VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* PHẠM THỊ VIỆT HÀ DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PERSONALIZATION ACTIVITIES: ACTION RESEARCH AT THÁI NGUYÊN MEDICAL COLLEGE (Phát triển Kỹ năng Viết cho Sinh viên thông qua các Hoạt động Cá nhân hóa: Nghiên cứu Hành động tại Trường Cao đẳng Y tế Thái Nguyên) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************* PHẠM THỊ VIỆT HÀ DEVELOPING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PERSONALIZATION ACTIVITIES: ACTION RESEARCH AT THÁI NGUYÊN MEDICAL COLLEGE (Phát triển Kỹ năng Viết cho Sinh viên thông qua các Hoạt động Cá nhân hóa: Nghiên cứu Hành động tại Trường Cao đẳng Y tế Thái Nguyên) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD: ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: NGÔ TỰ LẬP, PhD. Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION OF ORIGINALITY I certify that this minor thesis entitled “Developing students’ Writing Skills through Personalization Activities: Action Research at TMC” is the result of my own work for the Degree of Master of Arts at University of Foreign Languages, Vietnam National University, Hanoi and that this thesis has not been submitted to any other tertiary institution. Signature Phạm Thị Việt Hà i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincerest thanks and appreciation to those who have supported me in completing the thesis. First and foremost, I am grateful to Dr.
Ngô Tự Lập for his valuable guidance and advice. He inspired me greatly to work on this topic. His willingness to help and answer my questions has contributed enormously to my study results. I am in debt to Dr.
Lê Hùng Tiến and the staff members of the Post-graduate Department, and all the lecturers at ULIS, Vietnam National University, Hanoi for their precious lectures, which provided me with scientific knowledge useful to my study. I also would like to thank the Board of Rectors and my colleagues in Foreign Language Faculty at Thái Nguyên Medical College for helping me conduct the research. My special thank is to all the students of class CD7A4 for joining in my research. Finally, an honorable mention goes to my beloved husband Nguyễn Quốc Huy, my kids Giang and Việt, and my friends for their encouraging and supporting me in completing the thesis.
ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT In the trend of globalization, English is increasingly becoming an important tool for international communication. Therefore, developing students’ communicative competence in English is vital for their current study and future jobs. However, in the author’s teaching practice process, the author finds that the students often have problems with writing skill. In general, their writing skill is poor.
There are various reasons for this fact. However, an important reason is that the teaching activities and writing topics are not related and relevant to the students. In other words, they do not match with the students’ personal factors and background. In solving this problem, the author believes that personalization activities can help develop the students’ writing skill.
The author conducted action research on 54 students from a class at Thái Nguyên Medical College during two months in the second semester. The aim of the research is to find out whether using PA can help develop students’ writing skill. Personalization activities were implemented in four writing lessons. After that, the students’ opinions were collected through a questionnaire survey and analyzed.
The result of the research revealed that using PA did help improve writing skill of students at Thái Nguyên Medical College. However, the use of PA needs to be flexible and careful under certain control and in combination with other teaching methods in order to make writing lessons more effective. iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS - ELT: English language teaching - N: Number of students - PAs: Personalization Activities - SLA: Second Language Acquisition - TMC: Thái Nguyên Medical College iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Students’ time of learning English. 18 Table 2: Students’ attitudes towards writing skill.
18 Table 3: Students’ freedom of writing topic choice. 19 Table 4: Students’ difficulties in writing topics assigned by teachers. 20 Table 5: The students’ biggest difficulties in writing. 20 Table 6: The students’ opinions about the importance of interests in writing.
21 Table 7: Students’ needs of personalization activities. 21 Table 8: Students’ motivation in personalized writing class. 24 Table 9: Students’ self-estimation about their performance in personalized writing class. 24 Table 10: Advantages of personalized writing class for students.
25 Table 11: Students’ opinions about personalization of practicing forms. 26 Table 12: Students’ difficulties in personalized writing class. 27 Table 13: Students’ feelings towards in-class discussion on their viewpoints. 28 Table 14: Students’ opinions about grading basing on students’ language competence.
29 Table 15: Students’ opinions about continuing using PAs. 29 v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements. ii List of abbreviations. iv List of charts, figures and tables.
v Table of contents. vi PART A: INTRODUCTION. Aims of the study. Scope of the study.
Method of the study. Design of the study. 4 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND. Why teaching writing skill?.
Changes teaching writing skill. Learner factors in second language teaching. The importance of personalization activities in teaching English as a second language. The benefits of personalization activities in developing students’ writing skill.
Definition of action research. The main characteristics of action research. Action research procedure. 11 CHAPTER 2: THE ACTION RESEARCH ON TEACHING WRITING WITH PERSONALIZATION ACTIVITIES.
The research questions. 13 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. The setting of the research. Data collection and analyzing instruments.
Action research procedure. Before the intervention with PAs. Implementing personalization activities. Data analyzing stage.
Reflecting stage: Findings and Discussion. Recapitulation and conclusion. Limitations Suggestions for further study. PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT Ý KIẾN SINH VIÊN VỀ KỸ NĂNG VIẾT.
PHIẾU KHẢO SÁT Ý KIẾN SINH VIÊN VỀ VIỆC SỬ DỤNG HOẠT ĐỘNG CÁ NHÂN HÓA TRONG GIỜ HỌC VIẾT. TABLE OF WRITING LESSONS USING PERSONALIZATION ACTIVITIES. SAMPLE LESSON PLANS WITH PERSONALIZATION ACTIVITIES.VIII vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale English has been considered as a necessary and effective tool for global integration and it has been brought into teaching in almost every nation throughout the world.
In Vietnam, foreign languages, especially English, have been considered as a major subject. This was affirmed for the first time in the Prime Minister’s Decision numbered 251-TTg in 1972. The importance of English is once again stated in Laws of Education in 1998. Therefore, teaching English has received a great deal of attention in schools and educational institutions.
Among the four language skills (listening, reading, speaking and writing), writing is often considered as a necessary but challenging skill by many learners. Writing skill helps to transmit messages among people. It can be considered as the most effective tool to save information. Also, in learning language, writing is an interactive skill to other skills – speaking, listening and reading - for instance, taking notes while listening, noting down information while reading, or presenting the outline of a speech.
In the long term, writing skill serves a wide range of functions for the language user like writing an application form, reports, journals. Therefore, learning to write is always necessary to learners both for their study and working process. However, at Thái Nguyên Medical College (TMC), where all the students are non- English majors, the instruction of writing skill appears not very effective. One of the most important reasons is that writing topics and activities are often designed for all the students without or with very little attention to learner factors and differences among them.
This practice, sometimes called “one-size-fits-all” approach, seems not to encourage learners to participate actively into the teaching and learning activities. Generally, their writing test results are poor. Moreover, communication is a process which occurs between individuals who are different in their aptitudes, interests, learning styles, beliefs, backgrounds, and so on; and when students are allowed to write something about themselves or to do something that they think they can they will do it to their best. Therefore, finding writing activities which account for learner differences and can motivate the students to participate actively in the learning is really necessary.
Implementing personalization activities in writing lessons may be the solution to the problem. 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com For all the above reasons, the author decided to carry out an action research entitled “Developing Students’ Writing Skills through Personalization Activities: Action Research at Thái Nguyên Medical College” with the hope that it might be helpful to both teachers and students in teaching and learning writing. Aims of the study This research was carried out in order to: investigate into the students’ needs, attitudes, and difficulties in learning writing. explore the effects of using personalization activities to develop their writing skill.
provide some suggestions and implications for teaching writing. Research questions: The research is an attempt to answer to the following questions: - What are the students’ needs, attitudes, and difficulties in learning writing at TMC? - How much do personalization activities help develop students’ writing skill? - What are the implications for teaching writing skill in general? 4. Scope of the study: Due to the limitation of time and materials, this minor study focuses only on using personalization activities for teaching writing skill to Thái Nguyên Medical College first- year students at elementary English level. At this level, writing tasks include composing paragraphs and small essays on general topics such as daily life, hobbies, describing places, etc.
This study does not deal with writing at an advanced level or for specific purposes which are beyond the scope of the English course at the college in study. Method To find out whether using PA can develop students’ writing skill, the author of the study decides to carry out action research on 54 students at TMC. According to Corey (1952,1953), action research is as “a way in which teachers try to study their own problems scientifically, in an effort to evaluate, guide and correct their procedures”. As Tsui (1993) puts it: “Action research is a very effective way of helping 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com teachers to reflect on their teaching and to come up with their own alternatives to improve their practice”.
With the mentioned definitions of action research, using this method is suitable to achieve the aim of the study. * Data collection instruments: For data collection the following instruments are used: - Class attendance and observation - Questionnaires * Data analysis method: both quantitative and qualitative methods are used. Design of the study This minor thesis is composed of three main parts as follows: Part A – Introduction: introduces the information on the background, rationale, the aims, scope, research method and design of the study. Part B – Development: includes three chapters.
Chapter 1 - “Literature Review and Theoretical Background” presents a general review of works on the topic and theoretical background of the study. Chapter 2 – “Methodology and the action research on teaching writing skill with personalization activities” introduces the setting, participants, methodology, research instruments and procedure, findings and discussion on the findings.