VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES GIANG THỊ TRANG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF IELTS WRITING TASK 1 IN VIETNAM (Nghiên cứu thăm dò về việc dạy và học luyện thi phần 1 của bài thi viết IELTS ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 60.10 HANOI- 2013 z ii VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES GIANG THỊ TRANG AN EXPLORATORY STUDY ON THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF IELTS WRITING TASK 1 IN VIETNAM (Nghiên cứu thăm dò về việc dạy và học luyện thi phần 1 của bài thi viết IELTS ở Việt Nam) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: Methodology Code: 60. Nguyễn Phương Nga HANOI- 2013 z iii DECLARATION I declare that this minor thesis entitled ―An exploratory study on the teaching and learning of IELTS writing task 1 in Vietnam‖ submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts is the results of my own work and that this thesis does not contain material which has been accepted for the award of any degree or diploma in any university, nor does it contain material previously published or written by any other person, except where due reference is made in the text of the thesis.
Giang Thi Trang z iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I owe a great many thanks to so many people who have supported me all the way throughout my study to this final achievement. It is with deep gratitude that I wish to thank Ms. Nguyen Phuong Nga, Associate Professor, Doctor of Philosophy for her wholehearted guidance, valuable suggestions and academic advice during the course of writing this thesis, without which this work would hardly have been accomplished. I also wish to acknowledge all the staff of the Department of Post-Graduate Studies for giving me assistance and the lecturers who conducted the Master course for me with valuable knowledge.
I would like to extend my deep appreciation to my colleagues and students at EQuest Academy and my classmates who have encouraged me and helped me with the research data. Last, to my family, words are not enough to express my gratitude. I am grateful to my parents, my husband, and my little daughter. Without their help and encouragement, I could not have completed this study.
z v ABSTRACT There is now a growing demand for IELTS preparation courses in Vietnam since more and more undergraduate and graduate students wish to sit for the IELTS test in order to get a scholarship to study abroad or to apply for a job at a foreign company or in some English speaking countries. Writing, especially writing task 1 in the IELTS test has long been considered to be one of the most challenging tasks for the EFL learners. However, it has been taken into less consideration than the other three skills. This study is intended to explore (1) what are taught and learnt in IELTS writing task 1 classes, (2) what difficulties Vietnamese learners have in learning to write IELTS writing task 1, and (3) what recommendations are made for Vietnamese teachers to teach their students to write IELTS writing task 1 as required.
The participants selected for this study were 68 learners from 8 IELTS classes and 17 IELTS writing teachers at EQuest Hanoi. Through survey questionnaires for teachers and learners, the study found out that strategies namely understanding the graph, interpreting the graph, and choosing necessary information from the graph are focused in the lessons of IELTS writing task 1. However, learners have difficulties in interpreting the graph, using various structures in expressing their ideas, and overcoming with anxiety in practicing IELTS writing task 1. It is recommended that teachers’ activities in class should focus on instructing students to interpret the graph, to use various structures in expressing ideas to describe the graph.
Teachers should also check errors for their students’ writings, and provide students with common mistakes to avoid, and exercises on vocabulary and grammatical structures relating to visual information descriptions. z vi Table of contents DECLARATION. Rationale of the study. Aims of the study.
Scope of the study. Significance of the study. Design of the study .5 Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. The writing skill and academic writing skill in English.
What makes writing difficult?. The writing task 1 in IELTS. IELTS writing task 1 research. Affective factors in IELTS learning.
Roles of teachers and learners in IELTS teaching and learning in Vietnam. Context of the study. 19 Chapter 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS. What are taught and learnt in IELTS writing task 1 classes at EQuest.
Students’ difficulties in learning to write task 1 of IELTS writing. Difficult expressions for learners. Common errors among students’ graph-based writings. Teachers’ recommendations and learners’ expectations for teaching focus.
Summary of the study. Implications of the study. Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further study.
I Appendix A: The IELTS 9-band scale. I Appendix B: Writing task 1 band descriptors. II Appendix C: Questionnaire for teachers. III Appendix D: Questionnaire for learners:.
VII z 1 PART 1: INTRODUCTION This part introduces briefly about the study including rationale, aims, scope, significance of the study, methodology used in the study, and design of the study. Rationale of the study IELTS (The International English Language Testing System) is among the most popular and reliable means of English ability assessment with over 1.5 million test takers each year worldwide. (In recent years, the candidature has continued to grow rapidly, with over 2 million tests taken in the twelve months to May 2013.) Indeed, it has been widely used as a minimum or qualifying standard for international enterprises or universities to enroll their potential employees or students with 7,000 organizations in over 130 countries recognize and use IELTS for selection purposes. Therefore, in Vietnam, more and more people irrespective of genders, ages, and occupation are taking the IELTS preparation course in order to get good scores in this test.
During my time teaching IELTS preparation courses, I got my interest in IELTS writing task 1. In IELTS test, writing task 1, in which test takers are required to write a report based on some graphic information provided on the question paper, is very challenging for candidates. IELTS writing task 1 class, therefore, is to help them overcome those difficulties and achieve task requirement. Indeed, my students and I have repeatedly experienced many difficulties in learning and teaching this task, so do my Vietnamese counterparts and their students.
We are always trying to seek effective teaching methods in order to help their learners get as high score as possible in this task. Accordingly, I have a desire to explore the situation of IELTS writing task 1learning and teaching in Vietnam, so much so, actually, that my empirical observations developed into concerns strong enough to carry out this study. There is a fact that in Vietnam there are no state schools which organize courses for IELTS test takers at the moment. In contrast, more and more private centers are founded in order to meet the increasing demand of learning IELTS preparation courses.
EQuest Academy is one of the currently large and prestigious English centers in Vietnam with its headquarter in Hanoi and nearly 20 branches in big cities such as Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh city, Da Nang city, and other regions nationwide. It was established by Vietnamese people to train z 2 English for Vietnamese learners, including English for Specific Purpose Courses, Oversea Study Consulting, International Tests Preparation Courses with its considered-the-most- outstanding-field IELTS, and so on. EQuest is attracting more and more IELTS test takers irrespective of ages, genders, life goals, and so on for its reasonable tuition fee and good quality of courses. The center equips classrooms with modern teaching facilities like computers, projectors, and whiteboards.
Likewise, library is well-equipped with various kinds of books, material, newspapers, magazines and computers connected to the internet. Moreover, there are also two informatics technology rooms with many internet-connected computers, which are often available for students to get access. Equest’s teaching staff were qualified by prestigious universities like University of Languages and International Studies, VNU, Hanoi National University of Education and so on. Besides, lecturers who are teaching at universities and colleges are cooperating as part-time lecturers in here.
The teaching materials are synthesized from a variety of global famous reliable course books and are continuously revised to suit learners’ demand and features around the different regions in the country. For those features, namely, the large number of learners, well- qualified Vietnamese teachers, good condition of equipment and materials, I decided to choose EQuest to be the context for my research. Aims of the study The study aims to explore the situation of teaching and learning IELTS writing task 1 in Vietnam. The focus is on the difficulties faced by Vietnamese learners in learning IELTS writing task 1 and what teachers could do to help their students improve their score in this task corresponding to their ability.
Three research questions will be addressed as follows: 1. What are taught and learnt in IELTS writing task 1 classes at EQuest? 2. What are the difficulties faced by Vietnamese learners in learning to write IELTS writing task 1? 3. What should Vietnamese teachers do to teach their students to write IELTS writing task 1 as required? z 3 3.
Scope of the study Within the limitation of the scope of this study, it is not my ambition to cover all aspects of teaching and learning IELTS writing task 1 in Vietnam. Therefore, learners’ difficulties and teachers’ suggested activities in class to help their students overcome their problems are focused. Also, the intention to investigate all the Equest’s houses around the country is not so feasible for many obstacles namely time, distance, expense and so on, the subjects of this study are learners of IELTS writing courses in Hanoi and teachers teaching IELTS writing task for those learners at EQuest Hanoi. Significance of the study There are many different types of difficulties of learners when learning IELTS writing task 1; however, due to the limitation of time and the scope of the study, this paper aims to explore the most common difficulties during the process of teaching and learning of IELTS writing task 1.
The study conducts an insightful analysis of those difficulties so as to find out the causes and to identify suitable solutions of in class activities to help learners deal with those difficulties as suggested by participants. Methodology In order to answer the three research questions, this study involves both qualitative and quantitative methodologies; specifically, it conducts document analysis and survey questionnaires. The documents are relevant researches on academic writing, writing based on graph, and especially IELTS writing task 1 as well as difficulties experienced by EFL and ESL learners. The sample of the survey questionnaires consisted of Vietnamese teachers and learners from 10 branches of EQuest in Hanoi.
The detail of the methodology applied in the study is discussed in Chapter 2 of Part II. Design of the study The study consists of three parts: Introduction, Development, and Conclusion. Part 1 is Introduction which presents the rationale, the aims, the scope, the significance, the methodology, and the design of the study. The second part is Development which includes three chapters: Chapter 1, Literature review, deals with the theoretical background of the study relating to writing skill and IELTS writing task 1.
Chapter 2, Methodology, presents methodology of the study including data collection procedure and data analysis. Chapter 3, z 4 Results and discussion, states the findings from the study and discusses some recommendations.