j VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST - GRADUATE STUDIES -----***----- LÊ LAN HƯƠNG TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NGUYỄN MỘNG TUÂN HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HÓA PROVINCE: DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS (Dạy viết bài luận cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Nguyễn Mộng Tuân, tỉnh Thanh Hóa: Những khó khăn và giải pháp khắc phục) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Languge Teaching Methodolgy Code: 60.10 HANOI - 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HA NOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST- GRADUATE STUDIES -----***----- LÊ LAN HƯƠNG TEACHING ESSAY WRITING TO THE 10TH FORM STUDENTS AT NGUYỄN MỘNG TUÂN HIGH SCHOOL, THANH HÓA PROVINCE: DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS (Dạy viết bài luận cho học sinh lớp 10 trường THPT Nguyễn Mộng Tuân, tỉnh Thanh Hóa: Những khó khăn và giải pháp khắc phục) M. MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60. Nguyễn Huy Kỷ HANOI - 2013 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF THE AUTHORSHIP i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vii PART I: INTRODUCTION 1 1.
Rationale of the study 1 2. Objectives of the study 2 3. Methods of the study 2 5. Significance of the study 3 6.
Scope of the study 3 7. Organization of the study 4 PART II: DEVELOPMENT 5 CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5 1. Teaching essay writing 5 1. What is writing? 5 1.
From paragraph to essay 6 1. What is an essay and its parts? 7 1. Types of essays 10 1. Stages of writing an essay 11 1.
Approaches to teaching writing 13 1. Summary 15 CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY 16 2. The research context 16 iv TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. The teachers at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 16 2.
The students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 16 2. Writing lessons in the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” 17 2. The research methodology 18 2. Data collection instruments 18 2.
Procedures of data collection 19 2. Summary 20 CHAPTER 3: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 21 3. Data analysis of teachers‟ survey questionnaire 21 3. Data analysis of students‟ survey questionnaire 29 3.
Data analysis of interviews 34 3. Data analysis of classroom observation 35 3. Findings and discussions 35 3. Difficulties in learning essay writing from the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 35 3.
Difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 36 3. Suggested solutions to overcome the difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school 37 3. Summary 43 PART III: CONCLUSION 44 1. Recapitulation of the study 44 2.
Limitations of the study 45 3. Suggestion for further studies 45 REFERENCES 46 v TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 I APPENDIX 2 V APPENDIX 3 VIII vi TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Teachers‟ opinion about the importance of writing Table 2: Reasons of teaching writing to the 10th form students Table 3: Students‟ attitude about writing lessons in teachers‟ viewpoint Table 4: Teachers‟ view of periods of teaching writing Table 5: Teachers‟ opinions of difficulties when teaching essay writing Table 6: Degree of difficulty of stages in teaching essay writing Table 7: Essay writing activities in the classroom Table 8: Teachers‟ opinions on the writing lessons Table 9: Teachers‟ frequency in assigning students more writing tasks Table 10: Teachers‟ expectation for better teaching and learning situation Table 11: Students‟ opinion about the importance of writing Table 12: Students‟ evaluation of their writing skill Table 13: Difficult writing stage in students‟ opinion Table 14: Students‟ opinions on causes of difficulties Table 15: Activities in pre-writing stage Table 16: Work arrangement while writing Table 17: Activities in writing lessons Table 18: Students‟ expectation for better teaching and learning situation vii TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART I: INTRODUCTION 1. Rationale of the study Nowadays, English plays an important role in many aspects of life. It has been taught in Vietnamese schools as one of the most important subjects at all level of education.
The teaching and learning of English in our country has today changed from the linguistic competence to the communicative competence. As a result, our new English textbook series were compiled under the impact of the communicative approach which focuses on four skills: reading, speaking, listening and writing. Compared to the other three skills, writing is considered to be the most difficult skill to master. Therefore, teaching writing is not an easy job.
One of the teachers‟ challenges in high school education is to develop the skills and knowledge necessary for Vietnamese students to write English essays effectively. In high school context, where exposure to English is typically limited to three periods each week, students receive little practice in writing in English, only one period (45 minutes) per unit. Most teachers are not satisfied with reading and giving feedback on their students‟ essays because many essays are nonsense, lack of ideas or even the content of some essays is very similar to each other, especially when they write about the same topic. Conversely, students are not interested in learning essay writing.
They tend to translate ideas from mother tongue into English, express ideas in long sentences, and are not aware of different kinds of writing, which leads them unable to write in real life. Because of limited background knowledge, they often feel bored when doing written work, especially when lacking support and motivation from teachers. I have been teaching writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school with the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” for two years, and I encountered many difficulties in the writing lessons. Therefore, the situation encouraged me to carry out the study “Teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school, Thanh Hoa province: Difficulties and solutions” with the hope of improving the teaching and learning essay writing for my colleagues and my students.
1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. Objectives of the study The primary purpose of this study is to explore teachers‟ perception of the importance of teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school. The second aim is to investigate teachers‟ difficulties in teaching essay writing to the 10th form students with the new textbook “Tieng Anh 10” at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school. Finally, I would like to offer some suggested solutions for improving further the teaching of essay writing for teachers of English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school.
This study is carried out with the hope that it will be theoretically and practically helpful to both teachers of English and the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school. Research questions The study intends to find out the answers for the following questions: 1. What are teachers‟ perceptions of the importance of teaching essay writing to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? 2. What are the difficulties experienced by the teachers who are teaching essay writing in the textbook “Tieng Anh 10” to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? 3.
What should be done to help overcome those difficulties for teachers of English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school? 4. Methods of the study With the aim of finding out the difficulties in teaching essay writing with the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” to the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school, this study adopts mainly quantitative and qualitative methods. There are three main instruments of data collection are questionnaires, classroom observation and interviews. 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Informal interviews with the teachers at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school are conducted.
The purpose of interview is to investigate difficulties teachers face when they teach essay writing to the 10th form students. Survey questionnaires for the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school are to collect information about their views of writing difficulties and causes of them. Classroom observation is used to record more information from teachers. Significance of the study The significance of this study is to reveal that problems teachers of English at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school encounter when they teach essay writing to the 10th form students.
The study is intended to find out how the teachers cope and manage their problems in order to help the 10th form students at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school to write better. Also, this study is carried out with the hope that its findings can give some suggested solutions for English high school teachers so that they can have teaching practice better in writing lessons. Scope of the study The study is conducted at Nguyễn Mộng Tuân high school in order to recognize difficulties in teaching and learning essay writing skills of both the teachers and the 10 th form students with the new textbook “Tiếng Anh 10”. On the basis of findings, some suggested solutions were advanced to further improve teaching essay writing to students.
Within its scope, the study is limited only to the 10th form students at Nguyen Nguyễn Mộng Tuân teaching context. Organization of the study This thesis has 3 main parts: introduction, development and conclusion. The introduction presents the rationale, objectives of the study, research questions, methods of the study, significance of the study, scope of the study, organization of the study, which offers readers an overview of how the research idea is generated. 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com The development consists of 3 chapters.
Chapter 1 provides the theoretical background of essay writing. It focuses on writing definitions, from paragraph to essay, essay definitions and its parts, types of essays, stages of writin an essay, approaches to teach writing. Chapter 2 discusses the methodology of the study, i. describes the study context, participants and instruments.
Besides, the textbook “Tiếng Anh 10” is then elaborated. Chapter 3 is about data analysis and discussion. In this part, questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation are analyzed and presented. In this chapter, I will give some feasible solutions for better teaching and learning English essay writing.
The conclusion summarizes the whole study issue and provides suggestions for further study. Besides, the limitations of the thesis are also pointed out. 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW This chapter presents a review of related literature on essay writing. It includes two main sections.
The first section describes teaching essay writing, with definitions of writing and definitions of an essay and its parts, types of essays, and stages of writing an essay. The second section discusses approaches to teaching writing. Teaching essay writing 1. What is writing? Writing is an essential area of development in a native and foreign language.
Therefore, there are various opinions of writing given by different researchers. Writing is defined as a social process by Candlin and Hyland. They stated “Writing is therefore an engagement in a social process, where the production of texts reflects methodologies, arguments and rhetorical strategies constructed to engage colleagues and persuade them of the claims that are made”. However, writing, in language teachers‟ opinions, is “a language skill which is difficult to acquire” (Tribble, 1996: 3).
It “normally requires some form of instruction” and “is not a skill that is readily picked up by exposure” (Tribble, 1996: 11). As for Byrne, one of several authors on writing skills, gave a long and complex definition of writing: “When we write, we use graphic symbols that is letters or combinations of letters which relate to the sounds we make when we speak. On one level, then, writing can be said to be the act of forming these symbols; making marks on a flat surface of some kind.