VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC MAI AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF WRITING PORTFOLIOS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS’ LEARNING AUTONOMY AT ULIS-VNU (Nghiên cứu việc ứng dụng Hồ sơ học viết và mối tương quan với tính tự chủ học tập của sinh viên năm thứ nhất chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 HANOI – 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************** NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC MAI AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE APPLICATION OF WRITING PORTFOLIOS AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FIRST-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORED STUDENTS’ LEARNING AUTONOMY AT ULIS-VNU (Nghiên cứu việc ứng dụng Hồ sơ học viết và mối tương quan với tính tự chủ học tập của sinh viên năm thứ nhất chuyên ngành tiếng Anh tại trường Đại học Ngoại ngữ, Đại học Quốc gia Hà Nội) M. COMBINED PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60140111 Supervisor: Dr. Nguyễn Thuý Nga HANOI – 2017 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION This thesis entitled “An investigation into the application of writing portfolios and its relationship with the first-year English majored students’ learning autonomy at ULIS-VNU” is a presentation of my original research work as the fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi.
Hanoi, 2017 Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Mai i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my teachers, supervisor, my colleagues and friends, without those I would never complete this thesis. Firstly, I would like to express my greatest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thuy Nga. Without her careful guidance and her encouragement, I could not have been able to finish this study.
Secondly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to my respectful professors of the Faculty of Post-Graduate Department at University of Languages and International Studies for their devotion and their interesting lectures, especially Prof. Le Van Canh, who inspired me to research on this field and Dr. Duong Thu Mai, who guided me the very first steps of this thesis. I also want to give my big thanks to the students at University of Languages and International Studies for their participation in this study.
Last but not least, special thanks go to my family and friends who support me during the implementation of study. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT The purpose of this study is to explore students’ perceptions writing portfolios and its relationship with learner autonomy in their writing classes. The participants of the study are 84 English majored students at University of Languages and International Studies (VNU) with English proficiency level A2. A questionnaire survey was scored by the participants to find out their perceptions of applying the portfolio and its impacts on their writing ability.
In addition, an autonomous learner checklist was delivered before and at the end of writing portfolio implementation to investigate students’ levels of autonomy as well as to test whether their levels had been changed under the implementation of portfolios. The results indicated that students are aware of the application of portfolios especially its advantages and benefits. It was also found out that the application of portfolios helps improve students’ level of autonomy. Key words: Portfolio assessment, writing portfolio, student perceptions, learner autonomy iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi LIST OF TABLES .vii LIST OF FIGURES .viii PART A: INTRODUCTION. Rationale of the study.
Aims of the study. Scope of the study. Methods of the study. Significance of the study.
Organization of the study. 3 PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW. Literature review on Portfolios. Assessment in English Language Teaching.
Portfolios as an alternative assessment tool. Approaches to fostering learner autonomy. Fostering learner autonomy in Vietnamese contexts. Previous studies on portfolios as a tool for promoting autonomy.
Setting and participants. 31 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Research paradigm and research instruments. Autonomous learner checklist.
Data collection procedures. The autonomous learner checklist analysis. The relationship between the application of writing portfolio and learner autonomy. Summary of chapter.
53 CHAPTER 3: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION. The application of writing portfolios and its impacts on students’ writing ability. Students’ perceptions on the application of writing portfolios. The impacts of portfolio assessment on writing ability.
The levels of learner autonomy. The relationship between the application of writing portfolios and learner autonomy. Normal distribution test. T-test analysis results.
Summary of the study. The Pedagogical Implication. Limitations to the Study and Suggestions for Further Research. I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT: English Language Teaching ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies LA: Learner Autonomy SPSS: Statistical Package for the Social Sciences vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Dependent and Autonomous learners ………………………… 21 Table 2: Timeline for writing portfolios………………………………… 32 Table 3: Marking rubrics………………………………………….
33 Table 4: Advantages and disadvantages of modes of data collection…. 37 Table 5: Results for pre-portfolio stage section…………………………. 54 Table 6: Results for portfolio stage section……………………………. 57 Table 7: Results for reflection section………………………………….
59 Table 8: Impacts of portfolios assessment on writing ability…………… 63 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 CRADLE: Developmental Scheme for Portfolio Assessment 10 (Gottlieb, 1995) …………………………………………. Figure 2: Results for Pre-portfolio stage……………………………………. 56 Figure 3: Results for Portfolio stage…………………………………………. 58 Figure 4: Results for Reflection……………………………………………….
62 Figure 5: The impacts of portfolio assessment on writing ability…………. 66 Figure 6: Levels of learner autonomy resulting from pre-tests……………. 67 Figure 7: Levels of learner autonomy resulting from post-tests…………… 68 Figure 8: One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test…………………………. 69 Figure 9: Paired Samples Statistics…………………………………………… 71 Figure 10: Paired Samples Correlations……………………………………… 71 Figure 11: Paired Samples Test………………………………………….
72 viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study As written in the history of Vietnam during Chinese invasion and rule, the influence of Confucianism on many aspects of life is undeniable; education is not an exception. In Confucius education, the role of the teacher is on the top, the students are passive followers and are supposed to study under the inclusive control of the teacher. Recently, researchers all over the world in general and in Vietnam in particular have been studying a new trend in education in Western countries, in which they consider students the centre of teaching, and Learner Autonomy (LA) is one aspect of it.
Back in the late 19th C. in England, Anne Isabella Richie, daughter of writer William Makepeace Thackeray once said: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime”. The saying conveys the idea which is widely agreed in education that the role of a teacher is not only teach students a certain subject but also the way to learn other subjects himself/herself. As the world keeps moving forward, people can no longer depend on the knowledge from their own teachers but are encouraged to go ahead and be active in learning.
Researchers in LA have attempted to raise the awareness of learner-centred method and apply it into the teaching of a variety of subjects. In all the subjects, English seems to grasp the most attention. In ULIS-VNU, first-year English-majored students attend general courses of English skills to master their English as well as to improve the skills themselves. According to the syllabus, teachers are supposed to provide instructions, guidance, support and give comments and feedback for the students’ performance.
In addition, each student is required to conduct a portfolio during the course with the instructions of teacher, the feedbacks from the teacher and peers. These requirements are relatively innovative and similar to the idea of fostering LA in many research projects conducted before. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The conditions above inspired me to get myself in “An investigation into the application of writing portfolios and its relationship with the first-year English majored students’ learning autonomy at ULIS-VNU” The research will be done with the interest in discovering how students carry out writing portfolios and testing the actual relationship of writing portfolios and LA which was proved in a number of prior studies. Aims of the study This study mainly focuses on investigating how writing portfolios are applied at ULIS, the level of LA and the relationship between writing portfolios and LA and its relationship on LA from students’ perspective.
From the findings, the researcher expects to share her knowledge accumulated during the implementation of the study to English teachers and teachers-to-be as well as students with the hope that LA will be promoted more commonly by applying writing portfolios. Research questions The researcher aims to answer the following questions during the research: 1. What are the students’ perceptions of writing portfolios implementation and its impacts on writing ability? 2. What are the levels of the first-year students’ learning autonomy? 3.
To what extent do the writing portfolios correlate with learning autonomy? 4. Scope of the study The participants of this study consist of a group of 84 first-year English majored students in ULIS-VNU. The researcher designs an inclusive questionnaire survey to gather needed information. The results of the study may not be generalized to all other similar cases but may give out meaningful figures for researchers and lecturers in this field.
Methods of the study To achieve the above aims, a study is carried out as a survey using mainly quantitative approach for data collection and analysis from different sources. First, a 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com survey questionnaire is carried out on a group of first year English-majored students at ULIS-VNU to investigate their personal actual experiences on writing portfolios. Next, autonomous learner checklist is used to collect data at the beginning and at the end of the course to find out how autonomous the students was and are. Finally, the collected data are computed and analysed using Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) to explore the relationship between the application of writing portfolios and learning autonomy.
Significance of the study The researcher hopes that the findings of the study would help to know the students’ perception of the application of writing portfolios and the level of learner autonomy of the students in ULIS-VNU and the relationship between them. The results of the study would help to better student’s writing portfolios as well as foster their learning autonomy in order to improve English teaching and learning process. Organization of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part A - Introduction Part B – Development Chapter I: Literature review Chapter II: Methodology Chapter III: Results and Discussion Part C – Conclusion 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter reviews theories related to the history of assessment in English language teaching, portfolios as an alternative assessment tool as well as its advantages and challenges. It also takes a look back to the history of learner autonomy in general and its definition, ways to fostering learner’s autonomy and its relationship with writing portfolios in particular.
Last but not least, this chapter summarizes some studies on the relationship between writing portfolios as an assessment tool and learner’s autonomy. Literature review on Portfolios 1.