CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled: DIFFERENTIATED EFFECTS OF REFORMULATION VERSUS RECONSTRUCTION TASKS ON EFL STUDENTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE in terms of the statement of the Requirements for the Theses in Master’s Program issued by the Higher Degree Committee. The thesis has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other institutions. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2016 NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC CHÂU i Tai Lieu Chat Luong RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Chau, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the University relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the Library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the Library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the Library for the care, loan or reproduction of thesis.
Ho Chi Minh City, September 2016 NGUYỄN THỊ NGỌC CHÂU ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express her sincere appreciation and gratitude to those who have advised and assisted throughout this research project. First of all, I send my greatest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Nguyen Thu Huong, for his encouragement and guidance throughout the research. I owe him for his resources and time reading the drafts, helping with the statistical analyses of the data as well as discussing the results with me.
His kind support, explanation, and comments have encouraged me to complete this project. Without his excellent academic guidance and support, my thesis would not have been possible. Secondly, I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to all lecturers in the Ho Chi Minh City Open University who provided me with invaluable sources of knowledge during my study there and all the staff members of the Department of Post Graduate Studies for their help during the course. Especially, I would like to express my great thanks to Dr.
Pham Vu Phi Ho as a devoted counsellor for my class TESOL7 whose advice, support and encouragement are significant to us. Thirdly, I am very grateful to the Board of Directors of Nguyen Quang Dieu Gifted High School for creating all the best conditions for me to take this MA course and finish the thesis. Also, I would like to thank all of my English-majored students from Cohort 4, who took part in this research, for their great efforts to complete various tests and questionnaires. This thesis would not have been completed without their outstanding cooperation.
iii I also would like to acknowledge my colleagues and friends who directly or indirectly contributed to my thesis. My deep gratitude goes to Mr. Nguyen Dang Hoang Duy, for his invaluable supports in sharing the challenges at work so that I could devote time to completing the thesis. I owe my thanks to Mr.
Nguyen Dang Hoang Duy, Mr. Le Xuan Ho, Ms. Mai Hong Ngoc who helped me with grading the post-tests. Finally, I wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my parents, family members whose prayers, love and best wishes were a source of inspiration, encouragement and motivation for me as I was successfully completing this study.
iv ABSTRACT Written communication is an issue that EFL teachers have to address within the setting of internationalization. Genre-based writing instruction has been suggested after some inadequacies have been found concerning the product and process-based approach to writing teaching. Different methods of genre-based writing instruction have been introduced; however, few studies have focused on the effects of the application of reformulation and reconstruction tasks. An experimental study was attempted to find out the differentiated impacts of the two types of tasks on EFL high school students’ writing performance on their attitudes to writing in the light of genre-based writing instruction.
A single group of students with a stratification of three levels of proficiency were conveniently selected to join two phases of the study. The reformulation tasks were introduced in Phase 2, experimental time while reconstruction tasks were implemented in the control time in Phase 1. The quantitative data from the pretest and the post-test of the two phases were analyzed to find out whether or not students made progress over ten weeks in their writing ability. Also, the qualitative data acquired from a questionnaire- based survey after the treatment and students’ written feedback were considered to get more insights into the extent of confidence and challenge experienced by the students when the tasks were applied.
The study shed light into the role of noticing in introducing the different aspects of discourse types (genres) in teaching writing to high school students. v TABLE OF CONTENT CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY. i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. v LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS AND FIGURES.
xii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. xiv CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Background of the Problem. An overview of writing approaches proposed by theorists and practitioners.
Writing Teaching and Curriculum in the Study Setting. Aims of the Study. Significance of the Study. Organization of the Study.
Definition of Terms. 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW. Views and Trends in Teaching Writing. Writing Approaches in the History of L2 Composition Teaching.
Genre-based approach. The concept of genre in the SFL view. The properties of three approaches to genre. Characteristics of genre properties.
The positive and negative sides of the genre-based approach. A comparison of writing approaches. Reconstruction and Reformulation. Properties of “Focus on Form” ( RF) and Focus on Forms (RC).
Studies on RC and RF. Explicit and Implicit Instruction. A distinction between implicit and explicit instruction. An overview of formal instruction from previous studies.
The correlation among implicit and explicit instruction, implicit and explicit learning, implicit and explicit knowledge. The genre-based approach applied in the study. Writing teaching in the study setting. The Sydney School applied in the study setting.
The argumentative essays in the study. The application of genre-based approach to teaching English writing at the study setting. The conceptual framework. Data Types and Methods of data collection.
Writing post-test 1 and post-test 2. Reliability of the questionnaire. Experimental teaching process. Pre-treatment stage.
Speaking-writing activities. Post-treatment stage. A comparison between RC’ s and RF’ s procedures. Methods of analysis.
Analysis of students’ essays.3 Descriptive data analysis of post-tests. Descriptive data analysis of questionnaire. Textual analysis of journals. Scoring for the OPT.
Scoring for writing post-tests. 63 CHAPTER 4: DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION. Results in the writing tests. Statistical analysis of test results among the three groups.
Statistical analysis on group High level during Post-test 1 and Post-test2. Statistical analysis on group Middle level during Post-test 1 and Post-test2. Statistical analysis on group Low level during Post-test 1 and Post-test2. Statistical analysis of test results among the three groups.
Statistical analysis of writing abilities among three groups. High level group. Middle level group. Low level group.
Statistical analyses on three groups’ writing abilities after three tests. Results on the relationship between language proficiency and writing performance. Results from journals and questionnaire. Students’ attitudes toward RC and RF.
Students’ affection, confidence and challenges on RC phase. Students’ keenness and confidence on RC phase. Students’ anxiety and challenges on RC phase. Students’ affection, confidence and challenges on RF phase.
Students’ keenness on RF phase. Students’ confidence on RF phase. Students’ anxiety and challenges on RF phase. Reasons for students’ priority in Reconstruction phase.
Reasons for students’ priority in Reformulation phase. 97 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION OF THE FINDINGS. Findings on research questions. Students’ writing achievement.
The relationship between language proficiency and writing performance. Students’ reflection on the innovation. Findings on writing notification to teaching writing. The “ visibility” of the sample essays in RF tasks.
The role of implicitness in RF tasks. Findings on the innovative roles. New teaching approach. New teacher’s role.
New learners’ role and opportunity. New curriculum designer’s role. 107 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS, LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. Summary of key findings.
Recommendations for further research. 114 APPENDIX 1: MARKING SCALE FOR GRADERS’ EVALUATION. 119 APPENDIX 2: A SUMMARY OF WRITING TASKS AND GENRES INVOLVED. 122 APPENDIX 3A: PROFICIENCY TEST.
124 APPENDIX 3B: PROFICIENCY TEST SCORES. 132 x APPENDIX 4A: POST-TEST 1. 133 APPENDIX 4B: SCORES OF POST-TEST 1. 133 APPENDIX 4B: POST-TEST 2.
134 APPENDIX 4B: SCORES OF POST-TEST 2. 134 APPENDIX 5A: POST-TEST ESSAYS FROM HG. 136 APPENDIX 5B: POST-TESTS FROM MG. 141 APPENDIX 5C: POST-TESTS FROM LG.
159 APPENDIX 7: THE RECAST. 166 APPENDIX 8: IN-CLASS WRITING. 167 APPENDIX 9: CLASSROOM HANDOUTS. 168 xi LIST OF TABLES, CHARTS AND FIGURES TABLES Table 2.1: Imlicit and explicit instruction………………………………………… 27 Table 2.2b: Some characteristics of formal instruction ………………………….3: Typical tasks for investigating two types of learning ……………….4: Group Attribution according to proficiency test scores…………………… 41 Table 3.8a: Structure and aim of the questionaire…………………………………… .9b: Description of Reliability Statistics of the Questionnaire……………… .2: Writing scores in the study…………………………………………… .a: High level group statistics of three test results…………………… .2a: Description of test scores from Middle level among three tests….
Description of test scores from Low level among two tests…… .4a: Description of test results among three groups……………………… 63 Table 4.Description of writing abilities in High-proficiency Group……… 65 Table 4.2: Description of writing abilities in Middle level Group……………… .3: Description of writing abilities in Low level Group………………… .4: Summary of the table and chart on three groups’ writing abilities after three tests …………………………………………………………………………… .10: Correlations on the relationship between port-test 1 and post-test 2… 71 Table 4.1: Pearson correlation coefficient results between proficiency and post-test 2 .2: Spearman correlation coefficient results between proficiency and post-test 2……………………………………………………………………………………… .3: Skewness correlation coefficient results between proficiency and post-test 2………………………………………………………………………………………. Students’ extra classes………………………………………………… .a: Students’ preference for RC and RF…………………………………. Students’ affection, confidence and anxiety towards RC and RF…… .1a: Students’ keenness on RC…………………………………………… 80 Table 4.1b: Students’confidence on RC………………………………………… 80 Table 4.2: Students’ anxiety and challenges on RC phase………………………. Students’ keeness on RF phase……………………………………….
Students’ confidence on RF phase……………………………………. Students’ anxiety and challenges on RF phase……………………… 85 Table 4.5: Reasons for Reconstruction phase……………………………………….6: Reasons for Reformulation phase……………………………………….7: Students’ feedback and recommendation on RC and RF……………… .2: The process wheel proposed by Harmer ……………………………… 12 Figure 2.2a: Types of formal instruction ………………………………………… 28 Figure 2.2: Demonstration of Teaching and learning cycle ……………………… .6: The conceptual framework……………………………………………….3: The Discussion Clock ……………………………………………… .b: High-proficiency group’s writing scores between two post-tests… .2b: Middle-proficiency group’s writing scores between two post-tests… 62 Figure 4.3b: Low-proficiency group’s writing scores between two post-tests…… 63 Figure 4.b: Summary of students’ achievement among three groups ………… .4:Scattergram showing relationships between proficiency and post-test 2 .5: Scattergram showing groups’ performance at proficiency test……… 75 Figure 4.6: Scattergram showing groups’ performance at post-test 2…………… 76 CHARTS Chart 4. Improvements of content ……………………………………………… 68 Chart 4. Improvements of organization ……………………………………….
Improvement of vocabulary ………………………………………… 69 Chart 4. Improvement of language use ………………………………………… 70 Chart 4. Improvements of mechanics………………………………………… .