VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ HỒNG VINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO WRITING STRATEGIES OF 11th GRADE STUDENTS AT HUU LUNG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL, LANG SON. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.0111 Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ HỒNG VINH AN INVESTIGATION INTO WRITING STRATEGIES OF 11th GRADE STUDENTS AT HUU LUNG UPPER SECONDARY SCHOOL, LANG SON. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60.0111 Supervisor: Trần Thị Thu Hiền, Ph.D Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I hereby certify the thesis entitled “An Investigation into writing strategies of 11th grade students at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School, Lang Son” is my own study in the fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi. Hanoi, September 2014 Signature Le Thi Hong Vinh i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS On the completion of this thesis, I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude and deep gratitude to my supervisor, Tran Thi Thu Hien, PhD, who gave me benefits of her wisdom and her expert knowledge in teaching methods as well as her constant encouragement from the beginning stage of working out the research proposal to the final stage of writing up the thesis for her.
Without her valuable suggestions, careful and detailed critical comments, this thesis would not have been fulfilled. My sincere thanks also go to all my grade-11 students and teachers at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School for their assistance during the process of data collection. Also, my appreciation goes to my family and friends for their support whose encouragement and assistance are of extreme importance during the course of my writing. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The present study aimed at exploring writing strategies employed by the eleventh graders at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School (HLUSS).
Participants were eighty eleventh graders identified as successful and unsuccessful writers. The data for the study was gathered utilizing questionnaire and interview. Oxford’s theory (1990) and Petric Czarl’s writing strategy questionnaire (2003) were used to formulate students’ writing strategies. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics and SPSS 16.
The findings of this study revealed that twelve writing strategies were used at the highest degree by eleventh graders at HLUSS in which while-writing ones were most frequently employed. Despite no variation in the frequency of the overall writing strategy use between two parties of writers, several differences were found in the use of individual items. Some implications and suggestions for learning and teaching writing strategies were offered to enhance students’ writing performance. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Tables Page Table 1 Writing strategy use in each stage by students in the writing class.
24 25 Table 2 Overall writing strategies most frequently used. Table 3 Mean and standard deviation of overall writing strategy between 27 successful and unsuccessful students. Table 4 Mean and standard deviation of writing strategy at different 27 stages. Table 5 between successful and unsuccessful students Mean and standard deviation of prewriting strategies used by.
28 Table 6 successful and unsuccessful students Mean and standard deviation of while-writing strategies used by. 29 Table 7 successful and unsuccessful students Mean and standard deviation of revising strategies used by unsuccessful and unsuccessful students. 31 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a foreign language ESL: English as a second language HLUSS: Huu Lung Upper Secondary School LLSs: language learning strategies SD: Standard deviations SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Science WSQ: Writing Strategy Questionnaire v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT Declaration.iii List of table ………………………………………………………………….iv List of abbreviations…………………………………………………………….vi PART A: Introduction……………………………………………………………. Aims of the study.
Method of the study……. Scope of the study……………………………………………………………. Significance of the study. Organizations of the study ……………………………………………….1 Learning language strategies ……………………………………………….1 Definition of learning language strategies……………………….
Classification of learning language strategies………………………. Definition of writing strategy………………………………………. Writing strategy questionnaire…………………………………………9 1. Previous studies on language learning strategies……………………13 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.
Previous studies on writing strategies………………………………14 1. Setting of the study………………………………………………………. Data collection procedure ……………………………………………….23 Chapter 3: Results and Discussion………………………………………………24 3.Writing strategies most frequently used by 11th HL students……24 3. Differences in writing strategy use based on proficiency level…26 3.
Findings and discussions…………………………………………………. Limitations of the study and suggestion further studies…………………….I vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.XIV viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study The crucial role of writing cannot be denied in the language learning process. According to Harmer (2007:112), this productive skill is a practical tool to give learners chances for language utilization they have been studying.
Paradoxically, writing is an extremely difficult skill and poses great challenges for many second or foreign language learners to truly grasp. Because writing is “not an innate skill or potential aptitude, but as a developmental capacity” (Grabe and Kaplan, 1996:151), and a highly complicated process requiring writers to uncover thoughts and ideas, making them concrete and individual (Matsuda, 2003; Westwood, 2004) or a process in which an initial idea in writing task needs refining and expanding by learners (Shaughnessy,1977: 234). However, in approaching writing tasks such as writing a paragraph, a description, a narrative or a letter, students at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School (HLUSS), especially many eleventh graders seem to be more prone to finding solutions to grammar and vocabulary problems, imitating or copying fixed organizational patterns passively and unsuitably rather than analyzing or developing ideas. As a result, they fail to attain writing skills which lead to the burnout and low marks in writing.
There goes an old Chinese proverb that “Teachers open doors, but you must enter by yourself”. When applied to the language teaching and learning, this proverb probably means that teachers should provide their learners with good opportunities to acquire knowledge and the learners should know how to take the initiative to apply that knowledge to their own case to be able to be more successful. Nevertheless, most of the learners little apply and sometimes ignore appropriate writing strategies when they take guidance from their teachers. As Wenden and Rubin (1987) found out that some learners were more successful than others since they used learning strategies more effectively.
Furthermore, Oxford (1990:1) claims 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com that the application of the appropriate learning strategies can lead to improved proficiency and greater self-confidence. This suggests that arousing learners’ awareness of strategy use in learning can improve the learners’ result. Writing strategies have been identified by various researchers in both second and foreign language contexts ( Petric & Czarl 2003; Pham Thu Hien, 2004; Chen , 2011, Maarof & Murat, 2013). Yet, there has not been any practical strategy study conducted to uncover and clarify what strategies HLUSS students actually use in writing.
For all the reasons above, the researcher would like to investigate the use of writing strategies of 11th grade students at HLUSS with the hope to reformulate the writing strategies used by the group, namely “successful writers”, then, apply them to train “unsuccessful writers” to help improve their writing skill. Aims of the study Research hopes to find ways to help students learn to write in English better. Specifically, it aimed to find out what writing strategies are used most frequently by the eleventh graders at HLUSS in their writing tasks in English and to determine whether there were any differences in writing strategies used between successful and unsuccessful students. Research questions The current study attempts to address the following research questions: 1.
What writing strategies are most frequently used by eleventh graders at Huu Lung Upper Secondary School? 2. Are there any differences in the use of writing strategies between successful and unsuccessful students? 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Method of the study To achieve the objectives of the research, the study was conducted by using questionnaire and interview. The questionnaire was used as the major instrument of data collection and interview was employed to confirm more reliable data from the survey questionnaire.
In addition, SPSS software was employed to analyze the data collected from the survey. Scope of the study Concerning the scope of the study, the following issues should be taken into consideration. First, the study relates to writing strategies used by the eleventh graders at HLUSS, Lang Son Province. Second, writing strategies are studied in various writing tasks such as writing a paragraph, a description, a narrative or a letter.
Significance of the study The current study is significant for several following reasons. First, it makes a significant contribution to investigate the writing strategy use of eleventh graders at HLUSS. Second, it clarifies how writing strategies are applied. Finally, many important implications are discussed not only to arouse learners’ awareness of the use of writing tactics and help learners use their writing strategies as effective language learning tools but also to help teachers make sense of their students’ strategy use and share strategies with other learners or ponder their teachers’ future teaching direction in writing.
Organization of the study This thesis consists of three parts, namely introduction, development and conclusion. 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part A is introduction which provides an overview of the study including the rationale, the aims, methods, the scope, the significance and the design of the study. Part B, Development, has three distinguishable chapters. Chapter 1, Literature Review, reviews theoretical background on which the whole study is based concluding terminological definitions and taxonomies of language learning strategies, writing strategy and approaches to teaching writing.
Chapter 2, Methodology, briefly presents the methodological framework of the study. It covers features of the participants, setting of the study, instruments and data collection procedure. Chapter 3, findings and discussion, presents findings and discusses the findings, which gives comprehensive answers to the two research questions. Part C, Conclusion, summarizes significant findings, suggest implications for writing strategy instructions at HLUSS, addresses notable limitations, and puts forward practical suggestions for future research.
4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter discusses the theory and research into the five areas that form the underpinnings for this study. The first section begins with an overview of theoretical issues on terminological definitions and classification systems of language learning strategies. The second section puts forward writing strategies, and writing strategy questionnaire. The third section provides writing approaches in teaching writing.
The fourth section concludes a review of previous studies on LLSs and writing strategies. Finally, the main points are summarized at the end of this chapter 1. Language learning strategies This section puts forward relevant issues of language learning strategies (LLSs) in terms of definition and classification 1. Definition of language learning strategies There are various definitions on language learning strategies given by various researchers and scholars, but this thesis only focuses on definitions by Rubin (1975), Tarone (1983), and Oxford (1990).
Learning strategies are, as Rubin (1975:43) defined, “the techniques or devices which a learner may use to acquire knowledge”. Language learning strategies are, as Oxford (1990:8) defined , “specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier, faster, more enjoyable, more self- directed, more effective, and more transferable to new situations”. 5 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com These strategies seem to share the same characteristics: LLSs are “what students do to assist their learning” (Bremner, 1999:8).Obviously, researchers use these different terms to depict strategies and to explain for their own targets (Bremner, 1999:8).