ABSTRACT This study is conducted in an attempt to investigate the post- writing activities used in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, their frequency, their performances and their advantages and disadvantages as perceived by teachers and students as well. From those, the researcher wish to find out the most effective activity helping grade 10 learners improve their writing ability. In order to achieve the aims of the study and obtain reliable information for the study, interviews among teachers, survey questionnaire among students and document analysis of the students’ writing papers are applied. The findings of the study reveal that both teachers and students at GB2HS have a rather positive attitude towards post writing activities and their importance in improving learners’ writing proficiency.
Among all, teacher’s feedback, group’s feedback and peer’s feedback are the activities used to revise 10 th form students’ papers at GB2HS, in which teacher’s comment play the crucial role and mostly applied. However, there are numerous problems preventing those activities from working efficiently in the study context. Some implications are then drawn up based on the findings for the betterment of the teaching and learning post writing stage at GB2HS. With careful and detailed investigations, it is hoped that this study will be a useful source of reference for teachers, students and those who concern about feedback activities in improving writing skill.
3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABBLE OF CONTENT PART A- INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Outline of the study.
5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Theoretical background to English writing teaching. Overview of writing. Overview of writing teaching.
Why do we teach writing?. Theoretical approaches to writing teaching. Controlled- composition approach. Current- traditional rhetoric approach.
The process approach. The stages in the writing process. Overviews of Teachers and Peers’ Feedbacks in Teaching and Learning Writing12 1. What is feedback?.
Teachers’ Giving Feedback in Teaching Writing. Peers’ Feedback/ Response in Learning Writing. The writing syllabus of grade 10 students. Description of data collection instruments.
18 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING. Data analysis of teachers’ performances, attitudes and evaluations. Teacher participants’ demography information and teaching experience. Teachers’ perception of teaching English writing as a process.
Teacher participants’ representation of stages in writing teaching. 21 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Teacher participants’ representations in Post writing stage. Teachers’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post writing activities.
Frequency and procedure of using Post- writing activities. Teachers’ evaluation on the importance and effectiveness of Post writing activities. Teachers’ evaluation on the students’ improvement. Data analysis of students’ performances, attitudes and evaluations.
Student participants’ learning experience. Students’ perception of importance of Post- writing activities. Students’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post- writing activities used. Students’ evaluations on their improvement in writing skill.
Students’ perception on factors that affect writing proficiency. Students’ self- assessment on their improvement in writing skill. Students’ presentation of errors in writing papers and their improvement in writing skill. Teacher’s Giving Feedback.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study. 44 APPENDICES Appendix A: Writing Syllabus for Grade 10 Students .I Appendix B: Researcher’s Observations from Class Hours Attended. III Appendix C: Checklists and Error Codes.
XIV Appendix D: Interview Questions and Survey Questionnaire. XVI 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CLT Communicative Language Teaching TESOL Teaching English to Speakers of Foreign Language MOET Ministry of education and training GB2HS Gia Binh 2 High School Cont. Organization P Paper B Before A After 6 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF CHARTS AND TABLES Chart 1: Teachers' frequency of using post writing activities Chart 2: Students' experience of learning English Chart 3: Student participants’ experience of learning English in process Chart 4: Students’ frequency of participating in post writing activities Chart 5: Students’ perception of the importance of Post writing activities Chart 6: The post-writing activities used by respondents Chart 7: Respondents’ evaluation on the most effective activities to students’ writing Chart 8: Respondents’ evaluation on the effectiveness of post-writing activities Chart 9: Students’ perception on the factors affecting writing proficiency Chart 10: Respondents’ evaluation on their improvement in writing Table 1: Student participants’ presentation of errors in writing before and after teachers’ giving feedback Table 2: Students’ writing error presentation of errors before and after peer correction Table 3: Students’ writing error presentation of errors before and after group correction 7 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale As the development of the world; English has, of course, become the official language of human beings and learning English is compulsory in every corner of the earth.
Learning this language effectively means the learners are sufficiently proficient in all its sub- aspects namely reading, speaking, listening and writing skills. Among these skills, teaching how to write English well has been noticed as early as since English was taught. English language teaching methods, in general, and English language writing skill methods, in particular, have changed over time. It's considered the process-oriented pedagogy approach which has permeated the English language teaching and English writing teaching as well over the past twenty years one of the most effective.
The process-oriented approach requires teaching writing regularly with numerous stages namely Pre- Writing, Writing and Post- Writing; in addition, each stage can also contain several sub- stages with different techniques to appropriate writing teaching and learning. Among those stages, it is very clear that we can not control how and what exactly the learners are writing since writing skill as known is a productive skill- each writer with his/ her own imagination and knowledge can bear different products. With the role as an instructor, teachers can only intervene in Pre- writing stage to provide the learners with available vocabulary or suggested ideas and they will start writing more smoothly or in Post- writing stage to help them edit and improve the writing. Since process- oriented approach gained its popularity; each of English skills has been treated the same or taught both separated and integrated with one another.
Especially, thank to the MOET’s policy of textbooks change at high schools in Vietnam in school year 2006- 2007, English skills in general and writing skill in particular have been really taught in process with Pre- writing, writing and Post- writing stages; of which the third one seems worth- asking. What are really happening in this stage? Is it really helping learners acquire the skill? To edit a language product, numerous ways have been introduced including peer reviews, teacher-student conferences, and audio-taped commentary and so on. However, with written ones in real situations of Vietnam, it seems that handwritten corrections with teachers or peers are the most applicable. Gia Binh 2 High School in Bacninh is one like other high schools in Vietnam applying teaching English writing skill in a process as follow the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10, 11, 12” issued by the MOET since at first; therefore, teaching writing skill, in general, and post writing stage, in particular tend to be worth researching.
8 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Last but not least, research on teaching writing skill in general and dealing with students’ written pieces of work in particular in Vietnam has been so rare and books about these are also quite limited. Being one of the teachers who are in charge of, the researcher feels really concerned in investigating the effectiveness of the Post- writing activities applied in her context, Gia Binh 2 high school in improving grade 10 students’ writing skill. Aims of the study This study is intended to measure the effectiveness of Post- writing activities in teaching English language writing skill for the grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh. The study desires to obtain the main following aims: (1) to investigate which Post- writing activities are being used in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh, their frequency and their relations (2) to investigate the teachers and students’ performances in these activities, their attitudes towards each activity and find out the advantages and disadvantages of each Post- writing activity in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh (3) to compare among these activities and evaluate the effectiveness of each and draw out which one is the most beneficial 3.
Scope of the study This study is hoped to carry out within the following scopes: (1) Being a productive skill and processed in stages; teaching writing is such a broad topic that can not be wholly discussed within the framework of this paper. Only one specific and commonly-practiced stage of teaching the skill will be central to the discussion: teaching Post- writing stage (2) Every EFL composition class needs feedback in order to revise their papers successfully. However, the study’s context, Gia Binh 2 High School with more than 2000 is so large area. Therefore, this study will deal with only 89 student participants among the starters- two groups of grade 10 students in school.
Together with these two groups are four teacher participants who are in charge of teaching English for 10 graders in this school. (3) Writing skill needs practicing frequently and, of course, will take much time. Nothing done in process can get the result over night. Therefore, this research will be carried out nearly during the academic year 2010- 2011 along with using the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”.
The result hopes to come to an end in the last of the academic year to propose recommendations to improve the next academic year’s teaching of writing. These points are made clear to the participants in the process of conducting this study so that 9 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com the study can be more feasible and its results more applicable into the real classrooms. As a result, the result of the study will be recommended to apply in teaching writing skill for the grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School, Bacninh and may be for the others, the grade 11 and 12 ones in this school. Research questions With the scopes and the detailed aims as above, this research will be wished to answer the following questions: (1) What are the post- writing activities often used in English writing lessons in grade 10 at Gia Binh 2 High School? (2) What are the 10th form teachers and learners’ attitudes to the post- writing activities applied to teach writing skill at Gia Binh 2 High School? (3) What are the advantages and disadvantages of the post- writing activities used in teaching writing for grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School? (4) Which post- writing activity is the most effective? (as perceived by these teachers and learners?) 5.
Methodology This study’s scopes, aims and hypotheses need to pick the combined approaches. The following approaches will be used to conduct the research: (1) An initial interview is done among the teacher participants to find out which Post- writing activities are being used in writing lessons of grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School. The teachers’ attitudes and techniques in conducting post- writing activities are also expected to be revealed through this interview. Then the follow-up interview is carried out after writing lessons attended by the researcher to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of each post- writing activity in terms of teachers’ opinions.
(2) A survey questionnaire is piloted among grade 10 students at Gia Binh 2 High School to discover their performance in the post- writing activities and their attitudes to these activities. Questionnaire data collection and analysis is also hoped to reveal the learners’ own assessment of each activity.