TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI KHOA TIẾNG ANH NGHIÊN CỨU KHOA HỌC CẤP TRƯỜNG DESIGNING A TASK-BASED WRITING SKILL SYLLABUS INTEGRATED WITH WORKING SKILLS FOR THE SECOND-YEAR ENGLISH MAJORS OF THUONG MAI UNIVERSITY THIẾT KẾ CHƯƠNG TRÌNH DẠY KỸ NĂNG VIẾT THEO NHIỆM VỤ KẾT HỢP ĐỊNH HƯỚNG PHÁT TRIỂN NGHỀ NGHIỆP CHO SINH VIÊN NĂM HAI KHOA TIẾNG ANH TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC THƯƠNG MẠI Người thực hiện : Ths. Trần Lan Hương Đơn vị công tác : Khoa tiếng Anh HANOI, 2017 DECLARATION I hereby declare that this thesis is a presentation of my original research work. Wherever contributions of others are involved, every effort is made to indicate this clearly, with due reference to the literature, and acknowledgement of collaborative research and discussions. Signature Tran Lan Huong Page i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would also like to express special thanks to all the English staff and the second- year English majors of Thuong Mai University for their contribution to the data collection and their constructive suggestions for this research.
Page ii ABSTRACT The thesis was aimed at designing a practical, feasible and enjoyable writing skills syllabus for the second-year English majors of Thuong Mai University (TMU). The study started with the situational and needs analysis based on Hutchinson and Water (1987). The situational and needs analysis were conducted in TMU with the employment of the following research instruments: two questionnaires for teachers and students, and the students’ writing papers, the CEFR (2001) and the current writing skills syllabus. The informants of the study include all 62 second-year English majors and 10 teachers of English major section in TMU.
The results of the situational and need analysis show that there is no separated textbook and syllabus to meet the needs of both the university and the students in terms of its objectives and contents. The new sets of objectives which emphasize the communicative competence of the learners in their desirable target situations were re-determined in accordance with their needs. To best serve the objectives of the course and learning style preferences of the students, task based was chosen as the approach driving the design of the new syllabus in which the target tasks in four main domains: the personal, the public, the occupational and the educational were derived from the target needs analysis and selected to suit the current level of the learners (CEF A1+ -A2). Page iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION.
iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. i TABLE OF FIGURES. iv PART 1: INTRODUCTION. Aims and Objectives of the study.
Scope of the study. Design of the study .5 Chapter 1: Literature review. Approaches to Teaching Writing for Specific PurposeError! Bookmark not defined. Product Oriented Approaches.
Error! Bookmark not defined. Process Oriented Approaches. Error! Bookmark not defined. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Task-Based Approaches. Error! Bookmark not defined. Tasks and types of tasks. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Error! Bookmark not defined. Error! Bookmark not defined. The framework of TBLT applied in teaching writingError! Bookmark not define 1. Task-Based syllabus (TBS).
Error! Bookmark not defined. Setting of the study. Data collection instruments. Data collection and data analysis procedure.30 Chapter 3: Findings and Discussion.
The situational analysis of the teaching and learning context in TMU. Motivation in learning writing skills. The shortcoming of the current writing textbook. Target tasks and target language focus perceived by the university based on the CEFR .Target tasks and learning tasks perceived by teachers and learners.
Learning needs analysis .39 Chapter 4: The proposed writing skill syllabus 4. Justifications for the choice of task based approach to designing the syllabus 4. Tasks Selecting and Grading PART 3: CONCLUSION. Summary of the study.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further studies. III Appendix 1: NEEDS ANALYSIS FRAMEWORK (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987). III Appendix 2: THE STUDENTS’ QUESTIONNAIRES.
V Appendix 3: THE TEACHERS’ QUESTIONNAIRES. VIII Appendix 4: Written test evaluation criteria (Adapted from CEFR (2001)). XI Appendix 5: Sample lesson procedures. XIV TABLE OF FIGURES Figure 1: Framework for task based writing teaching.
Error! Bookmark not defined. Figure 2: Framework for task based syllabus design (Ellis. 2003: 66)Error! Bookmark not defi Figure 3: Framework for task based syllabus design (Nunan, 2004:25)Error! Bookmark not def Figure 4: Students’ length of time of learning English .32 Figure 5: The estimated writing competence of the students .33 Figure 2: Students’ attitudes toward Writing Skills.34 Figure 7: The target level for the writing skills after the first semester as required by TMU ( Based on CEFR( 2001:61,62, 82) .37 Figure 8: Teachers' and students' preference for the specific writing tasks .39 Figure 9: The familiar vs. the expected teaching and learning styles.
Rationale Writing is one of the four major language skills that foreign language students have to master. It is a common knowledge that writing is very important in language learning as, according to Rames (1983), writing helps learners not only in the ways it reinforces learners to practice certain grammar and vocabulary structures and reflect on why those are used and not others but also in the way it improves the learners’ thinking skills as when students write, they make effort to express ideas with constant use of eyes, hands and brain and discover a real need for finding the right word and the right sentence. As writing is of such great importance for language learners, teaching how to write well is the inevitable aim of almost all language courses. Yet, teaching writing is challenging for language teachers as ‘writing fluently and expressively is a tough task for all language users regardless of whether the language in use is first, second or foreign language’ (Nunan,1988:3).
Whether the journey writing teachers and learners have to go on under their writing course is smooth and whether the learners can reach the destination of the journey depend on a wide variety of factors such as the course syllabus, the teaching methodology, the available resources and the motivation of the students. From all these influential factors, the course syllabus is extremely important because if appropriately designed with careful need analysis, the syllabus can act as the guidance for both teachers and learners in terms of aims, the objectives, teaching methodology, material suggestions, time allocation, assessments, and almost all the matters of learning and teaching. In fact, a course syllabus can be compared with a helpful travel guidebook or a compass for teachers and learners in their journey to knowledge. Especially, a course syllabus plays an absolutely significant role when writing for specific purposes because it requires a lot of skills which can helps students meet the requirements from the employers and be ready for their jobs for their future.
From early 1960s, English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has grown to become one of the most prominent areas of EFL teaching today and gained a well- Page 1 established position as a component of applied linguistics research (Dudley-Evans & St Johns, 1998). As the word “specific” suggests, the nature of ESP is different from that of general English in a sense that ESP learners learn English for a certain professional or occupational purpose. Therefore, teaching/learning ESP includes much more than the teaching of English through specific materials and content. In fact, it combines the development of linguistic skills together with the acquisition of specific information.
Consequently, to ensure the success of ESP learning, the materials should be wisely selected and adapted and learning activities should be carefully designed, and more importantly, an appropriate teaching method should be adopted. In the recent years, the ESP movement in Vietnam has been rapidly developing due to the existence of diverse needs of the learners. Currently, all university students must learn the ESP that suits their learning branches. For example, students at economics universities have to learn English for commerce, while students from the Information Technology universities have to learn English for IT.
However, a lot of questions have been raised over the quality of ESP teaching and learning at university as many students studying ESP show quite poor performance on four language skills and a lot of graduates cannot use ESP in their work. This results in an unsolved problems that ESP teachers are encountering: How to design appropriate syllabus and authentic learning activities to enhance ESP learning? In addition, the fast changing business environment and the ever-growing demand facing professional communicators in the 21st century pose new challenges to language learners and teachers alike. Competitive business organizations attempt to recruit employees who have excellent linguistic competence coupled with nonlinguistic competences and skills. It is not easy to acquire these additional competences and skills.
However, most of them are transferable and can be greatly improved if students are provided with adequate teaching materials and appropriate input from the teacher. Despite the importance of syllabus in teaching writing for ESP- one of the most difficult language skills, it is not always given adequate attention to. This is Page 2 exemplified by the context of teaching writing for ESP in Thuong Mai University (TMU) where the current used syllabus is available but developed out of the syllabus writers’ personal experience and intuition without referring to the situation analysis and learner needs analysis. Consequently, when the syllabus for ESP was operated, it showed a lot of pitfalls, the greatest of which being the students’ disinterest in learning writing, the irrelevance of the writing tasks and the teaching methodology.
This fact gives rise to the need to design a new business writing syllabus for second-year students who have already got basic writing skill in The business Pre-intermediate in the first year and have better knowledge about general business writing as well as see the importance of the business writing for their jobs in the future. That syllabus should be based on careful analyses of contextual factors and learner needs as well as educational needs, i., the objectives of the foreign language program. The ideas above motivate me to design a new writing skills syllabus for the second- year English majors at TMU. Aims and Objectives of the study The study aims at designing a new appropriate writing skills syllabus for the second-year English majors at TMU.
To achieve this aim, the following objectives are established: (1) To develop a theoretical framework related to writing syllabus design (2) To identify the needs perceived by the university, the teachers, the second- year English majors toward an appropriate writing syllabus for the target students. (3) To propose a writing syllabus based on the relevant theories and the needs analysis 3. Scope of the study The syllabus limits itself to the design of new writing skills syllabus for second-year English majors in TMU. Thus, it is not intended for other groups of the students at the University or students from other universities.
However, once the syllabus has been implemented, and evaluated by the university teachers who implement the Page 3 syllabus, it can serve as a reference for those who are interested in designing a similar syllabus for similar groups of students. What are the students’ learning needs and target needs from the perspective of the students, the teachers and the university? 2. What aims and objectives should be included in the writing skills syllabus for the second-year English majors? 3. What contents and teaching methodology should be included and organized in the writing skills syllabus for the second-year English majors? 5.
Design of the study The thesis will be comprised of three parts Part 1 is the introduction, which presents the rationales, the aims, the objectives, the scope, the methods and the design of the study. Part 2 is the development which consists of four chapters: o Chapter 1 reviews the literature related to the syllabus design and the theoretical issues on the definition and features of task based language teaching in relation to the teaching of writing skills in EFL context.