DINH THI NGOC THUY MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DINH THI NGOC THUY USING A GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO TEACHING MA THESIS IN EDUCATION WRITING TO GRADE-11 NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT QUANG BINH HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED MA THESIS IN EDUCATION HUE, 2011 HUE, 2011 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DINH THI NGOC THUY USING A GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO TEACHING WRITING TO GRADE-11 NON-ENGLISH MAJOR STUDENTS AT QUANG BINH HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE GIFTED FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: Assoc. TRUONG VIEN HUE, 2011 BÄÜ GIAÏO DUÛC VAÐ ÂAÐO TAÛO ÂAÛI HOÜC HUÃÚ ÂAÛI HOÜC NGOAÛI NGÆÎ ÂINH THË NGOÜC THUÏY SÆÍ DUÛNG PHÆÅNG PHAÏP DÆÛA VAÐO THÃØ LOAÛI VÀN BAÍN TRONG VIÃÛC DAÛY KYÎ NÀNG VIÃÚT CHO HOÜC SINH KHÄNG CHUYÃN MÄN TIÃÚNG ANH KHÄÚI 11 TAÛI TRÆÅÐNG TRUNG HOÜC PHÄÚ THÄNG CHUYÃN QUAÍNG BÆNH CHUYÃN NGAÐNH: LYÏ LUÁÛN VAÐ PHÆÅNG PHAÏP DAÛY HOÜC MÄN TIÃÚNG ANH MAÎ SÄÚ: 60.10 NGÆÅÐI HÆÅÏNG DÁÜN KHOA HOÜC PGS. TRÆÅNG VIÃN HUE, 2011 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify that this thesis entitled Using a genre-based approach to tezaching writing to grade 11 non-English major students in Quang Binh High School for the Gifted is my original work. The thesis contains no material which has been submitted for any degree in any other institution.
The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true with the permission from the participants and have not been published elsewhere. Author Đinh Thị Ngọc Thúy My thesis owes its accomplishment to a number of people. Without their support and involvement, this thesis would not have been completed. I am deeply indebted to Associate Professor, Dr.
Truong Vien, my supervisor, for his enthusiastic guidance, continuous support and critical comment. He was not only my supervisor but also my lecturer through whom I was introduced to Social Package for Statistic Sciences to achieve precise quantitative results. I would like to express my gratitude to Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Van Phuoc for his valuable suggestions in helping me with the choice of the title of this thesis.
I would like to advance my special thanks to Dr. Truong Bach Le for his patience and assistance in the process of editing the thesis and providing me with materials related to my thesis. I am greatly thankful to Dr. Le Pham Hoai Huong for her suggestions, encouragements and being always there when I needed.
I am grateful to my friends, Arnoul Steeman and Moana Taofifenua for their generous contributions to proofreading and editing the thesis. I would like to particularly thank the Board of Director and the teachers of English group at Quang Binh High School for the Gifted for helping me during the time I attended the MA course and throughout the process of the study. I would like to thank 35 students of Math class of grade 11 who seriously did the writing tests and participated in the interviews. A grateful expression of appreciation was due to my husband, Ngoan and my son, Dang for their understanding, encouragement and living with the mess around while I was writing my thesis.
Finally, I would like to express my thanks to my parents and siblings for their patience and unlimited support. TABLE OF CONTENTS Contents Pages STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS .1 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.3 LIST OF TABLES .5 LIST OF CHARTS .6 LIST OF FIGURES. Background to the research. Aims of the research.
Significance of the research. Organization of the research .11 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Overview of genre-based approach-related factors. What is context ?.
The relationship between context and text. Notions of genres. Genre-based approaches to teaching writing. Definitions of genre-based approaches.
The principles of the genre- based approach to teaching writing. The process of language learning in the genre- based approach. Genre teaching models. The comparison between the SFL genre-based approach and the process approach.
The characteristics of the process approach. The genre-based approach versus the process approach. Reviews of the previous studies. The issues of teaching writing in Vietnamese high schools and Tieng Anh 11 textbook.
Lack of socio- cultural contexts in teaching writing in Vietnamese high schools. Writing lessons in Tieng Anh 11. Assessing writing performance. Rating scales for writing assessment .33 CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY.
Tests on English writing. Data collection and analysis. The pre-test and the post-test of writing performance. The treatment phase .42 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION.
Teachers’ perceptions of using genre-based approach to teaching writing. The importance of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing. Teachers’ understanding of genre-based writing activities. Understanding notions of genre.
The benefits of model texts and scaffoldings for teaching writing. For learners’ writing performance. Mean score of teachers’ understanding of the contents of genre-based writing instructions. Teachers’ opinions about the stages of genre-based teaching model.
For teaching writing. For students’ learning style. Mean score for teachers’ opinions about the stages of the genre-based teaching model. The challenges of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing.
From learners’ learning style. Mean score of teachers’ perceptions of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing. The improvement of students’ writing performance. The improvement of students’ writing performance by comparison of the mean scores in the pretest and the posttest.
Comparison of the mean scores of writing performance in the pretest and posttest. Correlation between the results of the pretest and the posttest .80 CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. The limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies .86 3 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ELT : English Language Teaching EFL : English as a Foreign Language ESL : English as a Second Language L1 : First Language L2 : Second Language MOET: Ministry of Education and Training SFL : Systemic Functional Linguistics 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 1.1: A comparison of the genre and process orientations .2: Summary of writing genres in Tieng Anh 11 .1: The phases of collecting data .1: The importance of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing .2: The mean score of the importance of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing .3: Teachers’ understanding of notions of genre .4: The benefits of model texts and scaffoldings for teaching writing .5: A genre-based approach to improving learners’ writing performance .6: Mean score of teachers’ understanding of the contents of genre-based writing instructions.7 Teachers’ opinions about the stages of the genre-based teaching model .8: Teachers’ general opinions about the stages of the genre-based teaching model for students’ access to writing .9: Mean score for teachers’ opinions about the stages of the genre-based teaching model .10: The challenges of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing .11: Data description of the challenges of using a genre-based teaching from learners’ learning style .12: Mean score of challenges in using a genre-based approach to teaching writing .13: Mean score of the questionnaire on teachers’ perceptions of using a genre- based approach to teaching writing .14: Descriptive Statistics of the mean score of writing performance in the pretest and the posttest .15: The paired t- test to compare the difference between the mean scores of the pretest and the posttest .16: The result of the paired t-test obtained using a calculated different variable .17: The test results for the difference between the means of the pretest and the posttest .18: The correlation between the results of the pretest and the posttest .19: Presentation of students’ profiles before and after the tests .74 LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4.1: Students’ mean scores of the pretest and the posttest .73 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1: The relationship between context and text .16 6 ABSTRACT According to many teachers of English, of the four skills in teaching English to non- English major students, writing skill is considered the most difficult.
This skill requires learners partly to manipulate a variety of aspects of a language; such as wording, syntax, lexicology, coherence, context and so forth, and partly to understand characteristics of typical texts. A genre-based approach to teaching writing has attracted a number of the researchers around the corner of the world. Therefore, the interest in trying out an approach based on systemic functional linguistic theory developed by Halliday (1985) has been driven on a dual purpose. The first is to measure teachers’ perceptions of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing.
The second is to find out whether or not students’ writing abilities improve through the application of the approach. The data were collected from three research instruments: questionnaires, interviews, English writing tests. The participants in the research were 10 teachers of English and 35 students of a class in Quang Binh High School for the Gifted. Ten questionnaires were delivered to teachers to investigate their perceptions of using a genre-based approach to teaching writing.
The writing tests were implemented on 35 students prior to and upon the 16-week treatment phase. The findings and discussion indicated that all the teachers’ perceptions were ositive towards the use of the genre-based approach. Students’ writing performance also improved in light of the genre-based approach. Nevertheless, applying this approach meant that teachers were faced with a number of challenges, such as time limitations, choice of relevant model texts, lack of knowledge of socio-cultural features and learners’ learning style.
In addition, not all of the students in the research improved their writing competence. Overview This chapter begins by presenting the background and aims for the research. These are followed by the research questions, the research scope, the significance of the research as well as the organization of the research. Background to the research The implementation of a new series of communicatively-based textbooks for high school students in Vietnam has ushered a new era for teaching English, the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing are now included in the curriculum, putting an end to the focus on only reading skill which existed for a long time.
Among the four skills, writing is claimed to be challenging for teachers and students to gain expected results in learning English. The teaching of writing is construed by Harris (1993, p.xiii) and Tricia (1999, p. 5) as “a vast and complex subject” because it is related to matters beyond the constraints of words, sentence-based expressions, grammar and organization principles. Sharing the same ideas with these authors, Richards (1990), Nunan (2003), and Tangpermpoon (2008) point out that English writing is considered the most difficult and demanding skill to master.
Therefore, in order to have a good command of English writing, students are required to have a certain amount of second language background knowledge that includes not only structures, organizations and rhetorical choice but also layout and style with which they can fulfill their purpose of communicating with readers. To meet the requirements of English writing, students in Vietnam have to undergo a process in which they get used to a variety of writing genres and cultivate skills to deal with writing tasks inside classrooms, assimilate what they have learned and put it into practice outside classrooms. Therefore, Pincas, Gillian & Hadfield, (1986, p. 5) advocate “the teaching of functional writing” which is not purely related to writing activities, but highlights the functions of language in every piece of writing.
As far as teaching English in the Vietnamese context is concerned, the 8 skill of writing was neglected due to its exclusion in old versions of high school textbooks. In addition, writing is incorporated explicitly in tests. The objectives of new versions of English text books which are to shift students from language forms to language use virtually innovate teaching methodologies and learning styles in high school.