening. Meanwhile, writing and speaking belong to the productive skill of the language, productive skills are skills which enable students to produce language by themselves (Harmer, 2007). On the other hand, productive skills are required for learners to be able to build communication through the language.
Writing is a productive skill of the English language which needs to be mastered by the English language learners because writing is a means of communication and is considered as the indicator of communication competence of the target language. A good writing skill represents learners’ ability in communicating through English. Written language is used to communicate with others who are removed in time and space (Nunan, 1999). Furthermore, Harmer (2004) states that writing is the only skill which enables learner to produce a real product, in which the product is touchable, readable, as well as keepable for a long period of time.
Written language can be re-read again in accordance with what the readers need. According to Nunan (1999), people also need permanent records which could be referred to over and over again. Furthermore, written language tends to be more exact and precise rather than spoken language. Therefore, it will not cause any confusion, misunderstanding, or misinterpretation to the readers.
Other than that, writing can be defined a learning process which involves critical thinking to convey one’s ideas and thoughts. It is also an action or a 12 process of discovering and organizing ideas into a paper as well as reshaping and revising. It is something which can be learnt through. Oates (2000) claims that writing is a unique way of learning since writing is integrative, requiring the active participation of both the right and left hemispheres of the brain, resulting in the production of meaning.
Therefore, it can be concluded that writing is a productive of a language which requires critical thinking process and is used as a means of communication to aspire someone’s thoughts. English learners can learn writing in order to be able to be a good writer as well as convey and express their ideas as it is a learning process.2 The teaching of English writing It is very prominent for students to be taught about writing skill. Teaching writing to students is significant because it can reinforce students’ language acquisition, support students’ language and learning development, and help students to master the basic skills of language (Harmer, 1998). According to Nunan (1999), there are two basic approaches underlying the teaching of writing.
They are product-oriented approach and process- oriented approach. The very first approach, that is product-oriented approaches, concerns on the result or the final product of students’ writing, the coherent, and the error-free text.