MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING LAC HONG UNIVERSITY NGUYEN LE NGOC DIEP THE EFFECTS OF TASK-BASED LEARNING ON IMPROVEMENT OF WRITING SKILLS FOR GRADE 10 STUDENTS AT NGUYEN BINH KHIEM HIGH SCHOOL MASTER GRADUATION PROJECT IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR: ENGLISH LANGUAGE MAJOR CODE: 8220201 INSTRUCTORS 1. HUYNH THI BICH PHUONG, Ph. NGUYEN THU HUONG, Ph. DONG NAI, 2024 i TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS.
v THE RECOGNIZANCE FOR NON-PLAGIARISM. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.vii LIST OF FIGURES. viii LIST OF TABLES. 1 Background to the study.
1 Statement of the problem. 1 Aims and objectives of the study. 2 Scope of the study. 3 Significance of the study.
3 Organization of the study. Definition of key terms. The function of writing skills…………………………. The measure of EFL writing skills.
Learning EFL writing skills. EFL learners’ difficulties in writing skills. Task-based learning. Framework of task-based learning.
Pre-task activities. Task-based learning activities for EFL writing. Implementing task-based learning. Characteristics of task-based learning.
Benefits of task-based learning. For EFL learning. For EFL writing. The role of teachers and students in task-based learning.
The role of teachers in task-based learning. The role of students in task-based learning. The relationship between motivation, attitudes, and task-based learning. Previous studies in international context.
Previous studies in Vietnamese context. Sampling and participants. Samples and Sampling. The research participants.
The semi-structured interview. Teaching and learning materials. Teaching and learning procedure. Data collection and analysis.
Reliability and validity. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Difficulties in EFL writing. The student questionnaire.
The teacher interview. The writing pretest. The benefits of task-based learning. The student questionnaire.
The teacher interview. The writing posttest. 65 REFERENCES APPENDICES Appendix A. THE QUESTIONNAIRE FOR STUDENTS Appendix B.
THE INTERVIEW QUESTIONS Appendix C. THE WRITING PRETEST & POSTTEST Appendix D. THE COURSE DESCRIPTION iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am thankful to the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Lac Hong University for their great contributions to the current thesis. I am also grateful for the support of Huynh Thi Bich Phuong, Ph., who counseled me on research methodologies.
It is an honor for me to receive all your constructive comments. I also would like to forward my thanks to all my teaching colleagues at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School who supported me in interviewing and surveying the participants. Lastly, I owe my family and friends a great debt of gratitude. They encouraged me to complete the thesis and finish the postgraduate course.
Dong Nai, July 2024 Author Nguyen Le Ngoc Diep v ABSTRACT Writing is an essential language skill that promotes English learners’ study and career prospects. However, while acquiring this skill, they tend to encounter several difficulties at three main stages: pre-writing, writing, and post-writing. Task-based learning (TBL) is among many options for EFL writing class to facilitate writing task fulfillment. As an attempt to help tenth graders at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School overcome the obstacles, the instructor implemented a TBL framework by Ellis in 2006 into one EFL writing class.
The research objectives are to explore the students’ difficulties in writing process and the benefits of TBL for developing their writing skills. A total of 90 tenth graders were included as participants in the questionnaire besides five voluntary teachers as interviewees. Two primary instruments were employed: the questionnaire and the semi-structured interview. The secondary sources (textual evidence) from three writing tests: one pretest and two posttests give additional evidence to the results.
The findings revealed that the students encountered several challenges in writing and expressed more positive attitudes toward the use of TBL in their writing class. The study has a few practical applications in teaching and learning EFL writing at the school. Keywords: EFL, writing, task-based learning vi THE RECOGNIZANCE FOR NON-PLAGIARISM I certify that the intellectual content of the project “The effects of task-based learning on improvement of Writing Skills for Grade 10 Students at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School” is the product of my own work, and it does not contain materials written or published by other people or other people’s ideas except the information from the references. This thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institution.
Dong Nai, July 2024 Author Nguyen Le Ngoc Diep vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL English as a Foreign Language ELT English Language Teaching CLT Communicative Language Teaching TBL Task-based learning SLA Second Language Acquisition viii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. A TBL Framework by Willis in 1996………………………………. The Current Conceptual Framework……………………………….21 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1 A TBL Framework by Ellis in 2006. A teaching and learning procedure without task-based learning.
A teaching and learning procedure with task-based learning. Students’ problems with EFL writing skills at the pre-writing stage. Students’ problems with EFL writing skills at the writing stage. Students’ problems with EFL writing skills at the post-writing stage.
EFL teachers’ difficulties in writing skills. The textual evidence in the writing pretest. The textual evidence in the writing posttest. Students’ perceptions of the usefulness of TBL.
Students’ attitudes towards TBL. Teachers’ suggestions on using collaborative work for TBL. Teachers’ perceptions of the benefits of TBL for idea generation. The textual evidence in the writing posttest.
57 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter introduces the research by describing its background, statement of the problem, the research aims and objectives, research questions, the significance of the study, the scope of the study, and the proposal structure. Background to the study Today, English has become an international language because it is widely spoken in many parts of the world. In the integration trend of the global economy and culture, English is one of the most effective means of communication for people (Hoang, 2010). The role of English is judged to be crucial in the economic, political, scientific, cultural, and educational fields.
In particular, Vietnam’s accession to the WTO on November 7, 2006, has opened the door to integration into the world economy, so more and more people want to learn English to communicate with foreign partners, visit, travel, work, study, and so on. Accordingly, Vietnamese students are required to acquire four basic language skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing, at an appropriate level from primary to high school. Besides, the topics in the new textbook program are both attractive and challenging for students. Thanks to the innovation of the 2018 general education program, has helped students improve their skills through grammatical exercises to pass the exams.
According to the new curriculum, writing skills are still challenging and difficult for high school students. According to Williams (2020), a writing process encompasses three main steps, namely (1) pre-writing, (2) writing, and (3) revising. In the first step, student writers are required to read model texts, search for ideas, make outlines, brainstorm, or write freely about a writing topic. In the second step, they compose texts.
In the last stage, they make revisions on their written texts in different ways (e., rethinking the writing strategy, reconsidering the outline, getting peer feedback, and so forth). Statement of the problem EFL learners can face certain challenges to complete paragraphs in class. First, the time resources are limited. They may be unable to complete paragraphs within time constraints in class.
Second, they encounter difficulties in seeking appropriate and rich ideas for paragraphs. Because of limited vocabulary, grammatical 2 knowledge, topical knowledge and so on, they may find it difficult to express appropriate written ideas. Third, they may have low motivation for writing paragraphs in class. They may not be interested in writing paragraphs.
Currently, at Nguyen Binh Khiem High school, the researcher acknowledges that writing is among challenging language skills for most students. Through personal teaching experiences and classroom observations, the researcher realized that students encounter all the problems above. Understanding this, the researcher wants to implement TBL to enhance students’ learning motivation and encourage students to take their own responsibility for their learning. Additionally, this approach helps students enrich their written ideas, lexical resources, and grammatical patterns.
The TBL process also helps students overcome time pressure and enhance their language skills via interactions with peers. All of this has encouraged the current researcher to conduct the thesis titled “The effects of task-based learning on improvement of Writing Skills for Grade 10 Students at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School.” Aims and objectives of the study a) Aims The present study aims to identify the difficulties in writing skills encountered by the 10th-grade students at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School and the effects of TBL on the students’ writing skills. b) Objectives In particular, two following objectives are intended as follows: (1) to investigate the tenth graders’ difficulties in EFL writing skills at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School; (2) to investigate the effects of TBL on EFL learners’ writing skills at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School. Research questions To achieve such objectives, two research questions are going to be addressed as follows: Research question 1: What are the difficulties of the EFL writing skills for the tenth graders at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School? Research question 2: How does TBL benefit the writing skills of the tenth 3 graders at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School? Scope of the study The research is narrow in its scope because of the research context.
First, it takes place at only one high school, so the research findings could not be generalized into other educational contexts. Second, the sample is modest, comprising only 90 tenth graders from two classes 10C3 and 10C4, and eight EFL teachers. Third, the study focuses on three key benefits of TBL in writing: (1) reducing time pressure on writing paragraphs in class, (2) preparing enough suitable ideas for writing, and (3) increasing motivation for writing. Significance of the study The research might have a few theoretical and practical applications.
Theoretically, the research might contribute to previous findings about the impacts of TBL on EFL learners’ writing skills. In particular, it could demonstrate that the use of TBL could facilitate the students’ writing skills. Also, it could add further insights into the use of TBL for writing skills, namely raising students’ awareness of putting language in practice (through meaningful contexts) rather than just exploiting grammatical and lexical forms. Practically, the study also helps recommend a few specific applications for teaching and learning EFL writing skills at Nguyen Binh Khiem High School.
Thanks to the findings, local teachers could reflect on their teaching practices and if possible they could have further improvements in using TBL for writing skills. Finally, the research helps investigate specific problems with the students’ writing skills. Organization of the study Chapter 1 – Introduction Chapter 2 – Literature Review Chapter 3 – Research Methodology Chapter 4 – Findings and Discussion Chapter 5 – Conclusion and Recommendations Summary The first chapter introduces the key theoretical background to this study, concerning the importance of English in national education, the feature and role 4 of TBL for EFL writing skills, and the necessity to conduct the current research. The chapter also presents the aims and objectives of the research, its scope, significance, and organization.
5 Chapter 1 LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews the theoretical foundations of EFL writing skills, EFL writing skills, EFL learners’ difficulties in writing skills, paragraphs, the measure of paragraph quality, language tasks, and task-based learning. Then it gives a summary of previous related studies before the research gap and conceptual framework. Definition of key terms EFL: English as a foreign language, referring to any context where English is just a foreign language, not a second or third language (Richards & Schmidt, 2010). Writing: writing is a noun form of the verb “write” signifying “to produce something in written form so that people can read, perform or use it” (Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, n.