IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PROCESS ORIENTED APPROACH

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAININGVINH UNIVERSITY ------ LE THI THANH HUYEN IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PROCESS ORIENTED APPROACH Major: Teaching English to Speakers of

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

VINH UNIVERSITY - -

LE THI THANH HUYEN

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ WRITING SKILLS THROUGH PROCESS ORIENTED APPROACH

Major: Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

(TESOL) Code: 60.14.01.11

MASTER THESIS IN EDUCATION Supervisor: Nguyen Thi Quyet, Ph D

NGHE AN - 2017

Foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisorNguyen Thi Quyet, Ph.D for the continuous support of my research, for herpatience, motivation, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge Her guidancehelped me in all the time of the research

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all mylecturers at the Department of Post-graduate Studies, Department of ForeignLanguages, Vinh University, whose support and considerations have enabled

me to pursue the course

I would also like to express my thanks to my colleagues at Quang TrungSecondary School in Thanh Hoa who helped me in providing the materials,collecting and analyzing data, as well as grading and evaluating the students’tests

I am also thankful to my students from two classes 8 A, 8 B at QuangTrung Secondary School for their whole-hearted participation in the research.Last but not least, I owe my sincere thanks to my parents, my youngersister, my beloved husband who have always inspired and encouraged me tocomplete this study

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I hereby acknowledge that this study is my own work The data andfindings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission, and have notbeen published elsewhere

Author

Le Thi Thanh Huyen

This study aims at investigating the effect of using the process orientedapproach to improve grade 8 students' writing skills at Quang TrungSecondary School in Thanh Hoa The purpose is to determine how the processoriented approach can improve grade 8 students in writing skills and howeffective is the process writing approach in helping grade 8 students at QuangTrung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa improve their writing habits and theiruse of writing strategies The study uses pre-questionnaire and post-questionnaire, pre-test and post-test as instruments to gather data

The results of the study show that the process oriented approach haspositively improved grade 8 students’ writing skills at Quang TrungSecondary School It helps to bring about positive changes in most students’attitudes towards writing and improvements in their writing habits POA alsohelps the students to improve their writing performance and to learn how touse the strategies at each stage of the process of writing

Based on the research results of this study, the researcher givespedagogical implications and suggestions to teachers and students in teachingand learning writing

TABLES OF CONTENTS

Page

LIST OF TABLES

Page

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

POA: Process Oriented Approach

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

Language learning in school is very much related to the four languageskills: listening, speaking, reading and writing Among the four skills inEnglish lessons in secondary school, writing remains the commonest way ofexamining student performance, especially for examinations However,according to recent test results from the Educational Testing Service (ETS),writing has been the most problematic to Vietnamese test takers

Teaching English writing in Vietnamese Secondary Schools is achallenging job for many Vietnamese English teachers because it requires notonly high language competence among the teachers themselves, but also theapplication of appropriate writing instruction

Hoang Thuy (2009) says that most of the English teachers in Vietnamfind writing a complicated skill to teach, which, more or less, affects thestudents’ learning outcomes The problems of teaching EFL writing can befound in such questions as how to make EFL students aware of why theyshould write in English, how to teach students to write, how to give feedback

to students’ writing, and how to assess students’ writing skills

In most writing classes at Quang Trung Secondary School, the teacherusually provides learners with a topic and a related model text The teacherpicks out sentences from the model texts for learners to study grammaticalstructures; how and what to write are seldom discussed The communicativepurpose and audience of the texts seem to be ignored The teacher does notfocus much on the content of the model texts, but focuses more on thelanguage form Learners use neither writing strategies nor the knowledge ofthe writing process when they produce their own writing texts Such a

teaching approach results in learners’ failure in producing a written text unlessthe topic for writing is similar as the one they had been taught by theirteacher Many learners do not pay attention to the communicative purpose andaudience of their writings; they just want to produce a text free ofgrammatical mistakes As a consequence, in writing classes, what learners canproduce is mostly an imitation of the model text given by their teacher withthe similar topic.

Besides, the teacher is considered the center of writing classes in manysettings in Vietnam Interaction is commonly one way, from the teacher tolearners The teacher provides knowledge and learners play the roles ofknowledge receivers and imitators, without many pair work or group workactivities This results in the passive learning attitudes among learners Theteacher does not provide learners with discovery tasks to stimulate theirparticipation and to integrate all the receptive and productive skills in theclassroom activities Learners are supposed to reproduce what they have beenprovided with to produce texts of similar topics

In Vietnam, many EFL teachers focus on the correction of learners’grammatical errors rather than communicative discourse when they assesslearners’ writings, even if these grammatical errors do not affect the meaningconveyed Learners who make grammatical mistakes will not earn high scoreseven though they have good ideas In contrast, learners who do not make anymistakes with grammar could get better scores although their writings do notseem to be communicative For these reasons, learners tend to focus ongrammar in their writing as they expect their teachers to give them goodscores However, focusing solely on grammar correction is not very helpful,but even harmful in judging learners’ writing (Truscott, 1996) since a qualitypiece of writing is more than just grammatically correct

In addition, most writing activities in the Vietnamese secondary syllabusare designed on the basis of the product oriented approach, in which studentsare encouraged to mimic a model text, which is usually presented andanalyzed at an early stage This discourages students’ creativity because theycannot use their own experiences to express themselves All they have to do is

to answer comprehension questions, to fill in the blanks with the providedinformation, or to build complete sentences using the given cues in order tomake a meaningful letter, and so on This controlled writing format hindersteachers in trying new approaches in writing instruction Teacher feedbackfocuses more on grammatical and lexical errors instead of meaning orientedexploration In brief, under such a syllabus, students are mainly evaluated bytheir test scores

According to Assoc Prof Dr Hoang Van Van (2007), the approach toteaching writing in secondary schools is a combination of a number ofapproaches (the controlled composition, the free writing approach, theparagraph pattern approach, the communicative approach, and the processapproach), in which the communicative and the process approaches play adominant role However, most language teachers in secondary schools stilladopt the product oriented approaches in the writing class because the writingtasks in the textbook are presented on the base of controlled composition andthe paragraph pattern approach These product oriented approaches, therefore,have been the dominant mode of instruction in secondary school writingclasses, emphasizing students’ final pieces of work rather than the way howthey are produced

As a result, students’ quality of EFL writing is evaluated on the basis of thefinal product and grammatical and linguistic accuracy Furthermore, due to thisproduct focus, students pay little attention to the whole process of writing and

they know very little about writing strategies And to make the matter worse, theinteraction between a teacher and students or among students themselves doesnot exist

It is widely held that in secondary schools English teachers mainlyconcentrate on the correction of grammar and spelling mistakes They assumethat such errors need to be eradicated immediately, and that the best way tohelp students is correcting all the errors in their writing in order to helpstudents make progress However, this traditional treatment is said to have nosignificant influence on students From my observations, some good students

do not like such a way They feel discouraged and humiliated when havingtheir writing papers marked with a lot of suggested correction In some cases,some students just take a glance at what the teacher has corrected, while manyothers may not even look at the corrections

Therefore, what English writing teachers in secondary schools need to do

is to improve the quality of students’ pieces of writing, to give them a morecooperative learning environment, and to encourage them to share theirwritten products with their peers’

To improve student’s writing skills at Quang Trung Secondary School,the researcher has selected an approach – namely Process Oriented Approach

is one of the alternative approaches that can be used to solve the problems ofwriting Everyone knows that good product is also influenced very much bygood input and good process Based on that statement, the researcher wouldlike to implement Process Oriented Approach in developing the learningprocess of writing Although the process oriented approach needs longduration to implement, it will be useful as the medium to improve thestudents’ skill in English writing

So, the researcher would like to conduct the experimental study

‘Improving students’ writing skills through process oriented approach’ in

order to develop and apply it in teaching writing skills With the hope that canimprove the students’ motivation and writing results

1.2 Aims of the study

The aims of my study are:

1. To see how the process oriented approach can improve the students’ writingcompetence of grade 8 students at Quang Trung Secondary School in ThanhHoa

2.To get how effective are the process oriented approach can improve writingskills of grade 8 students at Quang Trung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa

1.3 Research questions

In order to investigate that the process oriented approach can improvethe students’ writing competence and how effective are the process writingapproach in helping grade 8 students in writing skills at Quang TrungSecondary School in Thanh Hoa We would make an effort to find out theanswer to the following questions:

1.How can process oriented approach improve grade 8 students in writingperformance at Quang Trung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa?

2. How effective is process oriented approach in helping grade 8 students atQuang Trung Secondary School in Thanh Hoa improve:

 Their writing habits

 Their use of writing strategies?

1.4.Scope of the study

This study is carried out with 60 students at Quang Trung SecondarySchool in Thanh Hoa All of these participants are in grade 8, thus they aresupposed to be at the same level of English proficiency They are permanentlyarranged in two separate classes 8 A, 8 B at Quang Trung Secondary School,

the researcher randomly chooses one for the control group and the other forthe experimental one The researcher adapts the program of applying theprocess oriented approach to teaching and learning English writing to find outhow can the process oriented approach improve students’ writing skills andwriting habits for grade 8 students at Quang Trung Secondary School.

1.5. Methodology

The researcher uses the experimental method to conduct this study Tocollect data, the researcher uses questionnaires and tests to evaluate students’writing skills Pre- and post-questionnaires and pre-test and post-test areconducted as follows:

Pre- and post-questionnaire on the students’ writing habits

The pre and post questionnaires on the students’ writing habits aredesigned to investigate the students’ writing habits in both groups such as howoften students make a plan or an outline before start writing, how oftenstudents revise the draft, edit the draft as well as share their writing with theirclassmates

Questionnaire on students’ evaluation of the writing process oriented approach.

The questionnaire is designed for the experimental to investigate howstudents like the writing process oriented approach, how useful of strategiesand how students manage strategies after program

Pre- and post-test on English writing

To measure the quality of the participants’ written texts before and afterthe research, the researcher has designed a pre-test and a post-test on Englishwriting The test types selected for this study are popular kinds of similar towriting tasks in the students’ book Tieng Anh 8 to those which students areinstructed, and those which are often used in the secondary school classroom

context

1.6 Significance of the study

It is hoped that this study can give some more concrete description of thestrength of the process orientated approach that can be used to solve theproblems of writing competence Both teacher and students can get benefitsfrom the results of the research

Teachers

The concept of the process oriented approach is necessary to berecognized by the English teachers in order to develop teaching and learningwriting and make the writing process more interesting It can also motivatethe teachers in making the preparation of different learning writing asreference

Students

By implementing the process oriented approach, the students will befacilitated to write in English well so that writing skills are not difficultanymore to do In this case, the students are also motivated to express theirideas through writing to communicate their thoughts to the readers

School

The results of the study would bring about some benefits for school if it

is put in the school library as the reference It is the important collection of theliteratures to support the teachers’ jobs in improving their instructions,especially in writing Besides, all readers can use the study to develop and toconsider what the teaching writing is

1.7. Organization of the research

The research consists of five chapters:

Chapter 1: Introduction- includes the rationale, the aims, the

methodology, the scope and the significance of the research

Chapter 2: Theoretical background- presents the concepts and

definitions to be used in the research such as the meaning of teaching writing,the meaning of POA, the implement of POA, the advantages of POA and thedisadvantages of POA

Chapter 3: Methodology- presents the background information of the

subjects of the study, the instruments used to collect the data, the procedure ofdata collection and data analysis

Chapter 4: Results and Findings - describes the data analysis in detail

and a thorough discussion of the findings of the study Some explanations andinterpretations of the findings are also presented in this chapter

Chapter 5: Conclusion - gives the summary of the findings and some

implications which are proposed for the teachers and the students in teachingand learning writing

The appendices lie at the end of the study, following the References.

CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL BACKGROUNDS

2.1 Teaching writing

2.1.1 The Meaning of writing

It is necessary to expose the linguists’ opinions about writing This isused to consider what the accurate definition of writing is Here are theiropinions about writing:

Ghazi (2002) says that writing is a complex process that allows writers

to explore thoughts and ideas, and makes them visible and concrete Writingencourages thinking and learning for it motivates communication and makesthought available for reflection When thought is written down, ideas can beexamined, reconsidered, added to, rearranged, and changed

The above statement gives the language teachers signals that conductingwriting process is not as simple as other language skills – listening – readingand speaking It needs some skills, such as: (1) using vocabulary; (2)generating the ideas; and (3) using tenses or grammar for writing After doing

at least three skills, the product of writing should be examined, changed, andedited to get the perfect writing Writing performance is different from otherskills because it needs the accurate situation or context, and of course, thestructure of every sentence must be complete to avoid misunderstanding.Heaton (1988, p 135) says that the writing skills are complex andsometimes difficult to teach, requiring mastery not only of grammatical andrhetorical devices but also of conceptual and judgmental elements There areanalysis attempts to group the many and varied skills necessary for writinggood prose into five general components or main areas They are: (1)language use – the ability to write correct and appropriate sentences; (2)

mechanical skills – the ability to use punctuation and spelling correctly; (3)treatment of content – the ability to think creatively and develop thoughts; (4)stylistic skills – the ability to manipulate sentences and paragraphs and uselanguage effectively, and (5) judgment skills – the ability to write in anappropriate manner for a particular purpose with particular audience in mind,together with an ability to select, organize and order relevant information.Kathleen et al (1996, p2) says that the ability to write involves thecomponents of writing They are: (1) grammatical ability – the ability to writeEnglish in grammatically correct sentence, (2) lexical abilities – the ability tochoose words that are correct and used appropriately, (3) mechanical ability –the ability to correctly use punctuation-spelling-capitalization etc, (4) stylisticskills – the ability to use sentences and paragraphs appropriately, (5)organizational skills– the ability to organize written work according to theconventions of English, including the order and selection of materials and (6)judgment skills – the ability to make judgment about what appropriatedepending on task, the purpose of the writing, and the audience.

Moreover, Arndt (1988, p 6) says that in writing process, there are sixactivities can be done periodically They are: (1) generating – brainstorming,using questions, making notes, and using visuals and using role play orsimulation; (2) focusing – discovering main ideas, considering purpose,considering audience, and considering form; (3) structuring – orderinginformation, experimenting with arrangements, and relating structure to focalidea; (4) drafting – drafting by the teacher and beginning, adding, ending; (5)evaluating – assessing the drafts, responding, and conferencing; and (6)reviewing – checking the context, checking connections, checking divisions,assessing impact, editing, correcting, and marking, and taking final stock ofthe product

In terms of knowledge, Tribble (1996,p 43) states that the range ofknowledge that a writer requires when undertaking a specific task can besummarized in the following way: (1) content knowledge – knowledge ofconcepts involved in the subject area; (2) context knowledge – knowledge ofcontext in which the text will be read; (3) language system knowledge –knowledge of those aspects of the language system necessary for thecompletion of the task; and (4) writing process knowledge – knowledge of themost appropriate way of preparing for a specific writing task.

Furthermore, Tribble (1996, p 130) says that in term of the writingassessment, a text is not assessed in a single dimension but is viewed as beingthe result of a complex of different skills and knowledge, each of which make

a significant contribution to the development of the whole The five majoraspects of a piece of written work (content, organization, vocabulary,language, and mechanics) are evaluated and each of these aspects isaccompanied by explicit descriptors of what is meant by band scale A range

of possible scores is given for each band These scores can be converted into

an overall grade

Based on the linguists’ opinions above, it can be constructed that writingskills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach, it requires not only highlanguage competence among the teachers themselves, but also the application

of appropriate writing instruction In conclusion, before doing the writingactivity, the students must have the ability or prior knowledge in masteringthe components of writing to increase their writing ability The writingcomponents should be mastered by students are:(1) grammatical ability – theability to write English in grammatically correct sentence, (2) lexical abilities– the ability to choose words that are correct and used appropriately, (3)mechanical ability – the ability to correctly use punctuation-spelling-

capitalization etc, (4) stylistic skills – the ability to use sentences andparagraphs appropriately, and (5) organizational skills – the ability to organizewritten work according to the conventions of English, including the order andselection of materials The students should master in writing componentsbefore doing the writing process because writing is complex and needs a lot

of skills and knowledge Hopefully, they can give the appropriate solutions instudents’ writing problems These above writing components are also similar

to the writing components (content, organization, vocabulary, language, andmechanics) that are stated by Tribble As the reason, these components arealso more appropriate with the L2students

2.1.2 Different approaches to teaching writing

In the recent history of second language writing, a number of differentapproaches to the practice of writing skills have vied for the attention ofsecond language writing professionals Among these approaches, thecontrolled composition and the paragraph pattern approaches are the mostprominent and widely used in a series of new English textbooks forVietnamese secondary school students

The controlled composition

The controlled composition sees language learning as a process of habitformation Thus, it is not surprising to see, within this tradition, that speakingwas its primary concern whereas writing was regarded as a secondary one andspecially served as reinforcement for oral habits

In the controlled composition classroom, the primary focus is on formalaccuracy The role of the teacher is to provide accurate and carefully selectedlanguage samples that students can repeat and memorize Besides, the teachercan give structural frames within which students can do controlledsubstitutions So, for example, they may be asked to change all the present

tense verbs to past tense; in such a case, students may need to alter other timereferences in the paragraph Within this tradition, students can write a lotwithout being afraid of making many errors, and the teacher can deal withthese pieces of writing more easily

Overall, the controlled composition sees writing as a secondary activity;

as a means of practicing structures and vocabulary learned in the classroom.Therefore, the context for writing is the classroom and the audience is theteacher This approach focuses on form and accuracy rather than the fluency

of the language, and writing is simply a means of assessing students’ ability tomanipulate the structures practiced in the classroom Audience and purposeare not taken into consideration

The paragraph pattern approach

Increasing awareness of second language writers’ need to produceextended written texts led to the realization that there was more to writingthan constructing grammatical sentences The result of this realization waswhat Raimes (2002) has called the ‘paragraph pattern approach’, whichemphasizes the importance of organization at the above-sentence level Thisapproach owes much to Kaplan’s (1966) notion of ‘contrastive rhetoric’ – thenotion that writers’ different cultural and linguistic backgrounds will bereflected in their ‘rhetoric’, with rhetoric typically seen as primarily a matter

of textual structure

Within this tradition, the primary concern was the logical constructionand arrangement of discourse forms In the early years, the paragraph was ofprimary interest Its focus was on its elements as well as options for itsdevelopment such as a topic sentence, supporting ideas, and a concludingsentence Another important concern was ‘essay’ development, which grewfrom paragraph principles to complex texts This involved larger structural

components, namely introduction, body and conclusion.

Classroom procedures associated with this tradition have tended to focusstudents’ attention primarily on ‘form’ Students are asked to read and analyze

a model text and then write another piece of writing that has the sameorganization with the original one Besides, some common writing activities,within this tradition, require students to group provided relevant facts,rearrange them in the logical order to form an outline, and then write acomplete text based on that outline Or sometimes, students may be asked tocomplete a paragraph or a story by adding an ending or a beginning or amiddle section and so on

In short, this tradition sees writing as basically a matter of arrangingsentences and paragraphs into particular patterns Typical organizationalprinciples for materials include paragraph structuring, particularly related tofunctional categories, and the use of a range of linking devices Sentence leveland grammar practice is not omitted but is set in the context of a longer andpurposeful belief of language

To sum up, these traditional approaches to the teaching of writing focus

on the product In other words, this brief and generalized summary indicatesseveral trends in the ‘traditional’ teaching of writing:

• There is an emphasis on accuracy.

• The focus of attention is the finished product, whether a sentence or a whole

composition

• The teacher’s role is to be the judge of the finished product.

• Writing often has a consolidating function.

2.2.The Meaning of POA

Recently, the teaching of writing has moved away from a concentration

on written product to an emphasis on the process of writing In process

approach, students are trained to generate ideas for writing, think of thepurpose and audiences, and write multiple drafts in order to present writtenproducts that are able to communicate their own ideas Teachers who use thisapproach give students opportunity to generate ideas and to give feedback onthe content of what they write in their drafts Consequently, writing becomes aprocess of discovery for the students as they discover new ideas and newlanguage forms to express them.

Montage (1995) says that the process oriented approach refers to ateaching approach that focuses on the process a writer engages in whenconstructing meaning This teaching approach concludes with editing as afinal stage in text creation, rather than an initial one as in a product orientedapproach The process oriented approach may include identified stages of thewriting process such as: pre-writing, writing and re-writing Once the roughdraft has been created, it is polished into subsequent drafts with the assistance

of peer and teacher conferencing Final editing and publication can follow ifthe author chooses to publish their writing

2.3 Review of Related Studies

The purpose of this review of related studies is to expose the otherstudies which are similar to my subject of the study in order to get thesignificant development and improvement done by other researchers It is alsoused to improve ones’ studies that needed to revise and to develop These arethe studies conducted by the other researchers that have the benefits to support

my study so that it will give positive input to fulfill my study The researchers’study will be exposed as follows:

According to Nicole Montague (1995) says that the process orientedapproach refers to a teaching approach that focuses on the process a writerengages in when constructing meaning This teaching approach concludes

with editing as a final stage in text creation, rather than an initial one as in aproduct oriented approach The process oriented approach may includeidentified stages of the writing process such as: pre-writing, while-writing andpost-writing Once the rough draft has been created, it is polished intosubsequent drafts with the assistance of peer and teacher conferencing Finalediting and publication can follow if the author chooses to publish theirwriting (Murray, 1972)

The study above gives the benefits of conducting the process orientedapproach in empowering the peers to polish the drafts in order to make the draftsaccurate based on the English standard It means that the product of composingwill be better if the process can be done periodically and accurately This studyfocuses on process oriented approach because there are a lot of benefits toimprove writing competence

Based on Bos (1988) that conducting writing study through processoriented approach includes: (1) planning; (2) drafting; (3) revising andediting; and (4) sharing and publication

During planning, writers appear to engage in cognitive activities thatallow them to select topics, consider purposes and goals for writing, identifytheir audience, decide upon voice, and generate provisional frameworks fortheir pieces These provisional plans can be informal in that little is written toreflect the occurrence of these activities For some writers and in someinstances, however, the planning stage is relatively formalized by the use ofwritten outlines or frames, lists of ideas, and themes or topic sentences.Instructional implications for this stage of the composing process include theimportance of providing students time to plan, modeling the cognitiveprocesses involved in planning, and establishing writing activities that havegenuine purposes

The second stage, drafting, involves the process of "putting ideas intovisible language" (Flower & Hayes, 1981, p 373) Drafting, however, doesnot preclude continued planning and revising of plans Most expert writersengage in extensive revision of their plans as they write During drafting,authors juggle numerous demands, including continued planning andconstructing of meaning, selecting vocabulary to express meaning; usingconventions of grammar, punctuation, and spelling; and executing motor tasks

of writing or typing To the degree that conventions of writing and motortasks are at an automatic level, authors have more attention to devote to theconstructive processes involved in writing (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1986).Instructionally, teachers can assist writers by encouraging them during firstdrafts to focus on writing their ideas and reducing their attention to writingconventions Teachers can also provide adequate time and support for students

to revise and edit after drafting

The third stage, revising and editing, deals with readying the text toshare with an audience Emphasis should be placed first on revising the ideas

to make the piece more coherent and clear Then, editing for writingconventions should follow (Calkins, 1986; Graves, 1983) In the revisionprocess, sharing the written piece with others is important because it assiststhe author in realizing the readers' understanding of the piece During thisstage, it is not uncommon to teach grammar and spelling concepts, but thisinstruction tends to be more effective if taught in the context of the author'sactual text and purposes for writing (Kean, 1983) The tacit implication forinstruction is that editing for writing conventions represents only one part ofthe writing process Yet writing curricula in special education classes tend tomake instruction in these writing conventions the major if not exclusive focus

of instruction

The last stage in the composing process is sharing and publication Itgives value and worth to the entire process It also provides students theopportunity to receive feedback and to perceive themselves as authorsresponding to an audience (Graves & Hansen,1983)

Bos’ study stresses a student centered instructional approach, emphasizes

an interactive model of composing, relies on descriptive analyses of thecomposing process in conjunction with the generated products, and placesvalue on establishing "authentic" purposes for learning and writing Thebenefit of his study is to empower students competence dealt with processoriented approach

Other study that conducted by Nicola Holmes entitled “The use of a process-oriented approach to facilitate the planning and production stages of writing for adult students of English as a Foreign or Second Language” says

that for various reasons, as far as students (and teachers) are concerned,writing usually appears an extremely daunting task First of all, the mainfocus when a writing task is assigned has traditionally been on the finalproduct The need to produce a coherent, well-written text can be a greatsource of stress to the writer if the intervening stages in the process ofcreating this text are overlooked Few native speaker writers, let alone EFLstudent writers, can be expected to produce a highly structured text withoutfirst going through various pre-writing and drafting stages However, this hasnot always been made clear to students of English as a Foreign Language,who are still often assigned writing tasks with little advice or support on theprocesses involved in completing them (Tribble, 1996)

In contrast, the researcher suggested that in writing process needs toinvolve the students in writing process which covers pre-writing, guidanceand free outlining, drafting, and editing and revising Empirically, by

implementing the steps of writing process the EFL students would beaccustomed to compose writing accurately and fluently

The other study on classroom action research was conducted by NgoMinh Chau (2009) from Ly Tu Trong specialized upper secondary school,

Cần Thơ The title of study is “The impact of adapting the process-oriented approach on EFL learners’ writing performance” Based on the result of

the study, process writing approach conducted by Ngo Minh Chaufocused on adapting the process oriented approach into teaching and learningwriting in English has more positive effect than adopting the product orientedapproach on upper secondary school students’ quality of EFL writing Theresearch also investigates the participants’ perception towards the use of theprocess oriented writing activities in their EFL writing class

Based on the study above, the researcher tries to continue the studydealing with improving the students’ writing competence through processoriented Approach (POA)

2.4 The Implementation of POA

2.4.1. The overview of the writing process

Dissatisfaction with the controlled composition and the paragraphpattern approach paved the way for the process approach, an ‘expressiveapproach’ which became prominent in English speaking compositionclassrooms during the 1980s This approach entered the classroom as the

‘process movement’: a concentration on personal writing, student creativity,and fluency Zamel (2001)

The understanding of what constitutes the writing process instructionalmodel has evolved since the 1970’s, when it emerged as a pedagogicalapproach In the early years, it was regarded as a non-directional model ofinstruction with very little teacher intervention In his review of research on

composition from 1963 to 1982, Hillocks (1984) concluded that the teacher’srole in the process model is to facilitate the writing process rather than to

provide direct instruction; teachers were found “not to make specific assignments, not to help students learn criteria for judging writing, not to structure activities based on specific objectives, … not to provide exercises in manipulating syntax, not to design activities that engage students in

identifiable processes of examining data” (Pritchard & Honeycutt, 2005, p.162) It is not surprising that the research Hillocks summaries showedminimal impact on the quality of writing products as a result of this “naturalprocess mode”

In the formative years, the process approach model was regarded asapplying mainly to stories, was linear and prescriptive, merged proofreadingand editing as the same thing, and usually did not involve direct instruction –

a sort of anything-goes model whereby the process was valued over theproduct In this early model, a simplistic pedagogy resulted: After theirteacher describes four stages, students recall and rehearse the steps, use theprocess to produce a story, and get into groups to share their stories and gainfeedback In the literature in special education, such instruction to helpstudents plan, organize, and carry out a writing task is called teaching “plans

of action” (Gersten & Baker, 2001) Such plans comprise only some of theprocedural tasks of the current process model

Today, most researchers of the process model recognize that it involvesboth procedural knowledge and many other kinds of strategies that can benurtured and directly taught, including activating schemata to access priorknowledge; teaching self-regulation strategies; helping students understandgenre constraints; guiding students in re-visioning and in editing surfaceerrors; providing structured feedback from teachers and peers; teaching the

differences between reader and writer based prose; developing audienceawareness and effects of audience on style, content, and tone; and dealingwith emotional barriers In general, those studies that view the process model

as encompassing more teacher direction in the process show positive effects

on the quality of students’ writing, on their view of themselves as writers, and

on their understanding of the writing process

The development of multiple drafts to achieve meaningfulcommunication as well as focus on the problem solving aspects of identifyingand practicing discourse conventions also occupy teachers and L2 students inschool based writing classes Teachers are designing curriculums based on thebalance of institutional, program and student needs rather than arounddogmatic theories or approaches Placed in the classroom context, this processapproach calls for providing and maintaining a positive, encouraging andcollaborative workshop environment, and for providing ample time andminimal interference so as to allow students to work through their composingprocesses The objective is to help students develop viable strategies forgetting started, drafting, revising and editing From a process perspective,then, writing is a complex, recursive and creative process that are very similar

in its general outlines for first and second language writers; learning to writerequires the development of an efficient and effective composing process Thewriter is engaged in the discovery and expression of meaning; the reader, oninterpreting that intended meaning The product (that is, the written text) is asecondary concern, whose form is a function of its content and purpose (Silva

& Matsuda, 2002)

It is clear from the process perspective that writing instruction involvesdemonstrating and providing practice in composing strategies; and learning towrite entails obtaining and using these strategies to manage the creation of a

text and monitor its development.

2.4.2. Stages in the writing process

There are different points of view on the number of stages comprisingthe writing process

As early and influential model of the writing process was that of Hayesand Flower (2002) They described the writing process in terms of the taskenvironment, which included the writing assignment and the text produced sofar, the writer’s long-term memory, including knowledge of topic, knowledge

of audience, and stored writing plans, and a number of cognitive processes,including planning, translating thought into text, and revising

Hedge refers to all the components of the process taken together as

‘composing’ (taken alongside ‘communicating’ and ‘crafting’) She suggeststhe following as a representation of the stages of writing:

Getting ideas together ⇒ planning and outlining ⇒ making notes ⇒making a first draft ⇒ revising, re-drafting ⇒ editing ⇒ finalversion(Hedge1993)

Byrne (1993) has a similar set of steps:

List ideas ⇒ make an outline (‘scaffolding’) ⇒ write a draft ⇒ correctand improve the draft ⇒ write the final version

Meanwhile, according to Oshima and Hogue (2004) the writing processembraces essentially three stages:

Pre-writing ⇒ planning (outlining) ⇒ writing and revising drafts

Each stage involves certain kinds of task that the writers have to fulfill inorder to construct a good piece of work

As for Ron White and Valerie Arndt, they are keen to stress that ‘writing

is re-writing; that re-vision – seeing with new eyes – has a central role to play

in the act of creating text’ White and Arndt (2002) In their model, processwriting is an interrelated set of recursive stages which include:

• Drafting

• Structuring (ordering information, experimenting with arrangements, etc.)

• Reviewing (checking context, connections, assessing impact, editing)

• Focusing (that is making sure you are getting the message across you want toget across)

• Generating ideas and evaluation (assessing the draft and/ orsubsequent drafts)

However, I think Seow (2002) offered a more complete description.Process writing as a classroom activity incorporates the four basic writingstages - planning, drafting (writing), revising (redrafting) and editing – andthree other stages externally imposed on students by the teacher, namely,responding (sharing), evaluating and post-writing Therefore, we assumethat teachers may plan appropriate classroom activities that support thelearning of specific writing skills at every stage The planned learningexperiences for students may be described as follows

Planning (Pre-writing)

Pre-writing is any activity in the classroom that encourages students towrite It stimulates thoughts for getting started In fact, it moves studentsaway from having to face a blank page toward generating tentative ideas andgathering information for writing The following activities provide thelearning experiences for students at this stage:

• Group brainstorming

Group members spew out ideas about the topic Spontaneity is importanthere There is no right or wrong answers Students may cover familiar groundfirst and then move off to more abstract or wild territories

• Clustering

The students form words related to a stimulus supplied by the teacher.The words are circled and then linked by lines to show discernible clusters.Clustering is a simple yet powerful strategy: “Its visual character seems tostimulate the flow of association … and is particularly good for students whoknow what they want to say but just can’t say it” (Proett & Gill, 1986, p 6)

• Rapid free writing

Within a limited time of one or two minutes, individual students freelyand quickly write down single words and phrases about a topic The time limitkeeps the writers’ minds ticking and thinking fast Rapid free writing is donewhen group brainstorming is not possible or because the personal nature of acertain topic requires a different strategy

Once sufficient ideas are gathered at the planning stage, the first attempt

at writing – that is, drafting - may proceed quickly At the drafting stage, thewriters are focused on the fluency of writing and are not preoccupied withgrammatical accuracy or the neatness of the draft One dimension of goodwriting is the writer’s ability to visualize an audience because a conscioussense of audience can dictate a certain style to be used

Responding

Responding to student writing by the teacher (or by peers) has a centralrole to play in the successful implementation of process writing Respondingintervenes between drafting and revising It is the teacher’s quick initial

reaction to students’ drafts Responding can be oral or in writing, after thestudents have produced the first draft and just before they proceed to revise.This activity is intended to help students rediscover meanings and facilitatethe revision of initial drafts Such responses may be provided in the margin,between sentence lines or at the end of students’ texts Peer responding can beeffectively carried out by having students respond to each other’s texts insmall groups or in pairs

Revising

When students revise, they review their texts on the basis of the feedbackgiven in the responding stage They reexamine what was written to see howeffectively they have communicated their meanings to the reader Revising isnot merely checking for language errors (i.e., editing) It is done to improveglobal content and the organization of ideas so that the writer’s intent is madeclearer to the reader Another activity for revising may have the studentsworking in pairs to read aloud each other’s drafts before they revise Asstudents listen intently to their own writing, they are brought to a moreconscious level of rethinking and re-seeing what they have written Meaningswhich are vague become more apparent when the writers actually hear theirown texts read out to them

Editing

At this stage, students are engaged in tidying up their texts as theyprepare the final draft for evaluation by the teacher They edit their own ortheir peer’s work for grammar, spelling, punctuation, diction, sentencestructure and accuracy of supportive textual material such as quotations,examples and the like Formal editing is deferred till this phase in order thatits application does not disrupt the free flow of ideas during the drafting andrevising stages

Very often, teachers pleading lack of time have compressed responding,editing and evaluating all into one This would, in effect, deprive a student ofthat vital link between drafting and revision – that is, responding – whichoften makes a big difference to the kind of writing that will eventually beproduced In evaluating the student writing, the criteria for evaluation should

be made known to students in advance They should include overallinterpretation of the task, sense of audience, relevance, development andorganization of ideas, format or layout, grammar and structure, spelling andpunctuation, range and appropriateness of vocabulary, and clarity ofcommunication

Post-writing

Post writing constitutes any classroom activity that the teacher andstudents can do with the completed pieces of writing This includespublishing, sharing, reading aloud, transforming texts for stage performances,

or merely displaying texts on notice-boards The post–writing stage is aplatform for recognizing students’ work as important and worthwhile It may

be used as a motivation for writing as well as to hedge against studentsfinding excuses for not writing Students must be made to feel that they arewriting for a very real purpose

2.4.3. Working process oriented writing framework

Writing, like reading, is in many ways an individual, solitary activity: thewriting triangle of ‘communicating’, ‘composing’ and ‘crafting’ is usuallycarried out for an absent readership However, it should be remembered thatour students are language learners rather than writers, and it would not beparticularly helpful to have them spend all their time writing alone Althoughprocess research points to a need to give learner- writer space and time to

operate their own preferred individual strategies, the classroom can bestructured in such a way as to provide positive intervention and support in thedevelopment of writing skills.

The process oriented approach refers to a teaching approach that focuses

on the process a writer engages in when constructing meaning It needs thedetail steps in terms of mastering the writing ability So, the process oflearning should be conducted appropriately to achieve it This teachingapproach concludes with editing as a final stage in text creation, rather than aninitial one as in a product oriented approach The process oriented approach

may include identified stages of the writing process such as: pre-writing,

writing and re-writing Hence, choosing the appropriate approach to supportthe learning process needs to be considered

Genre approach is defined as a framework for language instruction based

on the examples of a particular genre Based on the definition and meaning ofgenre approach, the researcher concludes that genre approach refers toteaching and learning model which places genres or types of text as areference to developing four language skills such as listening, speaking,reading, and writing as well as understanding language components such asgrammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and spelling

Placed in the Vietnamese secondary school context, one of thedisadvantages of getting students to concentrate on the process of writing isthat it takes time: time to brainstorm ideas or collect them in some other way;time to draft a piece of writing and then, with the teacher’s help perhaps,review it and edit it in various ways before changing the focus, generatingmore ideas, redrafting, reediting and so on This cannot be done in 45minutes However, the various stages could be adapted so that when processwriting is handled appropriately, it stretches across the whole curriculum

Based on the process oriented approach and genre approach above, theresearcher can construct that the four stages in genre approach can bemodified into process oriented approach by breaking down the pre-writing ismodified in a building knowledge of field and modeling of text; the while-writing is modified in outlining and drafting, and the post-writing is modified

in editing The joints construction of field is immersed in outlining implicitlywhile independent construction of text immersed in drafting and editingimplicitly, too The combining approaches can be described as the followingexplanation:

(1) Building Knowledge of Field

The purpose of building knowledge of field is to make sure that thestudents have enough background knowledge related to content, vocabulary,language, and mechanics If students have been mastered the components oflanguage, it is easy for them to join and develop the learning process ofwriting

(2) Modeling of Text

The purpose of modeling of text is to recognize: (1) the genericstructures of text; (2) the layout of text; and (3) the purpose of writing So, thestudents will be familiar with the type of text given – report text This activity

is always ended by the classroom discussion

(3) Outlining

The purpose of this stage is to recognize the two activities of outlining;they are guidance outlining and free outlining The guidance outlining is done

by giving the students’ activity in making outlines in group or in pairs based

on the text given while free outlining is making free outlines based on thestudents’ own thoughts that is done individually These two activities refer toJoints Construction of Text that the activities are done in groups or in pairs

This activity is always ended by the classroom discussion.

(4) Drafting

The purpose of this stage is to give the students opportunities in makingthe drafts based on their own outlines This is done by the studentsindividually It refers to the aims of Independent Construction of Text that theactivity must be done individually This activity is always ended by theclassroom discussion

(5) Editing

The purpose of this stage is to give the students opportunities in being ananalyst They have to analyze others’ drafts by underlining the mistakes anderrors with red ink or board marker The activities of drafting covered: (1)interchanging the text among the students; (2) evaluating the students’ text;(3) checking language components like: spelling, tense, word order, etc; (4)reducing or adding text; and (5) correcting any mistakes and errors Thisactivity is always ended by the classroom discussion

2.5 The Advantages of POA

The process oriented approach treats all writing as a creative act whichrequires time and positive feedback to be done well In process writing, theteacher moves away from being someone who sets students a writing topicand receives the finished product for correction without any intervention inthe writing process itself

It is wise to implement the process oriented approach in learning writingbecause the activities done in this way is to empower the students’competence in creating writing without any intervention but the teacher’scapacity is just to motivate and to facilitate students in writing based on theircompetence and ability Therefore, students do not feel under the pressure butthey feel fun in doing their job So, the activity of writing will be the task that

is challenging to do and the students will create writing as much as possible.The advantages of the process oriented approach can be described asfollows: (1) the students have well prepared in improving the prior knowledgerelated to content, vocabulary, language, and mechanics; 2) the students knowthe purpose of writing text;(3) the students are accustomed to make outlinesbefore writing; (4) the students can develop the drafts based on their thoughts;and (5) the students can be the critical and creative thinker Based on theadvantages above, it is necessary for the researcher to continue the studybecause the process oriented approach has many benefits in developingwriting skill.

2.6 The Disadvantages of POA

The disadvantages of the process oriented approach are: (1) it needs along time to conduct it; (2) the students must have the good prior knowledgebefore joining the learning process; (3) each step must be done completelybecause it is the qualification before continuing the next step; (4) it is difficultfor the teacher to prepare the learning materials; (5) the teacher should masterthe steps of writing well; and (6) it is difficult to handle the classroom,especially in the steps of drafting and editing

2.7. Writing performance assessment

2.7.1 Evaluation of writing performance

The writing skills are complex and sometimes difficult to teach,requiring mastery not only of grammatical and rhetorical devices but also ofconceptual and judgmental elements The following analysis attempts togroup the many and varied skills necessary for composing a good piece ofwriting into five components

• Language use: the ability to write correct and appropriate sentences;

• Mechanical skills: the ability to use correctly those conventionspeculiar to the written language – e.g punctuation, spelling;

• Treatment of content: the ability to think creatively and developthoughts, excluding all irrelevant information;

• Stylistic skills: the ability to manipulate sentences and paragraphs, and use language effectively;

• Judgment skills: the ability to write in an appropriate manner for aparticular purpose with a particular audience in mind, together with an ability

to select, organize and order relevant information (Heaton, 1989, p 135)

When writing ability is evaluated, that ability itself is not measureddirectly, but rather, assessed on the basis of inferences drawn from anindividual’s performance In other words, his or her performance is evaluatedthrough his or her written text In terms of written products, then, what isgood writing? According to Peha (2003), good writing has all of thesequalities:

• Ideas that are interesting and important: ideas are the heart of thewriter’s piece – what he is writing about and the information he chooses towrite about it

• Organization that is logical and effective: organization refers to theorder of the writer’s ideas and the way he moves from one idea to the next

• Voice that is individual and appropriate: voice is how the writer’swriting feels to someone when they read it Is it formal or casual? Is itfriendly and inviting or reserved? Voice is the expression of his individualpersonality through words

• Word choice that is specific and memorable: good writing uses justthe right words to say just the right things.

• Sentence fluency that is smooth and expressive: fluent sentences areeasy to understand and fun to read with expression

• Conventions that are correct and communicative: conventions are theway we all agree to use punctuation, spelling, grammar and other things thatmake writing consistent and easy to read

Besides, Ayer (2005) assumes that good writing expresses a clear point,

is tightly structured, grammatically and syntactically correct, substantive, andinteresting

With these considerations in mind, the researcher now turns to adiscussion of procedures for scoring the written product

2.7.2 Rating scales used for assessment of secondary school students’ written products

As McNamara (2002) notes, the scale that is used in assessingperformance tasks such as writing tests represents, implicitly or explicitly, thetheoretical basic upon which the test is founded; that is, embodies the test (orscale) developer’s notion of what skills or abilities are being measured by thetest For this reason the development of a scale (or set of scales) and thedescriptors for each scale level are of critical importance for the validity ofthe assessment

One of the first decisions to be made in determining a system forscoring is what type of rating scale will be used: that is, should a singlescore be given to each script, or will each script be scored on severaldifferent features? This issue has been the subject of a great deal of research

and discussion over the past three decades In the composition literature,three main types of rating scales are discussed: primary trait scales, holisticscales, and analytic scales However, for the purpose of my study, I wouldlike to mention one type of rating scales: analytic scales

In analytic scoring, scripts are rated on several aspects of writing orcriteria rather than given a single score Depending on the purpose of theassessment, scripts might be rated on such features as content, organization,cohesion, register, vocabulary, grammar, or mechanics Analytic scoringschemes thus provide more detailed information about a test taker’sperformance in different aspects of writing and for this reason preferred overholistic schemes by many writing specialists

One of the best known and most widely used analytic scales in ESL was

created by Jacobs et al (2002) In the Jacobs et al scale, scripts are rated on

five aspects of writing: content, organization, vocabulary, language use, andmechanics The five aspects are differentially weighted to emphasize firstcontent (30 points) and next language use (25 points), with organization andvocabulary weighted equally (20 points) and mechanics receiving very littleemphasis (5 points)

20-18 EXCELLENT TO VERY GOOD: fluent expression •

ideas clearly stated/ supported • succinct • organized • logical sequencing • cohesive

Y 20-18 EXCELLENT TO VERY GOOD: sophisticated range •

effective word/ idiom choice and usage • word formmastery • appropriate register