VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ******************************** NGUYỄN THỊ TÂM THE IMPACT OF COLLABORATIVE WRITING ON 11TH STUDENTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE (TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA VIẾT HỢP TÁC TỚI KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE : 60.111 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 ******************************** NGUYỄN THỊ TÂM THE IMPACT OF COLLABORATIVE WRITING ON 11TH STUDENTS’ WRITING PERFORMANCE (TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA VIẾT HỢP TÁC TỚI KỸ NĂNG VIẾT CỦA HỌC SINH LỚP 11) M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS FIELD : ENGLISH TEACHING METHODOLOGY CODE : 60. HOANG THI HANH Hanoi, 2014 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com DECLARATION I, Nguyen Thi Tam, hereby certify that my M.A thesis entitled “The impact of collaborative writing on 11th students’ writing performance” is the result of my own research in the fulfillment of the requirement for Degree of Master of Arts at the Faculty of Post Graduate Studies – University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi. I commit that this thesis has not been submitted anywhere for any degree. Hanoi, 2014 Nguyễn Thị Tâm i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENT First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Dr.
Hoang Thi Hanh, for her invaluable inspiration, assistance, guidance and encouragement during the time I have tried to complete this thesis. She has been willing to give help and advice whenever I expect. I wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere thanks to all lectures and the staff of Department of Post Graduate Studies at University of Languages and International Studies, Hanoi for their interesting and helpful lectures and suggestions for the topic of my study. I am in debt of many authors’ works and ideas which enhance me to complete my study with sharp evidences.
My appreciation and gratitude are also extended for the teachers and students at Que Vo No.1 High School, Bac Ninh province, who participated in my research Last but not least, I wish to express special thanks to my husband and my beloveds for their unconditional help and encouragement. ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT This study was carried out to investigate the impacts of and students’ attitudes toward collaborative writing (CW) in second language (L2). The study was conducted in two cycles following the procedures of the action research. In the first cycle, an interview with eight students and a teacher of English was administered to gain information about the difficulties the students had encountered with in completing the writing tasks in the textbook.
Then in the second phase, the collaborative writing approach was experimented to teach writing to forty students in an intact class. During the writing lesson, a teacher was invited to observe and give comment about appropriateness of CW. After each lesson students’ journals were collected to examine their reflections on collaborative writing. At the end of the experiment, another interview with the observing teacher was carried out to find out the usefulness and appropriateness of collaborative writing in teaching writing skill.
Students’ writings were also analysed to measure the impact of the treatment upon students’ writing. The results showed that students did make progress in their writing. The observing teacher and most students were positive about the experience, although some reservations were expressed about collaborative writing, which gives rationale for the design of the next cycle of the action research iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CW: Collaborative writing C/T: clauses per T-unit. EFC: error -free clauses EFT: error- free T-units W/T: words per T-unit W/C: words per Clause EFT/T: error- free T-units per T-unit EFC/C: error –free clauses per clause iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 2.1: Writing tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11 Figure 3.1: Comparison of Writing Fluency ( No of words, No of T-units, No of Clauses) Figure 3.2: Comparison of Writing Fluency (words per T-unit, words per clause) Figure 3.3: Comparison of Writing Accuracy Figure 3.4: Comparison of writing complexity v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENT DECLARATION ……………………………………………………….iii TABLE OF CONTENT……………………………………….iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS……………………………….……………………vii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES……………………….viii PART A: INTRODUCTION …………………………….
Aims of the study…. The research questions……………………………. Significance of the study………………… ……. Scope of the study…………………………………………….
Method of the study……………………. Structure of the report……………………….5 CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW…………. What is collaborative writing?. Why collaborative writing?.
Problematic issues of collaborative writing…………………………………. How to implement CW in writing………………….11 CHAPTER TWO: METHODOLOGY……………………………………….12 vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Rationale of the using action research……………. Writing tasks in the textbook Tieng Anh 11……….3 Selection of participants…………….
The Research Design……………………………………. The teaching cycle used in this study…………………………………………. Training the learners……………………………. Methods of data collection ……………………….
Interviews with students and a teacher ……………………………. Collection of students’ writings………………. Post-treatment interview with the observing teacher……………….20 CHAPTER THREE:FINDINGS AND DICUSSION ……. The results of phase 1…………………………………………….
Results of phase II…………………………………………………….Analysis of students’ writings……………………………. Comparison of Writing Fluency……………. Comparison of Writing Accuracy…………. Comparison of writing complexity……….
Interview with the observing teacher……………….…………………33 vii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PARTC:CONCLUSION………………………………. Summary of major findings. Findings from the prior interview ………. Findings from the students’ journals…………………….
Findings from the results of the writing…………………. Findingsfrom the post- treatment interview with the observing teacher ………. Limitations of this action research……………………………………………37 4. Recommendations for further studies………………………………………….
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………38 REFERENCES………………………………………………………………………40 APPENDIX ………………………………………………….………………………I viii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION This chapter presents the rationale for the study, aims, research questions, scope, significance, method and structure of the study. Rationale for the research Writing as well as three other skills has been taught at Vietnamese high schools since the school year 2006- 2007. However, the teaching and learning of these skills still have a lot of problems. As a teacher of English for ten years and after seven years applying the new set of textbooks, I find it difficult to teach English skills, especially writing skill.
My students can write a sentence and correct the mistakes at the level of sentences, but they do not know how to write a paragraph, let alone an essay. The writing period seems to be boring and stressful not only to the students but to me as well. Thus, students feel unmotivated to learn. The only aim of them is to do what the teachers require to cope with the teachers and get grades.
In the process of finding solution to make my writing lesson more interesting, accidentally came to my mind the English proverb “Two heads are better than one”. Also, through reading the literature, I was very impressed by the term “collaborative writing”. However, by searching literature review I knew that this approach was little applied in Vietnamese especially in the context of Vietnamese high schools. Hence, this arouses a need to carry out an action research on using collaborative writing on my students to examine whether it is helpful to them or not.
Aims of the study When carrying out this study, the author did not have the ambition to cover all the aspects of collaborative writing. This study is designed to investigate the impacts of collaborative writing on students’ writing performance. It is also aimed at finding out the students’ attitudes toward collaborative writing. To be specific, two main aims are proposed: 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com - To gain the understanding what students like and dislike about this teaching approach.
- To identify the extent to which collaborative writing helps students enhance their writing. Research questions In order to achieve the aims presented in the previous section, the following research questions were raised: 1. What are students’ attitudes toward collaborative writing? 2. How does students’ writing change after they use collaborative writing? 4.
Significance of the study This study, one of the researched issues in teaching writing skill for high schools in Vietnam, studies the impacts of collaboration in students’ writing. It first and foremost helps me understand whether collaborative writing can enhance my students’ motivation in writing classes to improve their writing skill and make better writing performance or not. The understanding may also help the practice of my colleagues. For students, this study introduces a new way to study writing.
I harbor the hope that through collaborative writing periods, students can become more active in writing classes. Students know how to cooperate, how to give peer feedback, what they should learn from their partners in order to improve their writing. For teachers at my school, this study is the first to investigate the writing skill. Thus, it is expected to raise the teachers’ awareness of students’ opinions and attitudes in writing lessons.
Hopefully, it provides high school teachers with an alternative approach to teach writing skill. The scope of the study The study limits itself to the examination of the extent to which collaborative work helps 11th students in improving their writing skill. It is also designed to find out what students like and dislike about collaborative writing. 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com The participants of this study were forty students of a class of 11th grade at a high school, Bac Ninh Province of Vietnam.
Method of the study In this study, the researcher used both qualitative and quantitative methods in two phases of the study. Phase 1: The interviews with eight students and a teacher were carried out to find out the students’ background of learning English and the difficulties they had encountered in previous writing lessons. Phase 2: The researcher applied collaborative writing to teach a sample of students in writing lessons. The data collection instruments in this phase included: Students writings: two writings before and another two writings after using collaborative writing from each student were collected and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively to measure students’ progress in their writing performance.
Students’ journals: students’ free-writing journals after each lesson were analyzed to investigate what students liked and disliked about collaborative writing. A post- treatment interview with the observing teacher: the interview after the treatment with the observing teacher was carried out to investigate the strengths and the weaknesses of collaborative writing from a different perspective by a different teacher. Structure of the study The study consists of three main parts: Part A, INTRODUCTION presents the rationale of the study, the aims, the research questions, the significance, the scope, the method and the structure of the study. Part B is the DEVELOPMENT which includes three smaller chapters.
Chaper I traces back the literature relating to collaborative writing. Chapter II describes the situation where the research was conducted and the informants involved in the research. It includes the writing tasks in the textbook, 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com research design, the teaching cycle in the study, the method of data collection and its procedures. Chapter III presents the results of the impact of collaborative writing approach to the 11th form students’ writing performance, students’ attitudes toward collaborative writing and the teacher’s opinions on collaborative writing.
Part C, CONCLUSION which includes the major findings, the concluding remarks, limitations of the study and plan for the next research cycle. REFERENCES and APPENDICES are presented in the last pages of the research report. 4 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com Part B DEVELOPMENT Chapter one LITERATURE REVIEW 1. What is collaborative writing? Collaborative writing (CW) or group writing (Couture & Rymer, 1989; Gere, 1987) came into existence in 1980s.
Since then it has attracted so many authors and scholars. Hence, it is not surprising to know that CW is defined in different words by different scholars. According to Bosley (1989, p.