VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ HƯƠNG HOA STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES AT NGÔ QUYỀN HIGH SCHOOL NHẬN THỨC VÀ THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT NGÔ QUYỀN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRƯỚC KHI VIẾT M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. 10 Hanoi, 2011 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES ĐỖ THỊ HƯƠNG HOA STUDENTS’ PERCEPTION AND ATTITUDES TOWARDS PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES AT NGÔ QUYỀN HIGH SCHOOL NHẬN THỨC VÀ THÁI ĐỘ CỦA HỌC SINH TRƯỜNG THPT NGÔ QUYỀN ĐỐI VỚI CÁC HOẠT ĐỘNG TRƯỚC KHI VIẾT M.A MINOR THESIS Field: English Teaching Methodology Code: 60. NGUYỄN HUY KỶ Hanoi, 2011 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com iii TABLE OF CONTENTS CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT i ACKNOWLEGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii LIST OF TABLES AND CHARTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS v PART 1. Rationale of the study 1 2.
Objectives of the study 2 3. Research questions of the study 2 4. Methods of the study 2 5. Scope of the study 3 6.
Significance of the study 3 7. Design of the study 3 PART 2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 4 1. Learner beliefs, perception and attitudes towards language learning 4 1.
Definition of beliefs, perceptions and attitudes 4 1. Studies on learners’ beliefs, perception and attitudes 5 1. What is writing? 7 1. Product approach to teaching writing 7 1.
Process approach to teaching writing 8 1. Pre-writing stage and pre-writing activities 9 1. Some common pre-writing activities at high school 10 1. Benefits of pre-writing activities 13 1.
A warning about implementing pre-writing activities 14 1. Previous researches on pre-writing activities 15 1. Summary 16 CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY 17 2.1 The context of the study 17 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The “ Tiếng Anh 11” textbook 17 2.
The reality of teaching and learning writing skill at Ngô Quyền High School.5 Summary 22 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 23 3. Data analysis from students’ questionnaire 23 3. Data analysis from teachers’ and students’ interview 31 3. Summary 36 PART III.
Implications and suggestions for effective pre-writing activities 37 3. Limitations of the study 41 4. Recommendations for further study 41 REFERENCES 42 APPENDICE I TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Hanoi vi LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Page Figure 1 : Students’ attitudes towards writing skill 23 Figure 2 : Students’ most difficult stage in writing 24 Figure 3: Students’ perceptions of the importance of pre-writing activities 25 Table 1: Students’ assessments of some common pre-writing provided by their 26 teacher Figure 4: Students’ attitudes towards pre-writing activities 27 Table 2: Students’ participation in pre-writing activities 28 Table 3: Students’ most favored activity 28 Table 4: Students’ preferences for participating in the pre-writing activities 29 Table 5: Students’ perceptions of the benefits of pre-writing activities 30 Table 6: Students’ dissatisfactions when participating in pre-writing activities 30 (LUAN.Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Hanoi vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language ELT: English Language Teaching IT : Information Technology MOET: Ministry of Education and Training (LUAN.Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Rationale for the study Writing is an essential skill in both the first language and second language.
It is a means of expressing thoughts in a planned and organized way. However, due to its complexity and high requirement of linguistic means, it is considered the most difficult language skill to master. Regarding the context of Ngô Quyền High School in Hoa Binh, it is a noticeable that the writing lesson is the most challenging one to both the teachers and the students. Rarely do the teachers choose the writing lessons to perform their teaching practice for colleagues‟ evaluation due to the high risk of failure.
The students suffer from a certain amount of anxiety when they have to deal with a writing task. In writing lessons, they usually complain that they have nothing to write, the writing tasks are too difficult for them, they have too little time to complete their writings but do not recognize the problem is a lack of preparation. This is one reason why the discussion section of a pre-writing activity is so important for ESL students. Do the students perform pre-writing in reality? Normally, when doing a writing task, they often think in Vietnamese then translate into English, they ignore pre-writing stage and begin writing immediately, and employ pre-writing strategies only when being asked by the teacher.
Why so? Why they are not enthusiastic about these activities? Pre-writing activities are essential if the teachers want to help their students become better writers, help them feel more motivated and self-confident in writing lessons. However whether these activities effective or not depends much on students themselves. Research into students' perception and attitudes towards pre-writing activities can add to the growing body of knowledge about teaching writing skill and contribute valuable data that can be used to inform decisions regarding the implementation and exploitation of these activities. What do the students at Ngô Quyền High School perceive the pre-writing activities provided by their teacher, how do they response with these? What are the implications for the teachers in teaching writing skill? These questions have drawn my interest in carrying out the current research which focuses on the investigation of the students‟ perception and attitudes towards pre-writing activities at Ngô Quyền High School.Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.
Objectives of the study This study aims at exploring Ngô Quyền High School students‟ perception and attitudes towards pre-writing activities. Some pre-writing activities are proposed and evaluated by students with a view to giving some recommendations on how to design effective pre-writing activities. The specific objectives of the research are as follows: Investigating what the students at Ngô Quyền High School perceive of pre- writing activities in writing lessons Exploring their attitudes towards pre-writing activities Giving some suggestions to increase the effectiveness of pre-writing activities to the students at Ngô Quyền High School. Research questions of the study To achieve the objectives of the study, the thesis is designed to answer the following questions: 1.
How do the students at Ngô Quyền High School perceive pre-writing activities provided by the teachers? 2. What attitudes towards pre-writing activities do they hold? 3. What are the students’ preferences for pre-writing activities? 4. Methods of the study This is a survey research.
To seek answers to the above research questions, a survey questionnaire was used. Mile and Huberman (1994: 253) state three good reasons for resorting to numbers: “to see rapidly what you have in a large batch of data; to verify a hunch or hypothesis; to keep yourself analytically honest, protecting against bias”. Moreover, using questionnaires in research may help participants approach the problem more easily. For the reasons mentioned above, the survey research seems to be the most suitable for the scope and objectives of my study.
However, this method has its own limitation, that is, the results collected may not reflect the matter proposed precisely. In order to reduce the invalidity and unreliability, the author will give clear instructions to the students; observe the class to make sure that the students answer each question themselves; or ask students to check their answers.Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Scope of the study Due to the time and length constraint of the study, the author only focuses on surveying 11th form students at Ngô Quyền high school to find out their perception of pre- writing activities in terms of the importance and benefits, their preferences and attitudes towards these activities in writing lessons. Although the author is well aware that the survey statistics are not fully representative of all high school students studying English in Hoa Binh, she hopes to propose some of the most popular facts that occur in this study.
Significance of the study Pedagogically, the findings and comments of the study are believed to be relevant to improving the teaching of writing to the students. The study may help teachers make their writing lessons more effective so that they can help their students develop writing skill as well as other language skills. Design of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part One - Introduction- provides the overview of the study with the rationale, the objectives, the research questions, the methods, the scope, the significance and the design of the study. Part Two- Development- includes 3 chapters in which chapter 1 deals with the literature review relevant to the study; Chapter 2 describes the setting of the study and how the study is carried out, and Chapter 3 presents the data analysis and discussion.
Part Three- Conclusion- reviews what has been presented in the study and suggests some implications for improving the effectiveness of pre-writing activities.Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter reviews theories related to writing skill and pre-writing activities, students‟ perception and attitudes towards language learning which can be applied in the teaching of writing. It also reviews current researches on students‟ perception and attitudes in this issue and summarizes some related studies that have been conducted so far. All of these serve as a basis for seeking insight into students‟ perception and attitudes about writing lessons employing pre-writing activities and their reflected effectiveness.
Learner beliefs, perception and attitudes towards language learning Learners‟ success in language learning depends much on their perception and attitudes towards learning a foreign language. Perception and attitudes shape beliefs and are influenced by beliefs. To understand more about this, an overview of learner beliefs, perception and attitudes is necessary. Definition of beliefs, perception and attitudes There are many definitions of beliefs, perception and attitudes.
Most often, researchers adopt definitions that suit the purposes of their own empirical frameworks and reflect personal ideological viewpoints. In this thesis, the author will quote the following ones because they are simple but comprehensive and she will conduct the study on this theoretical background. Belief: According to Oxford Advanced Learner‟s Dictionary, belief is defined as a thing that one accepts as true or real. Another definition of belief provided by Horwitz (1987) is a statement that is held to be true, that affects language learning practices.
Perception: According to Lindsay & Norman (1997) perception is the process by which organisms interpret and organize sensation to produce a meaningful experience of` the world. Sensation usually refers to the immediate, relatively unprocessed result of stimulation of sensory receptors in the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, or skin. Perception, on the other hand, better describes one‟s ultimate experience of the world and typically involves further processing of sensory input. In practice, sensation and perception are virtually impossible to separate, because they are part (LUAN.Hanoi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.Hanoi 5 of one continuous process.
Thus, perception in humans describes the process whereby sensory stimulation is translated into organized experience. Attitude: Bem (1970) simply defines that "attitudes are likes and dislikes". According to Eagly & Chaiken (1993), "Attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of favor or disfavor." For recent years, foreign language teaching and learning have shifted from teacher directed instruction to student- centred learning. Therefore many researchers have raised their interest in learners‟ perspectives.
Numerous studies related to teaching methodology have been carried out from learners‟ perspective because learners are the key figures in teaching and learning process. Leaner perception and attitudes not only influence their approaches to language learning but also affect the way they respond to the teaching activities. If learners feel dissatisfied with the teaching method, they will lose their motivation in learning language. According to Horwitz (1987), some students prefer having more free conversations rather than pattern drills while some other students insist on their teacher‟s correction.